On 13 and 14 May 2014, the International Peace Institute in Vienna organized the seminar "War and Peace in a Digital Age". UN-SPIDER's Programme Coordinator, Luc St-Pierre, was invited to speak about UN-SPIDER during the session "Technology for Peace".
In his presentation, Mr St-Pierre presented the scope of work and the strategic goals of UN-SPIDER and highlighted the relevance of satellite technologies for humanitarian purposes, such as disaster risk reduction or emergency management. He urged for an improved coordination in the use of these technologies so that all countries can access and use them for an improved disaster risk management.
Mr St-Pierre concluded by pointing out that however innovative or powerful new technologies can be in support of actions for disaster risk reduction or emergency response, they will not be streamlined and fully used until governments in developing countries are able to prioritise coordinated programmes for professional and technical staff development, starting with technology-oriented programmes from the secondary school level on.
The seminar was jointly organized by the Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Austria, the International Peace Institute and the Federal Ministry of Defence and Sports of Austria. All sessions were broadcast live online and have been recorded for later viewing (available here).
The event was additionally discussed on Twitter using #IPIVS14.
