IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - March/April 2020 - 94

Guest Editors' Introduction

Implementable Humanitarian
Technology
Xavier Fernando
Ryerson University

& IN

THE 21ST century, humanitarian crises
have become very complex in nature and affect
huge portions of the global population, not just
the marginalized, discriminated, indigenous, and
disaster/war hit communities, but also people in
so called developed and relatively rich nations.
Some of these crises are easily preventable with
appropriate technology. For example, the impact
of the 2014 tsunami that killed more than 275,000
in 14 countries across two continents could have
been much less with a warning system.
Some other issues need long term solutions.
At least half of the world's population cannot
afford essential health services, according to
the 2017 report from the World Health Organization. The biggest concern is the access to
health professionals where remote healthcare
can be a blessing. The United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization estimates that about
815 million people, or 10.7% of the world population, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2016.
Poverty and denial of basic resources leads
to suicides. National Crime Records Bureau of
India reported that a total 296,438 Indian farmers
had committed suicide from 1995 to 2019 due to
poverty. Just in 2012, approximately 804,000

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCE.2019.2953792
Date of current version 7 February 2020.

2162-2248 ß 2019 IEEE

people in the world died by suicide due to lack
of hope in life. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than 130 people in the
United States die after overdosing on opioids
every day, which is another indication of failure
in the social system.
The list of heart-breaking statistics of humanitarian issues is very long. These staggering statistics show that large scale, feasible, and
implementable measures need to be taken systematically to address these issues. Some, if not
all, of these sufferings can be alleviated using
the technology.
A Humanitarian Engineer can be a student,
academic or professional from multiple disciplinary backgrounds, who harness a concern for
global humanitarian crises with their unique
expertise and skill. Together they collaboratively
research, analyze and engineer holistic, innovative solutions for this issue. The IEEE is recently
focusing much needed widespread attention on
humanitarian issues. One example is the annual
Global Humanitarian Technology Conference,
which is followed by many regional conferences
such as the IHTC Canada and HTC Sri Lanka.
Also, to contribute to this noble cause, IEEE
Consumer Electronics Magazine has issued this
Special Section on Implementable Humanitarian
Technology. Only three articles were accepted for
this Special Section after a very thorough review
process. The first article describes a unique

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IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - March/April 2020

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