The theme of the conference is "Building Disaster Resilient Communities".
The focus of the conference builds on opportunities through science and technology, political will and behaviour change to address current crises and reduce risks for future generations. Whilst knowledge about the nature and context of disasters has proliferated, many potential actions for integrated disaster reduction remain far from realised.
The disjuncture between existing opportunities and actions both present and anticipated is a complex problem of the disaster and development nexus. Driven by common objectives of survivability, there is a need to bridge gaps between disaster reduction and development through varied types of science (natural, social and others), technologies and people centric actions.
This requires 'smart awareness', motivation and vision to enable combined disaster reduction and sustainable development at local and global levels. The conference aims to address opportunities for action through varied state of the art contributions from the worlds of disaster science, technology, policy and practice. It is also open to expertise less conventionally recognised within this field. It intends to stimulate a next generation of ideas and actions for disaster reduction.
