By Thomas Roca, Bessie Schwarz
According to the United Nations, 250 million people are affected by flooding every year — many of these people lose their livelihoods and their lives. The number of people threatened by flooding and its impact on gross domestic product will double by 2030, creating disaster damage that the world is simply not prepared to handle. Many communities and governments living in the path of today’s and tomorrow’s floods do not even have insufficient information about the risks the disasters pose.
These unprecedented threats need to be matched by unprecedented tools. Operationalizing global climate agreements and preparing the world for unprecedented physical, social and economic challenges requires equally transformational, fast, efficient and scalable methods. Young innovators and “hacktivists” from unexpected sectors are unlocking a world of data — new and old — to invent new ways of empowering society from the community to the international scale.