Disaster Response Expert Gisli Olafsson

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: World renown disaster response expert, Gisli Olafsson to speak at Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Remembrance Event. Olafsson is the Emergency Response Director of NetHope and author of “The Crisis Leader,” and is considered as a disaster experts, expert. Gisli has over 15 years of experience in the field of disaster management, and is the Emergency Response Director of NetHope, an organization that uses information communication technology to help humanitarian organizations like the United Nations, International Federation of Red Cross, World Bank, USAID and NATO respond to natural and human-caused disasters. http://youtu.be/c3FmozRenhE Gisli is a member of the UN’s Disaster Assessment and Coordination team, a team of experienced disaster managers that can deploy anywhere in the world on 6-hours notice to coordinate the first response of the international community to disasters on behalf of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Gisli was a team leader for Iceland’s international Urban Search and Rescue team (ICE-SAR) after the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 and has served as part of Iceland’s National Search and Rescue Command. Locally, Gisli was a lead member of King County’s Emergency Operation Centre’s Support team and took part in coordinating over 100 disaster management and SAR incidents. In recent years Gisli has participated in disaster field missions in connections with floods in Ghana (2007), Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (2008), Hurricane Ike in Texas (2008), Sichuan Earthquake (2008), Pandemic Outbreak (2009), West Sumatra Earthquake (2009), Haiti Earthquake (2010), Japan Earthquake/Tsunami (2011) and Horn of Africa famine (2011).