IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)
Technology for the Benefit of Humanity // Villanova University, USA / October 23-26, 2024

GHTC 2018 Participatory Workshop/Panel Sessions

IEEE GHTC 2018 is introducing Participatory Workshop/Panel Sessions into this years program to showcase practitioner and field research related experiences as well as technology adoption or adaptation related issues. This year we are focusing on

  • Disaster Recovery
  • Energy
  • Health

We welcome submissions from the public, private, education and research and societal sectors. While the format of individual sessions may vary depending on the submissions accepted, submissions providing an opportunity for conference delegates to interact with or see live demonstration of technology or to better understand from practitioners as well as MDP Students unintended or unanticipated consequences of interventions (whether or not there was a positive outcome) will be prioritised.

Please submit your proposals highlighting (a) the nature of the proposed contribution and (b) how acceptance of this submission will strengthen the impact of IEEE GHTC 2019 by raising awareness of innovative technology or engineering solutions or sharing insight into important social, cultural, ethical or acceptance and local ownership related issues to be considered when doing field research or implementation projects.

Format:
90 minutes, parallel track
Participatory, hands on type problem solving, experience sharing oriented discussion
Focus on objectives, outcomes, lessons learnt, problems to avoid

See 2018.ieeeghtc.org for details on submissions.

 

IEEE HAC Conference Participation Program

The IEEE HAC Conference Participation Program will provide a limited number of partial scholarships to support participation at 2018 conferences with a sustainable development and humanitarian technology focus or component. The objective is to facilitate more extensive networking, sharing of experiences and partnership building, and reduce potential economic barriers to participation by IEEE volunteers active in the sustainable development space.

Those eligible to apply for support include the following individuals who have tangible results,
experiences and lessons learnt to share.

  • Active IEEE SIGHT volunteers
  • Other IEEE volunteers
  • Local practitioners, local community and local partner representatives actively collaborating with IEEE members in the sustainable development and humanitarian space

See HAC Conference Participation Program page for details and how to apply.

 

 

GHTC 2018 Call for Participation

Registration is now open – discounted early bird registration rates available through 14-September

Celebrating its 8th anniversary, IEEE GHTC 2018 is a world class conference focused on discussing sustainable development and humanitarian technology related policy, insight and experiences and showcasing activities aligned with of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG).

GHTC 2018 features a vibrant program of plenary presentations, paper and poster presentations, workshops, panel discussions, and unconference sessions. Researchers and practitioners will exchange experiences related to Disaster Mitigation, Affordable & Clean Energy, Agriculture & Food Security, Clean Water & Sanitation, Community engagement and capacity-building, Connectivity & Communication, Healthcare, Applications for Poverty Alleviation, Humanitarian Challenges & Opportunities, Education and Entrepreneurship.

For information on how to register click here.

For information on the venue and accommodation,  click here. Deadline for hotel reservations is 26-Sept.

Continue reading →

GHTC 2018 Student Poster Competition

Submission deadline extended to 28-September

IEEE GHTC 2018 invites undergraduate students to submit abstracts for the Student Poster Competition about ideas or designs for developing projects/products supporting the Key focus areas of GHTC.

Selected posters will be featured during the GHTC 2018 Student Poster Session, on Thursday, October 18.

The deadline to submit poster abstracts is midnight US Pacific Time, September 15, 2018 September 28, 2018.
Notification of acceptance will be sent out a week after this deadline.

Cash prizes will be awarded as follows:

Judges Award-$750
Technical Award-$500
People’s Choice Award-$250

For details and to enter, see: http://2018.ieeeghtc.org/pages/student-poster-competition

 

IEEE Empower Contest 2018

IEEE Empower a Billion Lives

Access to electricity is critical to health care delivery. Without electricity, many health care interventions simply cannot be provided. Only 26% of health facilities in the Sub-Saharan Africa has access to reliable electricity. Water is the most essential element of life; it is required for basic sustenance, health and irrigation. Nearly one billion people do not have access to clean, safe water. Education is one of the most essential components for poverty reduction. According to UNDESA, about 90% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa attend primary schools that lack electricity, while 27% of village schools in India lack electricity access. For more than a billion people worldwide, kerosene lamps are the primary lighting source, which is expensive, unsafe and carcinogenic. Electricity is a key component of economic empowerment and can increase household per capita income by 39 percent.

The IEEE Foundation supported IEEE Empower a Billion Lives (EBL) Competition is a global competition aimed at fostering innovation to develop solutions to electricity access. Solutions are expected to be scalable, regionally relevant, holistic and leverage 21st century technologies with exponentially declining prices. IEEE EBL addresses many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The competition is open to all including student groups, small and medium-sized companies, research labs, international corporations and non-profits. There are more than 75 IEEE volunteers on Global and Regional Committees to facilitate the competition in Pacific Asia, South Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Visit the EBL website to learn more. Online proposal submission is open through 31 August 2018.

 

GHTC 2018 Call for Papers

Call for Papers – 8th annual IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2018)

http://2018.ieeeghtc.org/

Abstract submission deadline 21-April-2018

The IEEE GHTC is an international flagship conference on the application of technology to meet the needs of underserved populations around the world and in support of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG). GHTC 2018 will be held Oct. 18-21 in San Jose, CA.

GHTC strongly encourages submissions that utilize both applications of current technologies used in new ways and innovative technologies that address its goals. These submissions can include presentations, posters, workshops, panel discussions, and other formats which address the socio-cultural and socio-economical needs of vulnerable end user communities in both developed and developing countries. Submissions by public, private and end-user community representatives are very welcome.

