Book Title: Information and Communication Technologies for Humanitarian Services

Book Editor: Dr. Muhammad Nazrul Islam (Military Institute of Science and Technology, Bangladesh)

Publisher: The Institution of Engineering and Technology (the IET) http://www.theiet.org/
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Dear Professor/Researcher,
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (The IET) has contracted me to edit this new edited book project (to be published both in print and electronic).
Outline for the book content: The motivation for this project stemmed from the fact that there are currently no in-depth books dedicated to the topic of Information and Communication Technologies for Humanitarian Services. Humanitarian services are generally concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare. Their primary purpose is to save lives, maintain human dignity, alleviate sufferings, prevent and strengthen preparedness, provide material or logistical assistance in response to humanitarian crises including man made crises and disasters caused by natural hazards. The humanitarian service is thus different from the development aid, which mainly seeks to address the underlying socioeconomic factors and provides support for the social, economic and political development of developing nations over the long term. Humanitarian services influence the population around the world, and this, in turn, leads to making a better world. Nowadays, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are becoming the backbone to provide quality and efficient services, and are playing an increasingly important and more sophisticated role in humanitarian-service activities involving health care, social welfare, anti-war, poverty, ageing society, women empowerment, and disaster aid management. Thus, ICTs are not only changing the world but also the humanitarian world by providing direct aid to capacity building, empowerment, assessment, and the like. In an era of ever increasing humanitarian disasters and constantly evolving digital technology, ICTs play a vital role for the delivery, quality and efficiency of humanitarian services. Many ICT-based solutions exist such as tools to support the work of humanitarian organizations, mobile applications and electronic and mobile solutions to provide health services, open source web portals for disaster management systems, and robotic devices to provide assistance to special need people. Since the world continuously faces humanitarian disasters, there is an ever increasing need to find ICT-based solutions to overcome complex problems or solutions. In other words, though ICTs have changed the lives of people at the operative level, many ICTs contributions are yet to be uncovered in humanitarian service.

The book editor plans to include contributions on new developments, ideas, innovations, and research outcomes, case studies of ground implementation and lessons learned, and other considerations focusing on ICTs uses in humanitarian services for the resource-constrained and vulnerable populations in the world in order to improve their lives. This may include, for example, IT applications to foster information exchange, networking, and cooperation in the humanitarian and emergency management fields; the exploration and innovation of ICTs solutions for vulnerable communities; the impact of ICTs solutions on billions of disadvantaged people around the world; and enabling technologies in support of humanitarian principles and ways of operating.

Target Audience: The main target audience are ICTs students, scientists, engineers, professionals, and researchers with the aim to draw special attention to the societal expectation on humanitarian technologies’ ability to provide practical and lasting solutions. It will also be of interest to Policymakers, entrepreneurs, and researchers from across government, non-government and industry organizations with the aim to draw special attention to ICTs for humanitarian services.

We have included a tentative schedule and list of topics below. We would like to invite you to join this exciting project as a chapter contributor. You are welcome to suggest another topic/chapter title if you feel it would be more suitable. Each chapter should be around 20-25 pages each, and can be submitted as a Word or Latex File. The IET will send you additional information (templates, formatting, permission form, etc.) with the contributor's agreement once you have agreed to contribute to the book. The book is expected to have a total number of 350-400 pages printed pages (based on approximately 550 words per page with a 20% allowance for figures and tables). If this is something you would consider, please send the title of your chapter, a short description/abstract of the chapter content, and your full contact details within 25 February 2019 to the editor (by e-mail).

We will expect original content for this book with new material and results, not older already or soon to be published papers and chapters. You can of course reuse published material but the percentage of material reuse for the chapter should be less than 40%. The IET will run a piracy software on the full manuscript to control that you are including original material and will reject large amount of material that have already been published so please take this into consideration when writing your chapter.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any queries. We very much look forward to working with you towards the successful publication of this new book.

With thanks and best regards,

Dr. Muhammad Nazrul Islam
Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Military Institute of Science and Technology
Dhaka 1216, Bangladesh.
E-mail : nazrul@cse.mist.ac.bd
Web: http://cse.mist.ac.bd/employees/major-dr-muhammad-nazrul-islam/

From the IET: Val Moliere, Senior Commissioning Book Editor, T: +34 - 971 738 618 (Central European Time), Email: vmoliere@theiet.org, the IET, Michael Faraday House, Six Hills Way, Stevenage, SG1 2AY, UK
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Proposed Schedule:
Call for authors: 18 November 2018
Chapter abstract submission: Nov 2018 – Feb 2019
Notification of chapter abstract acceptance: within two weeks of abstract submission
First draft chapter submission to book editors: Sept 2019
Editors to review chapters: Sept/Oct 2019
Corrections and final chapter submission: Nov/Dec 2019
Final chapter acceptance notification: 31 Dec 2019
Review of proofs by authors and editors (approx. 3 months after full manuscript delivery): Apr 2020
Publication: (Approx. 6 months after manuscript delivery): Jul/Aug 2020
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Tentative TOC/List of topics

While the general theme of the book is ICTs for Humanitarian Services, the recommended topics include, but are not limited to the development and evaluation of ICTs based applications, theoretical deliberations, comparative studies, case studies and recent accomplishments across all aspects of ICT technologies that have a global humanitarian impact on or focuses on: health care - social welfare - women and child safety – refugees - poverty alleviation - special needs and autistic people - disaster management - sustainability and environment - women empowerment - humanitarian law - human rights - anti-war – famines and other humanitarian aspects. Thus the tentative chapters would be (but not limited to):
• ICTs and Its Impact on Humanitarian Service
• Connectivity and Communications Technologies for Humanitarian Service
• ICTs in Disaster Mitigation, Relief, and Recovery
• Technologies for Sustainable Educational Programs Related to Humanity
• Mobile Health, Medical Technology and Telemedicine in Humanitarian Crises
• Technologies for Agriculture Improvement
• ICTs for Refugee Identity, Management, Safety and Security
• Technologies for the Disabled and/or Aged Population
• Social Media for Community Engagement and Building Resilience
• Humanitarian Robotics and Drones
• Privacy and Security Challenges in the Humanitarian Space
• Challenges and Opportunities of Adopting and Adapting ICTs in Humanitarian Sectors