New Technologies in the Aid Development & Humanitarian Sector
New and emerging technologies have enabled significant development progress over the decades – from vaccines to mobile phones to the internet. The UN recently called for improvement in this area, arguing that it is ‘critical to assess how technology can be mobilized to provide solutions to our greatest challenges’ in achieving the Global Goals.
Technology has advanced enormously in recent decades. It has become part of everyday life for billions of people around the world and was accelerated during the Covid response with Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, digital cash as well as digital tools for education, business and health care. At the same time, concern over data protection and privacy, cybersecurity, personal liberty and misinformation have grown. These raise fundamental questions about technological preparedness, effectiveness and mobility, as well as digital inequality.
Communications, supply chains, project planning and programme monitoring are all parts of international development where technology is already effectively utilised. Both development professionals, and students of development studies, must begin to think about how technology will alter how global challenges are addressed.
Join our events to hear from speakers already introducing and using technology in aid & development to organisations, as we move towards a digital future.
As usual, the night will involve a relaxed chat facilitated by WiAD City leaders with questions to follow, and it will be an excellent opportunity to network.
Everyone is welcome, so please share the event with your friends and colleagues. Speakers will be announced soon - sent us a suggestion.
Cost: $20 - Non-members, $10 - Students and unwaged, Free - Members of Women in Aid & Development
We welcome members of the QLD International Development Network (QIDN) and everyone is welcome, so please share details of the event with your friends and colleagues.
Speakers
Sarah Mak
Sarah Mak is an entrepreneur driving change through stories. She is the co-founder and CEO of Folktale, a technology platform with a mission to transform how global organizations approach storytelling in order to monitor, evaluate and communicate their ongoing impact.
With a career spanning global development, public health, filmmaking and technology, she is shifting how communities, programs and donors connect their hearts and minds through the power of story.
Anh Tran
Anh is a Humanitarian Engineer and the CEO & co-founder of FuturEcook, a social enterprise that improves health, gender-equality and the environment with smart electric cooking services and smart data for schools and refugee settings in developing countries. www.futurEcook.org
She lived her dream job with the ~£40M DFID funded Modern Energy Cooking Service programme at Loughborough University. She co-led the team to change the narrative of cooking from biomass (wood and charcoal) to cleaner cooking services (electricity and gas) in humanitarian and institutional settings. www.mecs.org.uk
Previously, Anh was a Senior Lecturer of Humanitarian Engineering at Coventry University. She is the former head of research for UNESCO UNITWIN Network in Humanitarian Engineering and her research interests are in the area of Appropriate and Humanitarian Technology, with a focus on renewable energy, water and sanitation, sustainable waste management, humanitarian applications of 3D printing and drones, social entrepreneurship and engineering education. She has over 10 years’ experience on international development engineering projects in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, South America and Australian Indigenous communities. She brings to the table an interdisciplinary outlook crossing engineering and social science on topical issues of displacement, sustainability, climate change and poverty alleviation. She also champions increasing diversity in the engineering and technology sector.
Tracy Shields
Tracy Shields is Plan International Australia’s (PIA) Senior Advisor for Child Rights and Protection. PIA have been working with ChildFund Australia on a project focussing on Online Safety in the Pacific, working to support the coordination of events and opportunities that focuses on children and young people’s online safety and provides young women an opportunity to safely discuss how online safety impacts their lives. As the charity for girls’ equality Plan International focusses on a world where girls can take their rightful place as equals. Tracy has worked on issues of child rights, gender and protection for over 15 years, including working in humanitarian contexts, and was previously the Global Technical Lead for Protection from Violence with Plan International Global.