The Digital University Kerala has collaborated with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Health Organization (WHO) to organise a workshop on 'Integration of Digital Technologies in Disaster Preparedness'. It is open for government officials, students and all those interested in the use of modern technologies in disaster management.
The workshop is aimed at addressing the lack of understanding and absence of requisite skills that hinder the broad application of digital technologies in combating disasters, as reported by PTI. The discussions will involve the areas of learning aiding response and recovery, visual perspective of disasters, robots and drones to the rescue, speech as an aid, emergency networking through trial and error, disaster management and related challenges, optimising and simulating logistics operations under uncertainty and logistics issues in humanitarian operations, the report stated further.
It is a part of an ongoing programme of Sinnu Susan Thomas, Assistant Professor, Digital University Kerala and Edilson K. Arruda, Lecturer, University of Southampton, UK. The programme is funded by the British Council’s ‘Going Global Partnerships Exploratory Grant’. The workshop will continue for two weeks, from May 16 to May 27.
"Despite the astounding advancement of digital technologies in all walks of human life that effectively set forth a technology revolution dubbed as fourth Industrial revolution, the huge potential of modern technologies remains under-exploited when it comes to disaster management and disaster risk reduction," UNEP said in a statement.
