Geneva Geeks: Innovation and Impact

Guests: Nancy Izzo-Jackson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Populations, Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State Asia Ayaki Ito, Deputy Director of Asia Bureau, The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Boris Michel, Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Our episode featuring UNHCR, ICRC, and the U.S. Department of State focuses on how Geneva is leading efforts to support refugees in crisis around the world. Our guests talk about the growing challenges for those working to meet the needs of people flee conflict and persecution, the rate of which has surpassed World War Two levels. They shared examples of successes driven by a transformation shift in how we perceive the rights and agency of refugees to assimilate and create new lives. Lastly, we discussed efforts to ensure that no child is born stateless and the rules around how one becomes legally a citizen of a nation. The Geneva Geeks team couldn’t stop thinking about our collective responsibility to do on to others as we would want done to ourselves; and how Geneva is the hub for putting that value into action.

Guests: Veronika Bard, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Sweden to the United Nations in Geneva Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, Founder/ Executive Director, Women@TheTable Michael Møller, Director-General, United Nations Office at Geneva This episode features the Geneva’s role in founding the International Gender Champions – a leadership network that brings together female and male decision-makers to break down gender barriers. Anchored in International Geneva, the collective actions of executive leadership have a global impact on work culture and the integration of gender parity across sectors and around the world. Together committed leaders will generate momentum at the highest levels to champion meaningful change and facilitate strong cross-cutting links for the greatest possible impact. All International Gender Champions: • Sign the IGC Panel Parity Pledge to strive for gender parity in all discussions. • Undertake two additional SMART commitments that can be accomplished in one year to advance gender equality, either in the executive management of the organization or in programmatic work. The Geneva Geeks team couldn’t stop thinking about the unleashed potential of connecting leadership with activists around the world to make the dream of equal opportunity for all a reality.

Guests Part 1: Vinesh Kapil, Saving Lives At Birth, USAID Jocelyn Brown, Medical Device Innovator, 3rd Stone Design Mary-Carmel Kearney, Medical Device Innovator, Queen’s University School of Pharmacy Part 2: Kelly Thompson, Gender Advisor, Women in Global Health Sharmila Anand, Managing Director, Social Enterprise Empowering Healthcare Professionals (SEHPL) Samalie Kitooleko, Nurse and Researcher, Uganda’s Rheumatic Heart Disease Registry This week Geneva Geeks is a two-part episode about the innovation and collaboration that is central to the 70th World Health Assembly taking place in Geneva this week. The first half of the podcast features the work being done to invent medical devices that expand the possibilities of care in low resources settings. The second half of the podcast features the women honored at this year’s Heroines of Health award ceremony. The Geneva Geeks team couldn’t stop thinking about the unleashed potential of connecting global leaders shaping health policy with the people working on the edge of innovation and in difficult environments to ensure we all can realize the dream of living healthy.

Guests: Barbara Ryan, Secretariat Director of the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Steven Ramage, Head of External Relations for GEO Denis McClean, Head of Communications, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Our episode featuring GEO and UNISDR focuses on Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction, putting global earth observation data to work, and the successes in this field over the past year. Such as, GEOGLAM, a new initiative that is strengthening global agricultural monitoring to improve the use of remote sensing tools for crop production projections and weather forecasting. The Geneva Geeks team couldn’t stop thinking about the unleashed potential of connecting the imagery and earth observation data collected around the world to the communities that need it in order to plan for disasters and pursue more prosperous lives.

Guests: Scott Foster, Director, Sustainable Energy Division, UNECE Ivonne Higuero, Director, Forests, Land and Housing Division, UNECE Torstein Indrebø, Secretary General, International Gas Union Geneva was hosting the Group of Experts on Gas, which examines the critical role of gas in achieving sustainable and clean production, distribution and consumption of natural gas in Europe and North America. Their Task Forces focus on: · Best practice guidance on reducing methane emissions along the gas value chain; · Best practice guidance on the role of natural gas in increasing the uptake of renewable energy; · Best practice guidance for liquefied natural gas; and, · Recommendations on removing barriers to the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel. The week we recorded the podcast our guests were gathered at the 4th session addressing challenges gas poses by methane emissions. The findings of the workshop will be used as the building blocks for the best practice guidance on methane emissions.

Our special guests for this episode were Andre Tinoco Mendes, Steven Goldfard, Achintya Rao from CERN. We talked about why the work at the world’s leading collaborative council for nuclear research makes a difference in the world, paid our respects to the recently passed Vera Rubin, noted some of the successes of 2016, and they gave a nod to the work that others are doing around the world they found inspiring.

Intro to our new podcast series on Geneva as a hub for innovation. Each week experts from around the world gather here, along with industry leaders based here, to negotiate the best practices for the future. Each episode will be unique and feature our favorite geeks whose passion for their work has inspired us. The discussions will explore different rabbit holes in areas of trade, health, humanitarian responses, human rights, science and technology.