NetHope
Gisli Olafsson is one of the leading experts in the world on the use of technology in disaster response. Gisli is a sought after speaker, trainer and advisor on the role technology can play in enhancing the response to large scale natural and man-made disasters. Gisli Olafsson joined NetHope in November 2010 as the Emergency Response Director. He is responsible for coordinating information and communication technology (ICT) related emergency preparedness and emergency response activities of NetHope’s 43 member organizations. They include organizations such as International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent, Save the Children, WorldVision, Oxfam, Relief International, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, International Rescue Committee and 34 other world leading non-profit organizations. Prior to joining NetHope, Gisli has over 20 years of experience in the field of disaster management and is an active member of the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team, a team of experienced disaster managers which are on stand-by to deploy anywhere in the world on a six hour notice to coordinate the first response of the international community to disasters on behalf of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Gisli also has over 30 years of experience in the IT industry, most recently working at Microsoft as a trusted advisor to international organizations and governments in disaster prone countries on the effective use of ICT to enhance response to natural disasters. Gisli has participated in disaster field missions in connections with floods in Ghana (2007), Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (2008), Hurricane Ike in Texas (2008), Sichuan Earthquake (2008), Pandemic Outbreak (2009), West Sumatra Earthquake (2009), Haiti Earthquake (2010), Japan Earthquake/Tsunami (2011), Horn of Africa Famine (2011), and Typhoons Bopha (2012) and Haiyan (2013) in the Philippines, West Africa Ebola Response (2014-2015), and Nepal Earthquake (2015). Following the devastating earthquake in Haiti 2010, Gisli led the first international rescue team that arrived in the country. The combination of Gisli’s extensive field experience in disaster management and technology background provides Gisli a deep understanding how technology can be applied to solve the most challenging collaboration issues within disaster response. This has led him to be appointed to various advisory boards and committees, such as the US State Department’s sub-committee on the use of technology in international disasters. Gisli holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science and Chemistry from Copenhagen University (Denmark 1993).
Qatar Computing Research Institute
Patrick Meier (PhD) is an internationally recognized thought leader on the application of new technologies for crisis early warning, humanitarian response and resilience. He presently serves as Director of Social Innovation at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) where he develops and prototypes Next Generation Humanitarian Technologies with multiple humanitarian organizations. He is a member of the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) Innovation Team and the author of the forthcoming book “Digital Humanitarians: How Big Data is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response” (2015). Patrick is also a UNICEF Humanitarian Innovations Fellow, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, an “Ambassador” for Drone Adventures and a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation & PopTech. His influential blog iRevolutions has received over 1.5 million hits. In 2010 he was publicly praised by Clinton for his pioneering digital humanitarian efforts. Prior to QCRI, Patrick co-founded and co-directed the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s (HHI) Program on Crisis Mapping & Early Warning and served as Director of Crisis Mapping at Ushahidi. He has consulted extensively for several international organizations including the United Nations and the World Bank. He co-founded CrisisMappers, MicroMappers, Digital Humanitarians, the award-winning Standby Task Force and sits on the Board of iLab Liberia. Patrick is an accomplished speaker, having given talks at the White House, UN, Google, Harvard, Stanford and MIT. He has also presented at major international conferences including the Skoll World Forum, Club de Madrid, Mobile World Congress, PopTech, Where 2.0, TTI/Vanguard, SXSW and several TEDx’s. In 2010, he was publicly praised by President Bill Clinton for his digital humanitarian efforts. Given his unique expertise, Patrick is often interviewed by the media, which has included the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, UK Guardian, CNN, NPR and Wired. He is also a distinguished scholar, holding a PhD from The Fletcher School, a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from Stanford University, an MA from Columbia University and EAP from UC Berkeley. In addition, he was a Research Fellow at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) and holds an advanced certificate in complexity science from the Santa Fe Institute (SFI). Patrick has given numerous guest lectures and has taught several professional, graduate and undergraduate courses. He writes the widely respected iRevolution blog and tweets at @patrickmeier.
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Nathaniel Raymond is the Director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. He has over fifteen years of experience as a humanitarian aid worker and human rights investigator. Raymond was formerly director of operations for the George Clooney-founded Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) at HHI. Raymond served in multiple roles with Oxfam America and Oxfam International, including in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, and elsewhere. He has published multiple popular and peer-reviewed articles on human rights, humanitarian issues, and technology in publications including the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the Lancet, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and many others. Raymond served in 2015 as a consultant on early warning to the UN Mission in South Sudan. He was a 2013 PopTech Social Innovation Fellow and is a co-editor of the technology issue of Genocide Studies and Prevention. Raymond and his Signal Program colleagues are co-winners of the 2013 USAID/Humanity United Tech Challenge for Mass Atrocity Prevention and the 2012 U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Industry Intelligence Achievement Award.
