I welcome you to the 2022 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC). GHTC has become a flagship annual venue for academics, for-profit and non-profit businesses, and governmental and non-governmental organizations to identify the present and future humanitarian needs and demonstrate their work to create influential, novel, and accessible humanitarian technologies. GHTC is an excellent opportunity to network, share, learn, and establish collaborations to build innovative and accessible humanitarian technologies.
This year’s event is held in a hybrid fashion. All the keynotes, plenaries, panels, special sessions, workshops, contests, and demos are held in person with live broadcasts to enhance the engagement of attendees. Authors are provided with the opportunity to present their work in person or remotely.
The conference’s mission is to:
- Foster the exchange of information, networking, and cooperation in Sustainable Development, Humanitarian Technology, Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), and Disaster Recovery spaces.
- Focus attention on organizations that enable or leverage technologies and engineering expertise in support of Sustainable Development and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Provide a forum where practitioners can share solutions or identify solutions or potential partners when addressing specific societal challenges
- Impact in positive and meaningful ways the lives of disadvantaged billions of people around the world
- Attract young people to these professional fields by exploring Science, Engineering, Technology, and Math (STEM) solutions to addressing the world’s vulnerable communities
The Technical Program Committee has prepared an excellent program featuring over 80 technical paper presentations on the latest developments and deployments related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The topics of the technical sessions are good health and well-being, connectivity and communication in support of development, agriculture and food security, affordable and clean energy, quality education, decent work and economic growth, and disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.
The conference program includes keynote and plenary presentations by professionals from academia, industry, and non-profit organizations. Our speakers are Neha Kumar (Associate Professor, Georgia Tech), Janice Zdankus, (Vice President, CTO Technology Strategy and Innovation for Social Impact, HPE), Tim Lee (Director, IEEE Region 6), Puneet Sharma (Distinguished Technologist, Hewlett Packard Labs), Kithinji Muriungi and Chris Murimi (Moi University Nairobi, Kenya), Stephanie Gillespie (Chair, EPICS in IEEE Committee), Vishnu S. Pendyala (Professor, San Jose State University), Maya Ackerman (Assistant Professor, Santa Clara University), Eric Goldman (Professor, Santa Clara University), Kelly Yamanishi and Eric Hess (Maker Nexus, USA), Paul Shmotolokha (New Use Energy), and Aline D. McNaull (IEEE-USA).
The conference program also includes several panel discussions and special sessions with the following titles: “Diversity in the Workplace: Retaining Early Career Women and Minority Engineers,” “Quality Education Online and the Way Forward,” “Communications, Computing, and Power during Disaster Response,” “Advancing DEI in Journalism with Tech: Opportunities and Guardrails,” “Web3 and Human Rights, and “HAC Capacity Building.”
The first day of the conference features three half-day workshops and student poster competition. The workshops are: “Machine Learning for Social Good,” “Building Wireless Sensing Systems,” and “GHTC and IEEE Consulting Network Synergies.” Professionals from industry and academia will be running these workshops.
I want to thank:
- the authors for submitting their influential papers,
- the Technical Program Committee and track chairs for their excellent job of reviewing the papers and preparing the scientific program,
- speakers and panelists for accepting our invitation to participate and present at this venue,
- the publication team for preparing the conference proceedings, and
- the program team and steering committee for their sustained support and orchestrating this year’s events.
Please join us from September 8 through 11 at Santa Clara University.
Dr. Behnam Dezfouli
General Chair, 2022 GHTC
