Emergency.lu
12. Partnerships: Achieving the ETC 2020 Strategy
Panelists: Mr. Mark Banbury, Global CIO, Plan International; Ms. Marianne Donven, Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Luxembourg; Ms. Najat Abdulrahman, Executive Director Business Development, Yahsat; Mr. Edward Happ, Global CIO, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC); Mr. Brent Carbno, Program Director, Ericsson Response
Wednesday, 29 April, 16:30-17:10
Traditionally, the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) has served the humanitarian community, enabling the coordination and distribution of life-saving aid. The network will expand to serve a wider community of humanitarian responders, affected populations and governments in order to facilitate the delivery and receipt of humanitarian aid.
By 2020, the ETC will strategically connect technology and energy companies, humanitarian organisations, government, affected populations and emerging actors globally, regionally and locally. With the scope of the ETC’s work growing, the panel discussion considered how existing members, government donors, NGOs, private sectors and new partners are preparing to support this new approach.
Mr. Mark Banbury, Global CIO, Plan International
Mark Banbury is the Global Chief Information Officer, Director of Shared Services for Plan International where he oversees IT operations in Plan’s 51 developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas. The child development organization which fundraises and spends over €725 million annually, works in over 90,000 communities with a direct impact on the lives of over 165 million people, including over 78 million children. During his time at Plan International Mr. Banbury has also overseen the Human Resources team and the Communication team during periods of leadership transitions.
Prior to joining Plan International, Mr. Banbury was the Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Plan Canada where he oversaw gift processing, donor communications, and the teams that were responsible for determining the technological direction of Plan Canada’s fundraising and Web communications systems. He joined Plan in 2006 and was responsible for ensuring Plan’s technology was able to meet the needs of a growing not-for-profit which more than doubled its fundraising revenue in under 4 years.
Prior to joining Plan Canada, Mr. Banbury spent more than five years as the Director of Information Systems and New Media at SickKids Foundation, Canadian’s largest paedeatric care and research facility, and one of the top four children’s hospitals in the world. Mr. Banbury also spent 10 years in the educational sector as an associate professor for his alma mater, Ryerson University, and taught radio/audio production and new media. He holds a BA in Radio and Television Arts (with honours) and has taken post graduate courses in distance education, media, and organizational leadership/strategy.
Ms. Marianne Donven, Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Luxembourg
Marianne Donven has been working at the Directorate for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid of the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs since March 2005. In 2005 and 2006 she coordinated and monitored Luxembourg’s response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami. From 2007 to 2014, she was in charge of the Humanitarian Aid Desk, with a specific focus on Luxembourg’s emergency relief operations in response to sudden-onset disasters as well as in protracted crises. She was also in charge of Luxembourg’s relations with the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Since 2010, she has been involved in the design and implementation of the public-private-partnership ‘emergency.lu’, an innovative satellite-based telecommunications platform. ‘emergency.lu’ is a global public good offering emergency telecommunications services to the humanitarian community, primarily in support of the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster, with the objective to improve communication and coordination in humanitarian crises (www.emergency.lu).
Ms. Najat Abdulrahman, Executive Director Business Development, Yahsat
Najat joined Yahsat in 2013, to lead and manage the YahClick business development team. In partnership with regional directors and country managers she establishes a personal network within the satellite industry and service partners to support growth of YahClick within its regional footprint .
Najat has over 20 years work experience within the Telecom field. During her career Najat has been involved in Product Marketing , Marketing communication and Business development within both local and international markets. Her diverse experience encompasses dealing in varied enterprises based solutions in addition to data clearing house , SIM manufacturing and more recently M2M . Najat holds a B.A in Business Administration & Economics from International American University of Richmond UK in addition to a Postgraduate Degree in International Marketing from University of Strathcylde, UK.
Mr. Edward Happ, Global CIO, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
Edward G. Happ is the Global CIO of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, based in Geneva, Switzerland, and co-founder and former Chairman of NetHope, a U.S. based consortium of 41 leading international relief, development and conservation nonprofits focused on information and communications technology (ICT) and collaboration.
He is the former Chief Information Officer at Save the Children, in Westport, CT. During his first year at Save the Children, in March 2001, he presented a paper to Cisco on “Wiring the Virtual Village,” which became the basis for NetHope.
Before joining Save the Children, he was a senior partner and founder of HP Management Decisions Ltd., a management consultancy, and has held a variety of corporate management positions, to the Senior Vice President and General Manager level, with Wall Street data providers, service and software product companies.His 35 years of professional experience include all facets of managing information services and high technology businesses, including general management with P&L responsibility, operations, product management, sales, marketing, customer service, human resources management, technical consulting, manufacturing, and both software and hardware development.
He began his career as an Assistant VP, Equity Research at the First Boston Corporation. Mr. Happ is a graduate of Drew University where he also did graduate work. Further information on Mr. Happ may be found on his web page (www.eghapp.com).
Mr. Brent Carbno, Program Director, Ericsson Response
Brent Carbno has more than 14 years of experience in the telecommunications technology field, and over 10 years of experience working in humanitarian emergencies.
In his current role as Program Director for Ericsson Response, Brent is responsible for all of the operational aspects of the program, including managing the volunteers and humanitarian partnerships. Brent started at Ericsson in 2001 as a telecommunications engineer, and eventually moved into leadership and project management positions within Ericsson. In 2004, Brent joined the Ericsson Response program as a volunteer and went on his first UN mission to Pakistan the next year. Brent was also deployed to UN missions in CAR and Haiti where he acted as team leader. As an Ericsson Response volunteer, Brent also acted as operations manager for two separate missions with Save the Children in Sudan.
In 2011, Brent joined Ericsson Response full-time as Solutions Manager, and became Program Director in 2012. Since then, Brent has been responsible for leading all Ericsson Response missions and activities. So far 2015 has been an unprecedented year, with activities continuing in South Sudan, Iraq, Vanuatu and the Ebola crisis in West Africa. He is also an active member of the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster, and is currently helping to shape the future direction of humanitarian response towards 2020.
Links to related material:
ETC 2020
About ETC 2020 backgrounder
Plan International
emergency.lu
Yahsat
International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
Ericsson Response
WGET ICT Humanitarian Innovation Forum 