At Google, Pete has contributed to various big data efforts in both an engineering and product manager capacity, including those on the Crisis Response, Google Earth, and Google Ocean teams. On the Crisis Response team, Pete has launched a number of open source response products, such as Crisis Map, Crisis Info Hub, and Translation Cards. In addition to building products, Pete serves as an "Incident Commander", leading the company's efforts to source and promote key local response-related information for those affected by major crises.
MIT
Jarrod Goentzel is founder and director of the MIT Humanitarian Response Lab in the Center for Transportation & Logistics and is a project lead for the MIT Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation sponsored by USAID. His research focuses on meeting human needs in resource-constrained settings through better supply chain management, information systems, and decision support technology. Dr. Goentzel balances theoretical and applied work through active engagement with the private sector, government agencies, humanitarian, international development, and community organizations on several continents.
World Bank
João Pedro Azevedo is a Lead Economist at the World Bank in Washington. He currently works for the Poverty and Equity Global Practice in the European and Central Asia region, focusing on Central Asia and Turkey and leading the region's Statistics Team. João Pedro also leads the Global Solution Group on Welfare Measurement and Statistical Capacity for Results from the Poverty and Equity Global Practice. João Pedro has focused much of his work on helping developing countries improve their systems for evidence-based decision making. He worked in Colombia, Brazil and the Dominican Republic for five years, and led important regional public efforts such as the Latin American & Caribbean Stats Team and the LAC Monitoring and Evaluation Network. João Pedro brings solid and varied experience in applied econometrics to the fields of poverty and inequality. Before joining the Bank, João Pedro served as the superintendent of monitoring and evaluation at the Secretary of Finance for the State of Rio de Janeiro, as well as a research fellow at the Institute of Applied Economic Research from the Brazilian Ministry of Planning. He is a former chairman of the Latin American & Caribbean Network on Inequality and Poverty and holds a PhD in Economics.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Noelle Huskins is a Program Officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has been with BMGF for 6+ years spanning everything from early stage research to delivery in health systems, and is currently on the Global Health- Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) team where she focuses on Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), Guinea Worm, and VL in India. Within HAT she leads the data and mapping work used for disease modeling and microplanning activities in the DRC. Prior to this role she was on the Integrated Delivery –Interventions, Consumers, & Markets team supporting commercialization and delivery strategies for new global health interventions in therapeutics, diagnostics, and vector control. She has also spent two years with the regional offices working on developing a new strategy for the ICO and as a liaison for the India Country Office and on Discovery & Translational Sciences providing program management for the global innovation funding program, Grand Challenges Explorations. Before the Foundation she worked on social entrepreneurship, ICT for development and microfinance in India, and human-trafficking policy in the Philippines. She holds a BA from Boston College, an MPA from the University of Washington, and an MBA at the University of California, Berkeley.
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
Dr. Bollettino is the Director of Resilient Communities Program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Prior to his current appointment, Dr. Bollettino served for five years as Executive Director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. Dr. Bollettino has twenty years of professional and academic experience in international politics, humanitarian action, civil-military engagement in emergencies, and the security of humanitarian aid workers. He has spent that past fourteen years of his career at Harvard University in administration, teaching, and research. Current research focuses on civil military engagement during humanitarian emergencies, the security of humanitarian aid workers, and on the professionalization of the humanitarian aid field. Dr. Bollettino has managed several large training and policy development initiatives related to international humanitarian law, responsibility to protect, and peace building operations and has designed security reporting systems and program evaluations for field security measures in complex emergencies. He has authored several publications related to disaster management and humanitarian assistance, and has consulted with numerous international nongovernmental organization and UN agencies. He has taught courses on research design, peace building, and international politics at the Harvard Extension School. Dr. Bollettino came to Harvard University on a post-doctoral fellowship with the Program on Non-violent Sanctions and Cultural Survival at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He completed his Ph.D. at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Dr. Bollettino currently serves on the boards of ELRHA (Enhancing Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance), ACF (Action Against Hunger), and the International Solutions Group.
