Topic: Disaster Relief
When huge disasters like Hurricane Katrina strike, who better to help out than the companies that provide many of the goods and services that relief agencies depend on? In this audio interview, Eric Nee, co-host of Social Innovation Conversations, converses with Tom Lehner, manager of the Partnership for Disaster Response, on how business has been providing an organized response to some of the most disruptive natural catastrophes occurring around the world over the past four years.
Aid organizations around the world are learning that they can solve their technology and infrastructure problems faster and cheaper together than on their own. Enabling that collaboration is NetHope, a nonprofit information technology consortium helping NGOs establish the technology "ecosystems" they need to serve constituencies in more than 150 countries. Eric Nee interviews Bill Brindley, CEO of NetHope, on how the consortium got started, how it works, and how it is expanding its mission.
The Idea Village was launched in New Orleans by "five guys who wanted to change the world." The more modest goal of these entrepreneurs was to revitalize the city economically--a mission that became especially important when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. In this audio lecture, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Tim Williamson shares how his nonprofit has been helping rebuild the devastated city economically, and the progress inspired through a powerful network of talented individuals.
Reconstruction of the electric grid in Iraq is seen as the most important project in that country. Over $60 billion have been pledged, but even three years after the end of the war, there is still a long ways to go. IEEE Spectrum executive editor Glenn Zorpette discusses the progress and challenges, both technological and political, facing the reconstruction effort there.
According to Yale University Professor Charles Perrow, it is time to start learning from recent natural disasters in the United States like Hurricane Katrina. On this edition of IEEE Spectrum Radio, Perrow asserts that instead of simply responding to natural disasters, we should be reducing our vulnerability to them.
In 2005, marathoner, juggler, and unicyclist Zach Warren traveled to Afghanistan to help children recover from the traumas of war, as part of the Afghan Mobile Mini Circus for Children. In this audio interview, Warren shares with Globeshakers host Tim Zak his observations about what it takes to rebuild an entire country.
It may have his first name in its title, but the service founded by Craig Newmark is more the result of its community of posters and readers than it is of those who run it. Now in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, that community has found ways to utilize this amazing resource to help the victims. Craig's List is now one of the best ways for people in the Gulf Coast region to find places to stay and ways to get there. The site is also helping displaced and relocated people locate one another. [Larry's World audio from IT Conversations.]