 

Key focus areas for GHTC 2018 include (but are not limited to)

  • Affordable & Clean Energy
  • Agriculture & Food Security
  • Clean Water & Sanitation
  • Community engagement, Capacity-building, and Behavior Change
  • Connectivity & Communication
  • Disaster Mitigation, Preparedness, Response & Recovery
  • Humanitarian Challenges & Opportunities
  • Social Science & Entrepreneurship
  • Technology Enhanced Quality Education Delivery
  • Technology Enhanced Healthcare
  • Technology and Applications for Poverty Alleviation
  • Other United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

*New for 2018* – GHTC has now added Social Science & Entrepreneurship as new topics for papers, panels, and workshops, in the context of technology design, adoption, and dissemination.

To propose a presentation, tutorial, workshop, case study and/or panel, please see http://bit.ly/2oJH2Rx.

Submission Deadlines for Full Papers and Poster Papers:

  • April 07, 2018 April 21 – Deadline for paper abstract (up to 500 words) submission
  • June 02, 2018 – Deadline for full paper submission (4-8 pages)
  • July 15, 2018 – Deadline for poster papers (up to 2 pages)
  • August 30, 2018 – Submission of accepted final papers (full and poster) for inclusion in conference proceedings

Authors and Presenters must demonstrate a clear understanding of the interrelationship of their work with socio-cultural, socio-economic, policy and environmental factors, and clearly state whether they are presenting preliminary, expected or final results as well as expected or actual impact.

Proposals for Interactive Sessions [Panels, Case Studies, and Workshops] should be designed to stimulate dialogue, knowledge exchange and the co-design of ideas, concepts and implementation plans to inform and facilitate subsequent collaboration by conference attendees. See http://bit.ly/2oJH2Rx

GHTC 2018 is also seeking participants for its Technology Showcase of applications of technologies and innovations which address the UNSDG. See 2018.ieeeghtc.org.

 

GHTC is organized by IEEE Region 6 (Western United States) and the IEEE Santa Clara Valley Section with IEEE-USA, CES, EMBS, MTT, PES and SSIT technical co-sponsors.

 

Tutorials Announced for GHTC 2017

The GHTC 2017 Committee is pleased to announce the Tutorial Program:

  • “Internet-of-Things (IoT)-enabled Water Quality Testing and Analysis”
  • “High Quality, Low Cost Education with the Raspberry Pi”

Registration for the tutorials is found with GHTC registration at: http://2017.ieeeghtc.org/registration-0

Tutorial: “Internet-of-Things (IoT)-enabled Water Quality Testing and Analysis”

Abstract:

The U.N. estimates that by 2025, forty-eight nations, with combined populations of 2.8 billion, will face freshwater scarcity. Fifty percent of worldwide groundwater is unsuitable for drinking because of pollution and only about .007% of the water on earth is accessible for human use. Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease. Children in polluted environments often carry about 1,000 parasitic worms in their bodies at any time. The recent reports indicate that the diseases due to the consumption of contaminated water are increasing and causing more than 3.4 million deaths each year among human beings worldwide, also the increasing water pollution is becoming a big threat to water habitat. The proposed tutorial provides two parts of the program. The first part covers the basic principles of Internet of Things (IoT), design, infrastructure, connectivity and the core concepts of IoT such as sensing, processing and reporting the data to the cloud. The second part describes the implementation, prototype and few use cases. The attendees will learn various types of IoT hardware such as Intel and ARM mBed family, Sensor connectivity protocols including UART, GPIO and I2C. The instructor will also cover topics on Cloud platform and Analytics. In this workshop, the Cloud technologies explained are AWS IoT, IBM Bluemix, Microsoft Azure and GE Predix. At the end, the audience will have an opportunity to witness few demonstrations on analytics.

Tutorial: “High Quality, Low Cost Education with the Raspberry Pi”

Abstract:

The authors will use experience derived from authoring two tutorial style books on the use of the Raspberry Pi Zero and Raspberry Pi single board computers (SBCs), in helping people learn programming in Python and implement practical projects to present a practical tutorial on using the Pi Zero, a low cost solution designed specifically for educational purposes. Low cost kits are provided, specifically for education, by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in conjunction with Google. These kits and modifications for optimal educational outcomes, and an enriched experience will be briefly discussed. The tutorial will consist of examples of projects and code samples that can be quickly adapted for various learning situations. A hardware list or BOM, populated and optimized for cost and effective learning will be provided. The Raspberry Pi family and Arduino Family can also be used for education, as alternates, or in combination with the Raspberry Pi Zero and the differences will be highlighted and discussed. Numerous, continuously evolving web resources as well as crowdfunded hardware implementations are available, and the method of adapting them into educational settings will be briefly discussed.

 

2017 Global Humanitarian Technology Solutions Challenge

GHTC 2017 will feature the first Global Humanitarian Technology Solutions Challenge.

The United Nations Development Program identified seventeen (17) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global call for action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

The 2017 Global Humanitarian Technology Solutions Challenge was developed to focus on Goal 12.3.

Goal 12:  End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Section 3:  Decrease by half the per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.

The solution can address any element or issue that relates to Section 3.  That includes, but is not limited to, the food supply and production chain including crop production, processing, post-harvest losses, retail distribution, consumer use and lost product.

The project solution can be developed by individuals or by a Solutions Challenge Team.  To be eligible to enter the GHTC Solutions Challenge, at least one team members must be an IEEE member in good standing at the time that the entry is submitted.

The competition runs from March 1st, 2017 to September 12th, 2017.

For details on the competition and how to participate, see the GHTC 2017 site and the Solutions Challenge page.