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1 Welcome Message from the Conference Chair |
Joe Decuir
GHTC 2015 Conference Chair
jdecuir@ieee.org
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 5th Annual IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference. GHTC has become the IEEE and IEEE Region 6 flagship annual conference designed to gather scientists, engineers, practitioners, academics, foundations, government and non-government organizations, and individuals engaged in humanitarian work to discuss and develop solutions for present and future humanitarian needs. This year we are back in Seattle, where this conference series began—home to not only a vibrant technical community, but also America’s compassion corridor.
Our conference aims to:
- Foster knowledge sharing, networking, and cooperation in humanitarian technology fields;
- Focus attention on innovators and enabling technologies supporting humanitarian principles and ways of operating;
- Positively affect the lives of billions of disadvantaged people & vulnerable groups around the world;
- Highlight humanitarian technologies that promote successful practice, and attract humanitarian and emergency management practitioners to learn from their successes and better guide future research;
- Contribute to a worldwide movement to advance technology for humanity, including related conferences around the world, supported by IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee, and supporting IEEE SIGHT chapters and IEEE Smart Village teams.
Our value proposition is in providing a place where humanitarian technology practitioners, students of that technology and supporters of that technology come together to engage and learn from one another. Our conference specifically features more space for interactive engagement among attendees to ensure you the opportunity to connect and create with excellent lineup of participants. Again this year we honored to have active leaders from around the globe who are working to bridge innovative technology with humanitarian work in their careers.
Many people deserve our gratitude:
- The authors, for submitting compelling papers, posters, cases studies and inventions;
- The program team for orchestrating this year’s impressive group of speakers, sessions and events.
- Our technical team, track chairs and the dozens of reviewers for reviewing submissions, and providing actionable feedback to ensure a high quality program;
- The publications team for creating the conference proceedings, for distribution to attendees and publication in IEEE Xplore;
- Our steering committee for their hard work and commitment to ensuring a successful conference.
Please use this opportunity to network, make new friends, and build relationships and future partners from a great attendee list that extends across traditional peer groups and promises to open new horizons for the engagement in the future of humanitarian technology. We hope you enjoy the conference.
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2 Welcome Message from the Program Co-Chairs |
 Nathan Johnson |
 Robin Mays |
 Sheree Wen |
The Program Committee welcomes you to another great year at IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC) 2015. We are excited about this year’s conference, and believe it will meet IEEE’s core purpose to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. The Program Committee has worked hard to develop an international program for keynote speakers, panelists, papers, and posters from across the spectrum of humanitarian engineering and technology.
More interactive sessions and workshops accompany this year’s conference. This brings greater focus on the importance of building collaborations and hands-on learning opportunities to accompany the conference’s history of knowledge exchange through paper presentations and break-out sessions. A total of 10 special sessions will engage the audience through panels, workshops, and demonstrations held as parallel sections of the conference. We are also proud to have a strong line-up of plenary speakers and panels from areas within the private sector, government, academia, and non-governmental organizations.
We have enhanced our technical program to better meet the GHTC goals to foster quality research for the benefit of humanity. Our technical tracks have been revised to better incorporate humanitarian frameworks of organizing. We also established review criteria that considers broader multi-disciplinary and practice perspectives, and includes pairing academic with practitioner co-chairs to better include expert voices and feedback from both our peers creating technology as well as those using it. We believe this year’s technical papers provide a compelling mix of some of today’s most innovative research in humanitarian technology.
The addition of track-specific interactive sessions you an opportunity to 1) participate and inform current conversations in the nexus of where engineering, practice and innovation meet and 2) view and influence developing research through invited poster presentations. You will also find the student paper competition engaging. Please look to sessions with IEEE Smart Village as one of the core efforts supported by IEEE Foundation in humanitarian technology. It promises to be an engaging year!
Please use this opportunity to enhance your personal and professional growth, network with friends and colleagues, and meet new ones. Enjoy the conference!