Webcast lecture on public health and disasters draws record audience

From Stanford Magazine, JULY / AUGUST 2006
Class Notes

"... Eric Noji, a physician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, delivered a lecture on the public health consequences of disasters, at the U. of Pittsburgh's main campus on September 29. However, this wasn't an ordinary lecture delivered to a packed auditorium of scholars and students. Eric's lecture was Webcast around the world. It was expected to reach more than 1.5 million viewers, the largest academic lecture in history. Instead they had more than 3 million! Unfortunately, this exceeded the number of global access portals the university and its 12 global telecommunication partners had anticipated. Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, '65, was at Eric's lecture and managed to wirelessly contact several friends around the world who opened up enough additional access points to allow another 50,000 viewers to log on—just 10 minutes late..."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• disaster
• public health
• epidemiology
• Hurricane Katrina
• prevention
• preparedness
• planning
• mitigation
• response
• recovery
• reconstruction