Week 7

This week’s guest speaker was Edward Happ. Who had worked with the Red Cross and with NetHope. He was debatably the best speaker we have had thus far in our class. The reason for this is because he had a great variety of knowledge that we as the students tried to soak up and incorporate in our lives. One of the most impressive features and or accomplishments to Edward is the fact that he was the co-founder of NetHope. For those of you who do not know what NetHope is, it is a group of 32 international non-governmental organizations or NGO’s, which have a mission to improve information technology among humanitarian organizations in developing countries and areas that are affected by disasters. This was a great attribute to the disaster relief world. This weeks speaker just got off the plane and had tremendous jet lag so we had to push our class time back by forty five minutes which proved to be a good thing because it gives students like me more time to look more into the background of Edward and really get some good questions ready for him. For some of you that are reading our SRA blog entries may wonder why these high caliber speakers are making special trips just to speak with us. Well, the answer is that our class is going to be the new members of these organizations that they work for, and by them talking to us, we hear what needs to be improved and we will be studying and doing research on how to improve the things that are needed.

Another great thing about Edward Happ is his desire to succeed. He has already had three carriers and his looking for his next too. That is great because he is going to be spreading his knowledge in all different types of government agencies and even some non-governmental agencies. I wish that I had that sense of ambition to want to have five different carriers. If I did I feel like I would be a lot more successful in life.

Attached I have posted a you tube video that is an interview with a NetHope advisor that talked about outsourcing. This will give people who do not exactly know what NetHope is, a good idea of what they do. For more information visit their website or search them on Google.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmwd_HEx2l8

Something else that I found interesting about our guest speaker Edward Happ was the fact that at the end of our speaking session we had asked him what he in his career path needed in order to make his job easier or more proficient. His answer surprised me. He didn’t really give us a straight answer and just wanted up to use our imagination. This puzzled me for a little bit but then I thought about it and it was actually a great answer. It is necessary for new people coming into the career path to have new ideas and not necessary take after the people that are already in place. New people should mean new ideas. All in all this was a great class and I thank Edward for coming to speak with us. 

Week 6

This weeks class was very interesting. This weeks guest speaker was Mr. Andrew Alspach. He was a very knowledgeable man that works for the UN. Before class started we got the special chance to speak to him about his background and get to know him on more of personal level. Turns out, he grew up on a farm in Ohio. Later, he would go on to join to peace corps and work with people all over the world on developing their bee population and teaching them how to get the most honey they possibly can get. This was very interesting to me because I have often thought about joining the peace corps. This is because i really enjoy helping people as much as possible and this would be a great chance to do just that. Furthermore, I have also a great interest in traveling to Africa to help out the refugees in their fight against the rebels whether it is in the military or as a member of the peace corps. Next Mr. Alspach went on to discuss that he is a member of the United Nations and the work he does there. This was great because we all got a little taste of what the UN in really about and not just what we read about in the newspapers of hear on the news. In was great to hear what has changed over the years. For example, they no longer ride around in cars that are marked UN on the site, they now ride in unmarked cars in order to avoid conflict and violence. Mr. Alspach is a great man and a great speaker. He opened my mind to a lot of new ideas and things that I can and will be thinking about in the future. He was also nice enough to give us his email address so in case we want to email him any questions or ask for advice we can do so. All in all, this was a great class and a eye opening experience. 

Week 5

In this weeks class of Security and Risk Analysis 397A we had a very informative speaker. His name was Gisli Olafsson, who works for NetHope. He spoke to us about many different topics that were relevant to our class discussions. Along with that he also brought up some books that he thought we would or should be interested in reading. One being wikinomics. He would consistently refer to this book and others throughout his discussion with our class via Skype. This was my favorite class of the year just because we were not cooped up in a room just talking out one individual topic. For example in the past weeks, we just focused on Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake and the September eleventh attack on the world trade center, but this week we covered a broad array of topics. The best part about this was that we had a world-renounced speaker that took the time out of his day to speak to us for over an hour.

            Even though I found his entire speech very interesting, including the times with the technical difficulties with the sound and video feed, was the question and answer segment. This was my favorite time because it gave the class a excellent opportunity to ask questions on a first hand basis to an expert in the field. This is something that most people our age do not get the chance to do, which is unfortunate. So, being students and a Crisis Informatics class, we took the opportunity to ask him what the disaster relief field needs as far as technology advancement. His response shocked me in a way. He said that he needs a way for everyone to check into the disaster site. It occurred to me and the class that all these different corporations that show up to the scene have no way of actually knowing who is there and who isn’t. I think that partially the reason that I was shocked by this answer was because I never really thought about it before. It never occurred to me that all these different groups have no way of knowing if another organization has showed up. I believe that we as a country and even as people need to think of a way to quickly and efficiently accomplish this goal of getting everyone registered to the scene. Maybe this is something that we can work on for our final project at the end of the semester. I would like to thank Mr. Olafsson for taking the time out of his busy schedule to speak with us. It was very helpful and informative.