Rescue Global
In his role at Rescue Global as the Liaison, Mentoring and Training (LMT) Executive Officer, Colby directly embeds with host-country governments, agencies, NGOs and partners to advise their disaster management activities, to include employment of foreign technologies and innovative practices to improve planning and information flows during a response. Colby is the co-lead of an ongoing big data project with partners at Oxford University and BMT Defence, working to combine recent developments in machine learning and data provenance to exploit the swell of data generated following a disaster by using ‘crowd’ volunteers to enhance decision-making in the field. He has deployed to events in the Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia, and the south Pacific, and recognizes the potential for immerging technologies in humanitarian response, albeit through empowering local actors for true capacity and capability growth. Colby comes from a special operations background in the US military and has worked in both academia and the commercial sector, and holds an MA and BS from Georgetown University.
USAID
With a background in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene and water technology development, Dr. McMahan currently serves as Team Lead for Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development (SWFF) in the US Global Development Lab at USAID. SWFF is a $32M partnership between USAID, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and the Foreign Ministry of the the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Dr. McMahan received his PhD in Environmental Sciences and a MPH in Environmental Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under a NSF and EPA STAR fellowship. He received an A.B in Environmental Sciences and Policy as a B.N. Duke scholar from Duke University.
Philippe Villers is the President and Founder of Families USA Foundation, and Founder of Computervision Corp., Automatix, Inc., and Cognition, Inc. He has served as President of GrainPro since June 1996. Mr. Villers is also on the board of directors of various foundations, for-profit and non-profit organizations including Families USA Foundation and United Villages. Mr. Villers earned a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.
Team Rubicon
Steve Hunt is responsible for the vision and implementation of Team Rubicon’s evolving technical capabilities. In recent years, he was lured from the laboratory back to a life closer to the ground where he could apply both his engineering and field skills to help people in need. Steve spent many years in roles that included scientist, engineer, infantryman, manager and construction worker. He has degrees in Physics (B.S.), Astronomy (M.A.) and a PhD in Electrical Engineering. He was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne and a reservist and spent 25 years at MIT Lincoln Laboratory working in support of US national interests. He has extensive experience in systems engineering/analysis, program management, operations and technical R&D.
Jim Bagwell is President of ProvisionGard Technology LLC based in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is the founder of ProvisionGard which started operating in 2009. Prior to this, Jim worked for Procter and Gamble for 12 years in manufacturing and engineering positions, was VP of Sales and Marketing for the Actinic Coating company specializing in UV/EB/Water Based coating technologies and after being acquired by Ashland Chemical, he was their Business Development Manager focusing on the ProvisionGard Technology. Jim has recently helped author the K-State produced Stored Product Protection Manual chapter on Insect Resistant Packaging. He is a graduate of Tennessee Technological University in Industrial Engineering and was awarded the TTU Distinguished Alumni Award by the Industrial Engineering Department.
USAID Office of Food For Peace
Greg Olson is the Program Operations Division Director in the USAID Office of Food For Peace (FFP). Greg and his staff are responsible for managing the food aid procurement process, FFP’s prepositioning program, coordinating with USAID’s Office of Transportation, USDA/FSA and cooperating sponsors on logistical issues and performing technical budget reviews. Prior to joining FFP, Greg worked with the World Food Programme in Washington DC and as human rights researcher in South Africa. He holds a Master’s in International Public Administration from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and a Bachelor’s in International Relations from the University of California, Davis.
Vecna
Deborah has spent 15 years developing and deploying automation solutions to the health care sector both domestically and internationally. As the Co-Founder of Vecna, a leader in health care information technology and robotics, Deborah has positively impacted millions of peoples’ lives through innovative new technologies that improve access to and quality of care. Deborah has brought to market QC PathFinder for electronic outbreak surveillance of hospital acquired infections and Patient Self Service Kiosk, Portal and Mobile solutions. Vecna’s Department of Defense funded BEAR (Battlefield Extraction and Recovery) and the QC Bot Hospital Logistics Robots. In 2009, Deborah established the Vecna Cares Charitable Trust to extend Vecna resources in IP, engineering capacity and programmatic expertise to developing countries and under-served areas. Vecna Cares supports ongoing initiatives in East Africa, Nigeria and Haiti as well as Massachusetts urban communities. Deborah is actively engaged in forging new community partnerships around the world with the goal of improving quality and access to health care through the establishment of local, point-of-care patient data tools to regional information technology infrastructures. Deborah obtained her SB in Aerospace Engineering from MIT and her Masters from University of Maryland’s Space Systems She is a certified SCUBA Diver Instructor and the proud mother of 5 very active children.
IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs
Rebecca E. Curzon is Senior Program Manager with IBM Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs, with leadership roles in business integration, philanthropy, and volunteer enablement. Ms. Curzon manages IBM’s global strategy in humanitarian disaster response, applying IBM technology, solutions, expertise and innovation to critical needs in the aftermath of disaster; and developing strategic partnerships around mitigation of the effects of disaster using technology for smarter and more resilient cities. She represents IBM on the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Disaster Assistance and Recovery Working Group. She also serves on the board of directors of the American Red Cross of Massachusetts and leads IBM’s global citizenship Grant-making Center of Excellence. Ms. Curzon has been part of global teams to integrate IBM’s strategies in corporate citizenship into the business and to leverage business offerings for community benefit. In 2003 she helped launch the On Demand Community, IBM’s flagship global initiative and website to support IBMers as they volunteer in their communities. Ms. Curzon came to IBM from Lotus Development Corporation where she managed volunteerism and philanthropic programs focusing on nonprofit use of Lotus software. Previously she was with the Smithsonian Institution. She is a certified Project Management Professional through the Project Management Institute. She has volunteered actively for decades at schools, nonprofits, and in her faith community.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Jeanette Weaver joined the Geographic Information and Science Technology Group (GIST) in January 2011 and is currently a Research Scientist on the Population Distribution and Dynamics Team. Within the Team, she currently serves as project lead and point of contact for Settlement Mapping efforts. Jeanette helps direct Settlement Mapping research and development in analysis and exploitation of commercial high resolution imagery to evaluate processing methods for feature extraction, resulting in the extraction of human settlement information. She also currently works on projects such as LandScan Global, and LandScan HD where she focuses on conflict induced population movements and involuntary resettlement patterns. Prior to joining the GIST group, Jeanette worked as a Geographer at Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA) where she conducted research for coastal geomorphology analysis. She worked closely with the Naval Research Lab to analyze/exploit Hyperspectral /Multispectral imagery, researching near-shore bathymetry and shore soil composition extraction methods. She attended Marshall University where she attained her BA in International Affairs and an MA in Geography with a Graduate GIS Certificate. She also holds a Graduate Certificate in Advanced Geospatial Intelligence from the Air Force Institute of Technology.
University of Southampton & Flowminder Foundation
Tomas Bird is based at the University of Southampton on the WorldPop project (www.worldpop.org) and with the Flowminder Foundation (www.Flowminder.org). He currently works on methods for predicting the size and composition of human populations using household survey data and geospatial data. His academic trail has lead from a BSc in marine biology (University of British Columbia, Canada) to an MSc in biological oceanography (University of Victoria, Canada). This was followed by a PhD in ecological statistics (University of Melbourne, Australia), in which he developed Bayesian models for integrating multiple sources of capture-recapture data.
Harvard University - School of Public Health
Leighton Jones currently works at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as the Senior Manager for the Emergency Preparedness Research, Evaluation & Practice (EPREP) Program. Leighton previously worked as the Chief Disaster & Program Officer for the American Red Cross of Massachusetts and in various leaderships positions for The American Red Cross and The Salvation Army in New York. He has deployed in response to numerous disasters across the United States including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires and aviation disasters. Leighton led the Red Cross response to the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings and served at Ground Zero in Manhattan following the September 11th attacks. He specializes in government and NGO partnerships, volunteer administration, disaster human services and emergency response management. Leighton has a passion for collaboration having been the founding chair of the Rochester Regional VOAD network (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) and serving as the chair of the New York VOAD network for many years. He is a graduate of the University of Plymouth in England.
