Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2011 about Disaster Relief

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Sunday 13th March 2011

• Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Transparency: New Success Standards

  by Patrick Quinlan

  As the country continues to struggle with the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the damage has again elevated the importance of requiring businesses to operate in an eco-friendly, socially responsible manner. Sure, more corporations are focusing on social responsibility and sustainability, but are they really making a difference? According to a recent international survey in Corporate Responsibility Magazine, nearly 70% of companies surveyed admitted they couldn’t measure the impact of their "green" initiatives.

  The sustainability movement is gaining momentum every day, but the harsh reality is that in order to be globally adopted, there must be a way to review and reconcile the demand for sustainability with the requirement for profitability. The solution? Sustainability reporting that integrates financial and non-financial data to deliver a more complete view of the business. Reporting that connects corporate financial performance with corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) behavior. Reporting that delivers a holistic view of the business to improve information transparency and traceability for every stakeholder.

  Learn more about the news standards being developed to create integrated sustainability and financial reports to give a clear picture of a company's overall performance.

  LEVEL: Beginner

  • Disaster Relief
  • Sustainability

  At 5:00pm to 6:00pm, Sunday 13th March

  In Room 10AB, Austin Convention Center

Monday 14th March 2011

• SOS - Can Citizen Alerts Be Trusted?

  by Jonathan Gosier, Keren Flavell, Patrick Meier and Robert Kirkpatrick

  The growth of open source crisis mapping tools and social media networks have given rise to community driven disaster preparation and response. These systems harness the power of mass collaboration to provide real time, predictive and expansive information from a human data stream far more quickly than emergency agencies. To date, we have seen such networks come to life after the Mexico Gulf oil spill, the earthquakes in Haiti, China and Chile and during the Australian bushfires. How effective have peer to peer alerts been in assisting or preventing suffering and damage? What have been the pitfalls and challenges of such systems? This panel will discuss how government agencies are responding to crowd-sourced crisis information; raise issues about the legal implications of user-contributed data; reveal how well the broader community has been involved with web2.0 tools for the rapid transfer of life saving insight; and cover latest developments in validation and filtering systems.

  LEVEL: Beginner

  • Crisis Response
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Disaster Relief

  At 11:00am to 12:00pm, Monday 14th March

  In TX Ballroom 5-7, Hyatt Regency Austin