Brussels, 05/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - At the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Plenipotentiary Conference being held in Busan, South Korea, from 20 October to 7 November, the ITU, the mobile operators association GSMA and the Internet Society (ISOC) announced that they were joining forces in the fight against Ebola.
More particularly, the three organisations will bring together the global telecommunications and internet communities, leveraging their extensive reach, capacity and respective memberships to increase the effectiveness of information and communications technologies (ICT), especially mobile communication and the internet, for better preparedness, early warning and response.
“The ICT sector is critical in dealing with the Ebola threat. … Our immediate challenge is to ensure regulatory barriers are removed to facilitate deployment and use of telecommunications applications for the purpose of saving lives. We will focus on innovative measures to increase the effective use of communications systems and applications”, stated ITU Secretary General Dr Hamadoun I. Touré.
He urged the ministers, regulators, ambassadors, and other delegates present to ensure that all measures are taken to facilitate the effective deployment of ICTs for addressing the Ebola crisis while balancing this with the need to protect consumer privacy.
The ITU has already deployed satellite terminals to support ongoing efforts and is currently developing new applications in close cooperation and coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO). The apps are being designed to improve awareness-raising efforts, facilitate early warning alerts, report new cases of infection, and support coordination of humanitarian action at community, country and regional levels. The GSMA has led in coordinating and standardising the response of mobile operators in affected countries, and has collaborated with WHO to develop the “Ebola Mobile Response Blueprint”, which provides critical guidance for operators and regulators on running effective and best practice public health campaigns leveraging mobile technology.
ISOC has set up the Ebola TECH Response Group aimed at harnessing the expertise of its extensive tech community around the world to aid the emergency response.
Combining the resources of all three organisations will facilitate knowledge sharing and the exchange of ideas, tools and increase their accessibility to the humanitarian community, mobile operators and the general public, the ITU states. (IL)