Commander, Chilean Navy
Commander Arancibia was born in Valparaíso and raised in the nearby city of Viña del Mar. He entered the Naval Academy in 1988 and after 5 years of studies, began his naval career participating in 1993’s year-long cruise on board “Esmeralda” training ship. He served as a Junior Officer in USS “Lake Champlain”, AGOR “Vidal Gormaz” and in the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean fleet. In 1999, Cdr. Arancibia specialized in Submarines and earned the professional tittle of Naval Engineer in Submarine Warfare. As a Submarine specialist, he served on board the Type 209 submarines “Simpson” and “Thomson”; he also served in the Submarine Tender Ship “Merino” as Operations Officer. Cdr. Arancibia was part of the test crew and first crew of Scorpene’s class Submarine “Carrera”. He was appointed command of ATF “Lautaro” in 2012. During his command tour, in addition to normal duties, “Lautaro” deployed to the Chilean Antarctic region. Cdr. Arancibia’s shore assignments include the Submarine School as Deputy Director, the Submarine Training Command as Deputy Commander, Director of the Chilean Navy’s Acoustic Center and Operations Officer in the Staff of the Commander in Chief of the 3rd Naval District in the region of Magallanes, in the South of Chile. He also has participated on the planning teams for the relief efforts of two major natural disasters that occurred in Chile in 2010 and 2014. Cdr. Arancibia attended the Chilean Naval War College and graduated in 2011 with highest distinction. He is also graduate of the Brazilian Submarine Command Course and the Chilean Navy’s Submarine’s Executive Officer and Watch Leader courses. In 2015, he graduated from the U.S. Naval War College, NCC class. He holds a Master's Degree in Naval and Maritime Sciences and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from Salve Regina University. Cdr. Arancibia also holds the titles of Military Professor of Submarine Warfare and War College Professor of Operational Planning. He resides in Middletown, RI, with his wife Ana Luisa and their three children, Alejandra, Rodrigo and Victoria.
Eric Weber is a research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIST) group. His current focus is on using models of population density combined with remote sensing information and other geospatial data to map human populations with very high spatial precision and a systematic accounting of uncertainty, especially in regions where accurate and current geospatial data is limited. In his 5+ years with the GIST group, he has developed software and implemented modeling strategies for a variety of challenging population distribution and dynamics problems, including modeling special event population distributions, estimating daytime and nighttime population distributions, and creating and maintaining detailed land use data through the fusion of data from a variety of sources. Prior to joining ORNL, Eric held various positions in the geospatial field, including work in production cartography at the National Geographic Society and at the University of Kansas, as well as management and analysis of hydrographic data at the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources. He holds an MA in geography from the University of Kansas and a BA in geography from the University of Nebraska.
DigitalGlobe
"Seeing a Better World: How DigitalGlobe is helping to See a Better World from Space, enabled by the power of high resolution satellite imagery and geospatial big data cloud analytics, across the US Government and Humanitarian Organizations" Andre Kearns is currently Senior Director, Products for DigitalGlobe and leads the effort to develop new solutions that combine the company’s imagery, platform, and analytic service capabilities in support of US Government and Commercial customers. He represents Digitalglobe on the Council on Space for the World Economic Forum where he is currently collaborating on a project to develop an open source platform to aid global disaster response. Andre also has a vision to enrich STEM curriculum in classrooms and after-school programs across the country by introducing the concept of crowdsourced mapping to students. An accomplished executive, Andre has focused his career in technology, primarily serving in marketing and strategy roles. Andre holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Business Administration from Morehouse College. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two children and works out of the DigitalGlobe Herndon office. "Seeing a Better World: How DigitalGlobe is helping to See a Better World from Space, enabled by the power of high resolution satellite imagery and geospatial big data cloud analytics, across the US Government and Humanitarian Organizations"
Public Health Promoter, Oxfam
Daniela Giardina has a role of Public Health Promotion officer within the Global Humanitarian Team of Oxfam International based in Boston. She has over ten years of experience working in the water, environment and sanitation sector with non-governmental organizations in East and West Africa, the Caribbean, Latino-America and Central Asia in humanitarian relief and in development projects. This work has included technical assessments, project design and proposals writing, project management and coordination, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building among other tasks. In the last year she has been involved in the Ebola prevention and preparedness program in West Africa. She is holder of a PhD in Sanitary Engineering and Master Degree in Engineering for the Environment and the Territory.
Emergency Food Security and Vulnerable Livelihoods, Oxfam
Emily Farr is an advisor in Emergency Food Security and Vulnerable Livelihoods (EFSVL) within Oxfam International’s Global Humanitarian Team. She has worked for over 10 years to influence global policy and practice around food security and livelihoods and with country programs across Africa, Latin America, and Asia to prepare for and respond to emergencies. Emily's areas of focus include program quality, ICT, monitoring, evaluation, and learning, capacity building, and gender. Before her current role she worked for many years for Oxfam America, most recently as Senior Advisor for EFSVL, and before moving into the humanitarian field she spent several years working with local organizations committed to food security and decent housing in the United States. Emily has an M.S. in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition from Tufts University and a B.S. in Geography from Penn State.
