Now in its seventh year, the conference will be hosted in Africa for the first time by the University of Pretoria Gordon Institute of Business Science and co-organized by Georgia Tech, INSEAD, MIT and Northeastern University. The mission of the conference is to stimulate innovation and build capacity to manage global health and humanitarian supply chains around the world. It brings together high level speakers from across the health and humanitarian sectors, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), industry, government, etc. Discussions will focus on the role of logistics in areas such as disaster response, health systems and food security as well as highlight the unique logistical challenges for humanitarian response and long-term development in Africa. You are welcome to email your ideas for panel themes, workshop topics, and potential speakers/facilitators to humlogconf@gatech.edu. For a listing of panel topics and associated workshops, view the conference agenda.

The conference is intended to be highly interactive, where participants will have ample time to discuss different view points rather than simply listening to speakers. In many conferences, even if there is time for participants to ask questions, only a handful speak up. Therefore we have adapted the conference agenda to allow for various kinds of interaction. For instance, panel speakers will give brief presentations, allowing plenty of time for participants to discuss the topics amongst those at their tables. A representative from each table will then direct a summary statement back to the panel with one or two resulting questions or challenges.

There will be a number of break-out workshops of small groups of participants led by experts in a given topic. These sessions will focus on discussion and exchange, allowing for different participants to share their views and make connections with each other. Following the workshops, a final plenary discussion will summarize the conclusions from the various workshops and the panel will discuss outcomes and potential action steps to move the agenda forward following the conference.