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Tech For Good Talks: How Can Technology Support Humanitarian Causes?

Fraser James
3 Min Read

With the world becoming more and more connected, tech plays a pretty central role in delivering vital support and to those who need it. Humanitarian crises have become more complex, but also more accessible with thanks to technology. With the overall number of those needing humanitarian support rising from 78 million in 2015 to a staggering 235 million in 2021, it’s clear that we as a society need thoughtful solutions to these challenging issues, on a massive scale.

Technology is changing how we monitor, understand and respond to conflict and to humanitarian crises. New and emerging innovation can support this paradigm shift from reaction to anticipation by enabling earlier, faster and potentially more effective action. Technological innovation is the way forward to better address the needs of those affected by humanitarian disaster.

With so many areas to cover, humanitarian challenges come in many forms, each with their own unique set of solutions. We have seen in the UK with our own COVID prevention plan the implementation of technology for digital health passports and tracking. We have also seen further afield the role of technology in disaster prevention. We worked with the American Red Cross to build the a disaster preparedness platform, something we are immensely proud of and is being used today to prevent injury and save lives.

Creating tech that helps with these vital issues is crucial for the future of humanity. Luckily, we were joined by some experts in humanitarian work, but more on that later…

Our experience with humanitarian support

At 3 Sided Cube, we have been lucky enough to work with some truly amazing organisations helping to support those who need it the most. Be that improving the wellbeing of refugees or supporting life-changing blood donations, we are proud to have worked on a variety of such impactful applications that impact millions of lives across the world.

We want to change millions of lives for the better, and we aim to do that by building life-saving and life-changing digital products for our fantastic clients. A few of those projects that we have been honoured to partner on are:

The American Red Cross

Empowering users to prepare for climate-affected hazards with the Emergency app

Mother nature can be devastating, so our disaster management app needed to be robust enough that people could rely on it. The American Red Cross approached us with the idea of a platform that allowed users to prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters.

The solution was a native app that allows you to monitor more than 35 different severe weather and emergency alerts in your town, and other cities that matter to you, such as hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados. This platform for the American Red Cross allows them to communicate with the population in an entirely new way, providing a real-time solution during numerous disasters and enabling users to contact loved ones to let them know they’re safe, find the nearest shelter and track the storm.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

An app to support the improved wellbeing of refugees

We were approached by UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency) as they wanted to develop new innovative technology solutions that improved the wellbeing of refugees and encouraged more private-sector donations. UNHCR wanted a secure way for donors and refugees to communicate  with each other directly – without the filter of an organisation –  to build mutual understanding and knowledge, shift attitudes and allow high value donors to understand how their donations were making a difference.

The solution, Connecting Worlds, is a react native app that consists of multi-language content targeted at multi-countries. The app is focused on security, with the safety of refugees being paramount for UNHCR so we included many checkpoints in place to ensure this.

The AMAZING Panel

We were SUPER psyched to be joined by some truly inspiring panellists from amazing organisations:

UNHCR – The UN Refugee Agency, is a global organisation dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people.

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Migrant Leaders – An independent UK registered charity that inspires and develops disadvantaged young migrants across the UK to broaden their horizons and capture opportunities well beyond their aspirations. For migrants, for business, for Britain.

Our ambition is to cultivate talented young migrants and equip them with the skills necessary to succeed right to the very top of leading private and public sector organisations in Britain.

Migrant Leaders

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Muslim Aid – For over 30 years, Muslim Aid have been serving humanity around the globe. They are one of the largest Muslim development and humanitarian organisations in the UK. Striving to ensure that all those suffering from the effects of poverty, natural disaster and war are able to survive and empowered to thrive.

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Big Family 360 Foundation – A non-profit non-governmental organisation working in Northeast Nigeria, providing Educational, Health, Livelihood and social protection services to Women, Orphans and Vulnerable Children who are victims of insurgency, survivors of gender-based violence, child abuse and neglect by establishing linkages through the use of mobile applications and technology to access reliable help and services.

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Our vision is to create a global platform where women, orphans and vulnerable children will have equal access to quality Education, Health Care, Better Livelihood and Social Protection Services... Big Family 360

Missed us live?

You can catch-up with everything that went on in the event with our recording below! We loved being able to be able to have such an important conversation with views and insights from humanitarian experts.

This is a topic very near and dear to our hearts, and while the discussion throughout the entirety of the webinar was so very insightful, we want to keep the conversation going…so much so that we are holding an in real life event focussing again on how technology can support humanitarian sector. If you are in London, or adjacent, please join us!

Get your ticket here!

Published on 31 August 2022, last updated on 31 August 2022