Mobile phone technologies for disaster risk reduction

The explosion of increasingly sophisticated mobile phone technologies can usefully be harnessed by disaster risk reduction (DRR) as a means enhancing inclusivity and local relevance knowledge production resilience building. However, much new technology is designed on an ad hoc basis without considering user needs – especially applications (apps), which often terminate at the proof-of-concept stage. Here, we examine best practice marshalling learnings from 45 workers representing 20 organisations working globally across management (DRM) lifecycle, including physical social science, NGOs, technological developers, (inter)governmental regulatory bodies. We present series generalisable scalable guidelines that are novel in being independent any specific natural hazard or development setting, to maximise positive societal impact exploiting technologies. Specifically, context, dynamics, must carefully interrogated priori, while product should ideally co-developed with stakeholders through user-centered design approach.