Another fantastic day at the Intel Ireland campus!
William Brindley, Chief Executive Officer of NetHope, started off the day with his daily overview, then a panel dove into discussion over emerging trends in mobile technology. Dr. Erin Mote, Chief of Party for the USAID Global Broadband and Innovations (GBI) Alliance for NetHope, moderated as the mobile leaders shared their observations on global mobility development. Panelists included Chris Locke, Managing Director of the GSMA Development Fund at GSMA, Chris Horn, Chief Technology Officer of Movirtu, Clint Cuny, Chief Executive Officer of TechnoBrain, Raina Kumry, Co-Director of Innovation at BBG, Bernard Gaughan, Head of Information Systems at Concern Worldwide, and Mike Fitzgerald, Chief Executive Officer of Altobridge.
After a networking break, Kevin MacRitchie, Principal NetHope Humanitarian Services Liaison at Cisco, spoke on Cisco’s relationship with NetHope and partnerships.
For the Innovation for Development update, Brindley invited individuals from four member organizations to talk about their projects. Members heard from World Vision International, Catholic Relief Services, Plan International and ChildFund.
A brand new video was also shared that features NetHope Board Member Carol Bothwell and Chris Thomas, Chief Strategist at Intel, and how cloud services are being used in NetHope’s development projects.
The Summit took a break for lunch. Some Summit attendees took advantage of the spare time to tour Fab24. Find out more about Fab24 here.
After lunch, Lynann Bradbury, NetHope Global Program Manager, and Colene McBeth, Strategic Partnerships for NetHope, introduced the new NetHope Women’s TechConnect program to the membership. Read more about it here and how to get involved.
Mote returned to the stage to brief the group on the GBI Alliance, and its related programs. The Serious Gaming program has made great strides this past year, given the renewed focus on youth education and empowerment in the developing countries. The ‘Stop Human Trafficking’ Contest also gave attention to GBI’s Trafficking program, which is now in the process of releasing the winning mobile application to Russia and the region.
After another short networking break, Akhtar Badshah, Senior Director of Global Corporate Affairs at Microsoft, gave a truly inspirational talk to our members. The room gave him a standing ovation in the end.
Badshah was followed by an Emergency Response update from Gisli Olafsson, NetHope Global Program Director. Olafsson filled the membership in on the work done with the four major emergencies since the last summit. He also mentioned the new case study released this summer on the use of information and communication technology during the 2010 Pakistan floods and made the case for the need for openness.
Then, Joe Simmons, NetHope Senior Global Program Director, gave an update on the Connectivity initiative. He spoke about the East Africa Connectivity Program and the work done in Daadab, Kenya helped deliver connectivity to those NGOs working in refugee camps hosting those affected by the Horn of Africa Crisis.
Levy returned to the stage to excite the members about the NetHope Cloud and the special “Cloud Day” planned for tomorrow. Brindley followed with an recap of today’s presentations and topics.
Tonight the Summit will move to the Guinness Storehouse in celebration of NetHope’s 10th Anniversary. Cheers!
