Shri Kiren Rijiju inaugurated the 'India Disaster Response Summit', organised jointly by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Facebook, on how best to leverage social media platforms to 'prepare, respond and recover' for, during and after a disaster.
Calling it a great example of execution on the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's ten-point agenda on Disaster Management, which has clearly listed harnessing technological innovations to create a culture of disaster resilience in the country, Shri Rijiju said, the world is moving towards partnerships, where people are proactively partnering with the Government in responding to disasters.
This partnership is a benchmark and first of its kind - GoI are the first Government to partner with Facebook on disaster response.
Shri Rijiju also invited other technology companies to create tailored solutions for disaster-related challenges.
Disaster Information Volunteers (DIV) programme, wherein a network of trained volunteers would provide supplementary information on disasters in their local communities to assist Government relief efforts through the Facebook Workplace platform, was introduced.
The programme will be piloted in two disaster prone states - Assam and Uttarakhand, he added. Facebook will now share its disaster maps, developed using aggregated, de-identified data, with NDMA.
These maps can aid swift disaster response by providing real-time, actionable information.
