 Welcome to the Global Symposium for Regulators 2019 here in Port Vila, Vanuatu. We're very pleased to be joining the studio today by Chikewe Kachali, who is the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster Coordinator for the World Food Programme. Welcome to the studio. Thank you, Max. Thank you for the invitation. Okay, let's talk about, first of all, the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster. What is that exactly? That is one of the humanitarian clusters, usually meant for response. It is a grouping of organisations that come together to provide shared communications in humanitarian situations. Okay, now you organise a simulation here at the Global Symposium for Regulators. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that, what happened exactly and what it was for? There are a few different parts to that. Of course, there was quite a lot of planning that went into developing the simulation. We developed a scenario from scratch and one of the reasons we used a scenario based on a cyclone is because we thought it is a common enough phenomenon, not in a bad way, but that there would be more regulators who would be familiar with either a cyclone, a typhoon or a hurricane, which are scientifically the same except they have different names. From there, after the planning, we had to of course deliver the session. All of these months of work went into an hour of delivery. What we wanted was to get regulators thinking what their role is in disaster management. They don't normally think about that and that's probably because of how, shall we say, the telecommunications system is built. Many people think regulation is divorced from what we do every day or what we see every day, but if I give you an example in a country where say local roaming is not allowed and in the case of an emergency or a disaster, especially as we had in the scenario today, when you have an affected population moving to a place where only one mobile operator is dominant, we may need to use new techniques like local roaming and in this case, the regulator has quite a bit of say and sway. And you asked people to make decisions about what was happening in the event of a disaster, you sent them text messages, tell us just very briefly what happened exactly on that. What partly built into the design again is not just the interactivity, but I always think in cases like this, if the participants leave with at least one message, then we're fine. We only need one message. The questions that the participants voted on were because that was one way to engage them, but that was another way of getting them thinking and thirdly, that was another way of knowing what they are thinking. We gave them scenarios based on real life experience. We twisted or knew all the scenarios and the questions so that they weren't say, you couldn't identify where they came from, but they were all based on real life events and they had to make decisions. You are a regulator. This has happened. The population is waiting for information. What can you do about it? And to reiterate the answers, the multiple choice answers to the questions, there wasn't a wrong answer or a correct answer. What we wanted was the thinking. What was your thought process behind this decision? So of course it's very personal for the regulator. It's very contextual, but it's also good for training and teaching. And did this session live up to your expectations? My expectations are that the participants should leave happy. That's my benchmark. It doesn't matter what I do, but the participants need to leave happy. Most of them are happy, so yes I suppose, but there's always room for improvement. But in your personal experience, how have drones been used to support disaster management in disaster situations? Primarily, and this is a very broad answer when I say primarily, in gathering information to start with. Information is one of the most scarce things after a disaster, partly because we want to respond quickly, but based on what? In other cases, accessibility. We cannot go to these places and yet we can send a drone system. That is to underline it. It sounds simple, but to actually get that information and sometimes from the remotest places where you need to respond, it is a good technology. But as with many technologies, we're using it now. It is quite new. It hasn't quite necessarily been regulated everywhere. So of course we have to be careful as ETC, even how we use it, where we take it. And we must always ask permission because it's not just the telecoms broadcast, radiocoms regulator. Civil aviation gets involved as well. There are many more keys they call this. What are the advantages of using this technology over more traditional methods? I wouldn't say there is an advantage in one or the other. It is complementarity that is important because drones, because of their nature, can't necessarily do everything. Depending on what kind of system you use, some can carry payload, but how much payload can they carry? And some of them are light enough to just go and get information. However, at some point you still need to send some humans in to go and do something. So complementarity is key. So you were talking about drones, but unmanned? That's what it's called. Drones are the common parlance. Let's call it that. UASs, unmanned aerial systems, also known as UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, same thing. Great. So UAVs or UASs help... Drones. Drones, okay. Do they help speed up recovery in natural disasters? I believe they were used following Cyclone Pam here, for example, in Vanuatu. Yes, they were. And again, like I said, they were used also after Cyclone Idai very recently in Mozambique. Do they help to speed up recovery? That is... First, it depends on how you're defining recovery. Let's start there. And in this case, I'm not sure how we would define recovery, but it depends on how they're used. Just as with many other things, it depends on how they're used. Do we deploy them at the right time? Do we deploy them for the right purpose? Do they bring back the right information? All of those questions need to be answered. It's hard to say. Do they speed up recovery, actually? So it's not just in technology, of course, but it's the people operating them as well who have to be trained in ways of recognising what's important, what's not, etc. Yes, and of course, you have to make a... What are you sending the drone for? You don't just send the drone. What are you sending the drone for? And it should be part of a system. If the people who are running the response want certain information, if you can use a drone, if it can help, that's a good thing. The recognition of drones being vital communication tools for disaster management. How accurate do you think that statement would be? That they have become more vital or that the recognition of them... Very good question. But in principle, there's a growing recognition that they are a vital communications tool. Definitely a growing recognition that they are a vital communication tool because the drone itself can be thought of as a base, as a vehicle. There are many things you can attach to it so that you do many different things with it. So yes, there is definitely a growing recognition of their importance and their capacity to help us to respond or to do preparedness. Looking at the future of drones in emergency situations, do you think that there's going to be more of an uptake and that people will be more receptive to using drones in those situations? More of an uptake, if I was a betting person, I'd say probably yes. More receptive, I don't know. That is at so many different levels because in that more receptive, I would talk about the authorities, but I would also talk about the affected population or just the general population. I don't know if they would be collectively more receptive. Again, it depends. Absolutely. Well, thanks very much for joining us in the studio and we hopefully will catch up with you again very soon. Thank you very much, Mike. Thank you.