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.
Hello there Mike,
ReplyDeleteWikinomics was definitely brought up a lot during his presentation, and honestly I have no idea what on earth that book is about, so all of his references did not help me at all. While I did enjoy being in a more open environment with the discussion and overall classroom we were in, I thought that Gisli Olafsson’s presentation over Skype was lacking due to the lack of physical presence in the room as well as the technical difficulties we experienced during his presentation. Regardless, I still felt honored, as did you, to have a world known speaker talking to our class.
When he told our class that he thought that the technology which would be most useful would be a check-in system to see who is at the disaster recovery centers, what organization they work for, and what they do; I was just as surprised as you seemed to be. I was also shocked to find out that many of the organizations that do end up responding to crises don’t know what other organizations and people are there to help in the efforts. His presentation was very helpful, and I’m glad you enjoyed it as much as I did.