Communicating Beyond The Horizon

When traditional means of communications don't work (or cease to work), whether due to natural disaster, politically-charged conflict, or poverty/neglect, geeks around the world are banding together to effectively re-route the paths of communications to keep the channels open.

In this session, Geeks Without Bounds (GWOB) Founder Johnny Diggz will show how emerging communication technologies are enabling crisis response teams to rapidly respond to unfolding situations and offer specific examples including:

• how protesters in Egypt re-rerouted twitter feeds when the government shut off the Internet
• how collaborative tools like Skype, Frontline SMS and Ushahidi's crisis mapping software were combined within minutes after the Christchurch Earthquake to save lives 

Diggz will bring stories of how these technologies are changing the crisis response community and how hackers and geeks from around the world have joined forces to build ad-hoc communications tools, towers and tethered balloons to extend our ears to listen beyond the communications horizon.