Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)


Call for Papers (Download CFP PDF here)

Abstracts Due: March 31, 2015

The Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC) is the flagship IEEE conference for presenting, discussing, and developing technological solutions to global humanitarian challenges. GHTC invites presenters and attendees who work to meet the needs of populations affected by poverty, disaster, conflict, environmental change, and other impacts resulting in their needs being unmet or underserved. The conference’s focus is to create and promote appropriate, sustainable, and holistic solutions to humanitarian challenges by integrating technical science with broader disciplines such as economics, policy, culture, and environment. GHTC encourages practice and research oriented engineers, scientists, and practitioners with both technical and non-technical backgrounds. We welcome a diversity of participants from academia, for-profit and non-profit business, governmental and non-governmental organizations to present research, lessons learned, case studies, ideas, and other considerations for the creation of effective humanitarian technology.

The Conference theme of “Technology for the Benefit of Humanity” is presented in eight focus areas:

  1. Energy—Electrification, renewable energy technologies, energy and power infrastructures, off-grid power, lighting, cooking, heating
  2. Health—Medical technology, telemedicine, mobile care, primary care, nutrition
  3. Disaster Management—Disaster preparedness and planning, early warning, response systems, needs analysis and assessment, community mobilization, monitoring and evaluation
  4. Connectivity & Communication—Information networks, information technologies and systems, communication technologies, social media
  5. Humanitarian Challenges & Opportunities—Logistics and transportation, security (infrastructure, information, human), shelter, interagency coordination, human-centered system design, participatory methods
  6. Water & Sanitation—Clean water, sanitation, solid waste management, vector control, drainage, hygiene
  7. Agriculture—Agricultural technologies, irrigation, farming practices
  8. Education—Training and capacity building, programs and methods, service learning

Authors may submit content in the form of a technical paper, poster, or special session (panel, workshop, or demonstration). We especially encourage the inclusion of practitioner’s case studies to be included in this year’s practitioner forum, and are seeking proposed technical challenge statements for this year’s hackathon. Please see the links below for more information.

Submission Schedule:

March 31
Abstract submissions (for all entries) and hackathon challenge statements
May 27 Complete draft submission for review (papers only)
July 16 Final copy-ready submission (papers only)
  • All submissions require an abstract for review
  • At least one author of the submission must attend and present at the conference
  • All submissions must be submitted online at www.ieeeghtc.org/author-central
  • All submissions must follow content & length guidelines available at www.ieeeghtc.org/author-central
  • Necessary revisions must be completed before final acceptance
  • Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent via email
  • International attendees are responsible for obtaining the proper visas; the conference will send a standard invitation letter on request.

Accepted and presented papers will be published and included in IEEE Xplore. Electronic media containing all accepted GHTC abstracts and papers will be distributed to registered attendees.

More information on session submission requirements and deadlines, registration for the conference, hotel reservations and exhibiting is available on the GHTC website. See this page for information on submitting hackathon challenge statements.