Resilience

Feed the Future: After a decade of success, let’s make it better

By Daniel V. Speckhard

Feed the Future stands in the tradition of bipartisan foreign aid initiatives that have made a significant impact. Let’s seize this opportunity to improve the lives of even more families around the world by doubling down on our commitment to Feed the Future.

Securing a future for farmers through technology

By Atlantic Council

COVID-19 has shaken up markets across the globe as much as it has societies, but perhaps no supply chain has been as impacted as that of food and agriculture. Fortunately, technology promises a brighter future, one where data shared over the internet can connect farmers directly with the people consuming their products. As Dr. David Bray, Director of the GeoTech Center, explained at the recent Agricultural Science Association of Ireland 2020 Conference, the world will need to consider an international approach, with far-reaching political implications, in order to rethink our current supply chains and meet the needs of our growing population, even with natural and human made shocks disrupting along the way.

Pandemic puts pressure on innovators to speed up

By Atlantic Council

“Necessity is the mother of invention, and right now, COVID-19 has created the need for tools to treat the current pandemic and mitigate the effects of future outbreaks, Dr. Bray said. The situation reminds him of how the risk from house fires prompted innovators to design a system to warn occupants before it was too late. ‘Can we instrument the planet in such a way that we’ll have earlier warning signs about new viruses and infections, analogous to smoke detectors?’”

Pandemic accents federal need for identification technology

By Atlantic Council

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans have become increasingly reliant upon digital tools for their very survival. Whether in digital workspaces, or online applications for essential aid through unemployment insurance and other forms of relief, Americans have depended on digital resources to get through this tumultuous time. The crisis, though, has highlighted the weakness of much of the country’s digital infrastructure for handling such transactions, particularly in the lack of sufficient forms of digital identification. Dr. David Bray spoke to Signal magazine of the AFCEA on how Canada has implemented a form of digital identification that allowed them to overcome some of the hurdles faced by the US Government as it attempted to support the population.

Building a collaborative ecosystem for AI in healthcare in Low and Middle Income Economies

By Abhinav Verma, Krisstina Rao, Vivek Eluri, and Yukti Sharma (GeoTech Guest Authors)

For AI-enabled technologies to truly transform healthcare and improve national and global health outcomes, it is imperative that cross-cutting challenges like data availability, business model sustainability, and lack of enabling infrastructure and other building blocks are addressed.

Preparing for the post-pandemic tech environment: Dr. David Bray

By Atlantic Council

Dr. David Bray, the GeoTech Center's director, envisions a future where proper preparedness and a people-centered perspective will allow humanity to harness the incredible innovations anticipated in the coming years for good. On an episode of the "Futurized" podcast with Trond Undheim, PhD, David discussed this vision, and how we at the GeoTech Center are working to make it a reality.

Extreme heat: What can be done to stop this “silent killer”?

While extreme heat is one of the planet’s clearest signals of global warming—last year was the world’s second hottest since 1880—it remains an invisible threat: a “silent killer” lurking in relatively clear view.