36’th Session WGET – ICT Humanitarian Innovation Forum

The WGET secretariat is pleased to invite you to the WGET ICT Humanitarian Innovation Forum, held in partnership with International Humanitarian City (IHC), and sponsored by Thuraya and Yahsat.

The WGET ICT Humanitarian Forum will be held at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai on 29-30 April. We will begin promptly at 9:00 a.m. each day.

The 36th WGET forum supports the “ETC 2020” strategic vision, which recognizes communications as a basic humanitarian need of affected communities, host governments and aid workers. The Forum will have as its primary theme communicating with communities (CwC). We will explore CwC from an operational perspective, addressing the need to know where populations are and looking at dimensions such as data standards, security (cyber/info), ethics, protection and the supply chain supporting the network. Together we will work to develop a shared understanding of requirements, consider solutions and envision the future.

As part of the focus on CwC, we will consider how the humanitarian ICT community should adapt to manage the greater dependencies on technology created by the digital transformation of humanitarian action. How do we achieve conditions, such as reliable, secure and affordable connectivity, to realize the full potential of citizen driven aid? How do we mitigate risks? The aim within this digital vision is to develop strong strategic partnerships among industry, academia, governments and humanitarians to meet the needs of affected communities during crisis and support informed decision making.

The WGET seeks to increase the effectiveness of its participants at the global level in supporting the operational and technical aspects of information and communications technology for humanitarian relief and emergency response. While retaining this global perspective, this year’s WGET also presents an opportunity to meet partners from the Gulf Region to learn about local challenges and the innovative solutions being implemented in response. This includes practices on beneficiary management, call centres, digital payments, secure communications, and digital citizenship.