Humanitarian Change Goal Manager, Oxfam
Carlos is a strategic and tactical international humanitarian expert with over 22 years leading programs and teams to affect strategic aid worldwide. He is currently working with Oxfam to support the effective leadership of the humanitarian local actors in Sudan, Senegal, The Gambia, Guineau Bissau, Peru and Central America as core strategy for Oxfam to transform the humanitarian system. His past experience includes work at Save the Children, where he served as Deputy Program and Operations Manager. From 2004 -2006, Carlos was the Helen Hamlyn Senior Fellow at the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs at Fordham University in NY. He also worked for the Jesuit Refugee Service and American Friends Service Committee. Carlos has spent time in numerous conflict and disaster areas including South Sudan, Colombia, Ethiopia, China, Kosovo, and Yemen. Carlos received BA’s in Theology and Philosophy and an MA in Theology from Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia. He also has several publications to his credit including Amor y Gracia; A Theological Approach to the Humanitarian Crisis of Displaced Communities in Colombia and Mapmakers of Life, a basic manual for humanitarian workers.
Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Advisor, Oxfam
Pierluigi has been working in the humanitarian sector for more than 10 years, participating in natural and conflict emergency responses in Uganda, South Sudan, Mozambique, Ethiopia, El Salvador and Nepal. He holds a Master’s Degree in Humanitarian Programme Management from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (UK) & Bioforce Institute (France). Since 2014 he has been part of Oxfam America’s Humanitarian Department, supporting field staff, partners and local Governments in disaster preparedness, contingency planning, humanitarian responses and capacity-building related to food security and livelihoods.
Benetech
Sue-Ann Ma is a Product Manager at Benetech. Benetech develops innovative and effective technology applications for unmet social needs. Sue-Ann has been involved in a variety of collaborative projects geared towards setting standards and providing tools to make digital content and images accessible, particularly in the area of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). This includes authoring tools for images and mathematical equations, specifications for accessibility metadata, and training resources for creating image descriptions. Prior to joining Benetech, she spent several years as a Project Manager implementing sourcing systems for corporate retail in Asia and as a Product Manager for a US-based foreign language publishing house. Sue-Ann attained her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and her master’s degree from Harvard University.
Schlumberger Foundation
Roseline is Manager Schlumberger Mergers & Acquisition – North America, based in Houston, Texas, USA. Prior to her current assignment, she was VP Finance at M-I SWACO in Houston, and deeply involved in its integration into Schlumberger following the acquisition of the Smith International group in 2010. She serves as President of the Schlumberger Foundation. The Schlumberger Foundation is a non-profit organization overseen by a Board of Directors and managed and administered by Schlumberger employees. It operates under two legal entities, the Schlumberger Foundation Inc., registered in 1954 in the United States and the Schlumberger Stichting Fund registered in 1985 in the Netherlands. Since its inception the Foundation has focused on funding a variety of programs in scientific education all over the world. Roseline joined Schlumberger in 1988 in the Internal Audit team in Paris, France. She has since held a variety of leadership positions in Tax, Finance and Management. She was based in Paris, France, for the first half of her career, with responsibilities as Tax Manager Schlumberger Technologies Europe, VP Finance Well Services Europe and Africa, VP Finance Wireline & Testing, and General Manager CGST-SAVE. In 2001 she moved to Houston as VP Finance for Oilfield Services North and South America, a position she held until 2004. From 2004 to 2006, she was VP Finance Oilfield Services based in Paris, France. From 2006 to 2010, she was Schlumberger Limited Director of Internal Audit in Houston; in this position, she was also in charge of career development of the Schlumberger Finance personnel. She was also a member of the Schlumberger Gender Balance Steering Committee, a group formed to identify and understand the specific issues affecting career development of women in Schlumberger, and to advise management in designing and implementing policies and practices to overcome the obstacles faced by women in Schlumberger in their pursuit of long and challenging careers. Roseline holds a Master in Management from Ecole Superieure de Commerce et d’Administration des Entreprises in Marseilles, France, of which she is a mentor helping young graduates make career and life decisions. She is on the board of the French-American Chamber of Commerce which supports French entrepreneurs and businesses develop their economic activity in the Houston area, where she also heads its membership committee. She joined the board of the Schlumberger Foundation in 2015 to continue its development as a unique vehicle deeply anchored in Schlumberger values of Science, Innovation and People, and ensure it continues to change the world through its original positioning that women and science constitute an invincible combination able to tackle development in economically and socially challenged regions.