Geneva Geeks: Innovation and Impact US Mission to the United Nations in Geneva

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.