Disasters are often unavoidable. Whether it be natural disasters devastating geographical areas, greed-fuelled crimes against humanity or accidents caused by human error or negligence, the imminent threat to both our lives and our livelihoods remain constant. It is most often in the midst of inexplicable misfortune, unfair circumstances and unimaginable hardships that both the determination and ingenuity of the human spirit perseveres, fuelling disaster recovery efforts in response to the desperate and urgent need to assist in both the rebuilding of personal lives and communities. Technology has undoubtedly played a major role in aiding disaster recovery efforts in recent times by not only harnessing it’s capabilities on the ground, but by allowing the world outside of the devastated areas to unite through the worldwide communication offered by the internet to assist in the rescue and rebuilding efforts instantly and more effectively than ever before. This has been particularly evident in the world’s response to the recent devastating earthquake that struck Nepal last month.
How Tech Firms Are Getting Involved
Many tech firms have used the collaborative potential of their social platforms to allow people from around the world as well as in the devastated areas to engage in communication with each other to offer assistance in the disaster recovery efforts. Here are some of the firms that are making a difference:
- Facebook has set up a donations page and has pledged to match donations received up to two million dollars to aid in the disaster recovery efforts and rebuilding of the country as well as offering a safety check application which, when used by a Facebook user, lets the friends of the user know that they are safe on their newsfeeds.
- Google, via its person finder tool, assists in tracking people who are thought to be missing, or to verify the safety of friends and family.
- Apple has set up an American Red Cross donations page via its ITunes store while LinkedIn, in partnership with The Network for Good have set up various donation pages on their platform, allowing for instantaneous donations to be made to aid in disaster recovery efforts on the ground.
Preparation for Disasters is Vital
The consequences of disasters and their aftermath affect not only the lives of people, but their livelihoods as well. It is vital that organizations prepare themselves thoroughly for any threat that could risk disrupting its operation or survival as a whole. This means that vital company data must be protected from all threats, whether it be a potential natural disaster, hardware malfunction or basic human error. A thorough disaster recovery plan that emphasizes both business continuity by ensuring that data is secured and protected regularly as well as disaster recovery, which allows for the organization to resume trading as soon as possible after a catastrophic event is critical for the survival of any organization.
Partnerships are Vital in Disaster Recovery Efforts
The recent disaster recovery efforts that have harnessed the benefits of technology to assist in the recovery efforts have proved successful when both organisations as well as people have partnered together, the general population and network of concerned people worldwide alongside trained experts in their field on the ground working side by side. The same principle applies to disaster recovery. By partnering with disaster recovery services experts, organizations have the advantage of implementing disaster recovery plans that are tried and tested, flexible and suit the needs of the business directly. Attix5 offers a range of business continuity solutions as well as disaster recovery services that seamlessly integrate together to form disaster recovery solutions that protect the vital data of any organization, ensuring that day to day operational data is protected while the ability to fully recover from a catastrophic disaster is not compromised. Their innovative data protection solutions and one-of-a-kind recovery technologies provide safe and secure data protection offering FIPS compliant encryption combined with industry leading data patching and storage techniques, while their revolutionary VirtualRestore feature ensures that disaster recovery is always achieved optimally. The landscape of disaster recovery is rapidly changing, and via the use of progressive technology, people are able to respond to disasters and aid in the recovery efforts more efficiently than ever before.
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