A Big Data Revolution for Humanitarian Response

(New York, USA) The Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the UN, The Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the UN, and the UN Secretary-General’s Global Pulse Initiative co-host a high-level meeting on the margins of the opening of the 70th session of the UN General Assembly.

Speakers will include H.E. Ms. Lilianne Ploumen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of the Netherlands, Mr. Stephen O’Brien, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (represented by Ms. Gwi Yeop-Son, Director of Corporate Programs for UN OCHA), Mr. Amir Abdulla, Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Ms. Annie Maxwell, President of the Skoll Global Threats Fund, Dr. Gilberto Llanto, President of the Philippine Institute of Development, Mr. Alfredo Timmerman, CEO of Telefonica Internacional USA, and Mr. Chris Moody, Vice President of Data Strategy of Twitter.

Big data derived from social media, mobile phone and other digital sources has the potential to save lives by transforming early warning and response to humanitarian crises. However, hype and fear over big data misuse have polarized public and political debate. The resulting lack of policy frameworks for big data privacy, access and governance impedes urgently needed innovations to address the needs of the humanitarian community. In the context of the World Humanitarian Summit’s key theme of “Transformation through Innovation”, this high-level, multi-stakeholder event will bring together representatives from government, UN, private sector and civil society to address the need for new partnership models for sustainable access to big data, and new policies for the responsible use of big data which can foster humanitarian innovation. (By Invitation)

Download the event summary report here.