“Use new technologies to change the world”. That was Steve Jobs’ motto and goal. All his life long, Apple’s creator hired his time, talent and energy to help and follow the society’s evolutions. Notebooks, iPod, iPhone and more recently iPad, among other creations, have turned customs and interpersonal relations upside down.
A genius left us yesterday night, someone who was the first to walk on the “e-responsibility’s” path. “Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.” declared Mark Zuckerberg one hour after his death’s announcement. In the manner of Facebook’s creator, a new generation of web managers is taking over Apple’s boss.
Besides, this very week, Facebook measured up, when deciding to relay the French Amber Alert on its member’s pages. This proposition that I had formulated 7 months ago in a French daily newspaper, Le Figaro, was finally accepted by the social network. This decision will enable the 25 millions French Facebook members to help spreading the news and description of kidnapped children.
In my universe, humanitarian action and human rights defense ones, I do my best to use news technologies’ full potential to help victims of natural disasters. In that purpose I initiated the creation of the French Amber Alert, called “Alerte enlèvement”, when I was State Secretary for Victims’ Rights, and then its extension to Facebook.
It is also in this perspective that the Red Helmets Foundation, whom I am President for, conceived a humanitarian satellite telecommunications container. It can restore communication and data exchange between rescue teams, which is crucial to organize and coordinate humanitarian aid. This tool was already used in Chad, in refugee’s camps in Darfur and Haiti, after January’s earthquake. Last project backed up by the Foundation, MISSING.NET, a global missing person search engine, made with a partnership with Google and which was used during the Japanese catastrophe.
Steve Jobs was deeply convinced that « people who are mad enough to assume they can change the world are usually the ones who do it ». To be continued.
Nicole Guedj
