What a fantastic start! Let’s learn about the official first day of the 2012 NetHope Global Member Summit.
After an opening day introduction from our Chief Executive Officer William Brindley, Senior Director of Global Community Affairs at Microsoft Akhtar Badshah welcomed NetHope members and guests to Microsoft and spoke about the Microsoft Citizenship program. We thank Microsoft for their generosity and offering to host this year’s Summit!
“@RomanusBerg: #nhsummit12 Akhtar Badshah: Our survival depends on providing the under-served opportunities to participate in a global economic rebirth.”
NetHope Chairman and Global Chief Information Officer for International Federation of the Red Cross Edward G. Happ gave an outstanding talk on NetHope’s vision and values.
“@dunxd:#NHsummit12 how do we shift from aim, adjust, aim, adjust, fire approach to innovation fire, aim, fire, aim as Ed Happ suggests?”
After a short break, William Brindley split the plenary into 10 groups and tasked them with answering questions centric to NetHope’s work and challenges using ICT in the developing world. Groups then broke off into their own spaces to discuss and compile notes that then were used to guide the Chief Information Officer Panel after lunch. Moderated by Akhtar Badshah, the panel spoke from their own experiences and expertise to reflect on the ideas that came out of the breakouts.
After the panel, Accenture’s Global Technology Officer, Jimmy Harris, was invited to the stage to speak on building the Cloud Business Case, a topic of interest for majority of our member organizations. USAID’s Chief Innovation Officer, Maura O’Neill, followed with a fantastic talk on innovation and driving impact. Before the afternoon break, Visa’s Head of Corporate Responsibility, Douglas Sabo, shared a few words on financial innovation.
After the break, William Brindley returned to the stage to moderate a panel with the NetHope Program Directors. The directors highlighted their progress since the last Summit and also their current work.
Before the first day of the Summit came to a close, Microsoft’s Senior Product Marketing Manager Todd Rutherford and Microsoft’s Senior Technical Product Manager Astrid McClean shared details around Windows 8 and Office 2013 as part of the Fall 2012 Microsoft Spotlight.
After wrapping up the day at Microsoft, Summit participants were invited to attend a cocktail reception hosted by Techno Brain.
We look forward to tomorrow’s agenda, which includes a visit to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a plenary dinner at FareStart.
Follow us on Twitter @NetHope_org and keep up with all Summit activity with #NHSummit12.
