Opening Keynote - Dr Ed Blakely

Dr. Edward J. Blakely is the Professor of Urban Policy at the United States Studies Centre, Sydney, Australia.  He was appointed by the Mayor of New Orleans in 2007 as Executive Director for Recovery.  His post included coordinating all aspects of the City and Parish’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

He reported directly to the Mayor and has coordinating responsibilities for the use of all City resources to accomplish this task. Dr. Blakely also Chaired the Reference Panel for the Sydney Metropolitan Plan.  Prior to this post he held head of Faculty positions at several leading US universities.  In 2003, the University of California Riverside dedicated a new Center for Suburban Sustainable Development in honor of Professor Blakely.

Dr. Blakely has been an advisor to local and regional governments in the Caribbean, Mexico, Australia, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, the Sudan, Korea , Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand, Vietnam and most recently China, India, Turkey, Russia and Armenia.

With international expertise in many areas, Dr Blakely will discuss the implications of levels of community resilience upon planning and governance.

 

Keynote - Patrick Meier

Patrick Meier is the Director of Crisis Mapping at Ushahidi and the co-founder of the International Network of Crisis Mappers. At Ushahidi, Patrick recently launched and spearheaded high-profile deployments in Haiti and Chile. He was previously the co-director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative’s (HHI) Program on Crisis Mapping and Early Warning. Patrick has consulted for numerous international organizations including the UN, OSCE and OECD on crisis mapping and early warning projects in countries ranging from the Sudan and Thailand to East Timor and Colombia. Patrick has an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University and is completing his PhD at The Fletcher School/Tufts University. He is also an alum of the Sante Fe Institute's (SFI) Complex Systems Summer School. Patrick blogs at iRevolution.net

 

View Program as PDF