Hermit Crabs

For decades, sheltering for millions of refugees, displaced and disaster affected population has been solved by tents or improvised shelters. They have seen only marginal improvements in this time. Several initiatives seek to improve safety in these vulnerable situations. Using mesh structures for energy and information distribution can improve the services available in humanitarian shelters, offering new levels of safety, education & productivity.

Project Team

Gaiane Azizyan

Gaia is a software engineer currently working in the payments industry in Stockholm. She has a background in mathematics and has worked in a variety of fields, from telecommunications to robotics. She has a passion for space exploration, literature, and languages (both programming and the human kind). She spends her spare time dabbling with art projects and writing a neverending novel about a parallel universe full of wonders and magic.

Giovanni Sgobaro

Giovanni designs and facilitates processes that help people in organisations and groups evolve and meet their challenges. He analyses and researches social and organizational systems and dynamics. His experience across sectors allows him to understand and integrate different perspectives, purposes and practices. He has worked in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, and did research in Latin America. He holds a Master in International Development, studied System Approaches to Managing change and is a certified NLP practitioner. He loves nature, exploration and expression in all their forms.

Gonzalo Beviglia

Gonzalo is a young engineer from Argentina, currently performing as a manager for one of the hottest startups of his country. Trying to disrupt the dining industry, he performs as an engineering manager for the SaaS proposal of the company. He recently got second place in a NYU organized hackathon in Abu Dhabi, by developing a chatbot that acted as a personal assistant for refugees in the middle east.

Guillaume Charron

Guillaume Charron is the Geneva director for Independent Diplomat. A former humanitarian worker with extensive experience in the Middle East, Mr. Charron has had first hand experience of most of the recent armed conflicts in the region including Iraq, Darfur and Syria. Guillaume Charron’s expertise includes the humanitarian implications of the war in the Middle East. He has written numerous papers on the causes and effects of displacement and presented papers at a number conferences and meetings on Force displacement.

Juan Vega

As a constant seeker of tools to evolve design skills, iñaki, as people knows him, is engaged in acts of art, architecture, science and research by working across multiple disciplines, from mechanical eng. for HEP up to participatory design with local communities in the development of their neighborhood. He likes sharing his skills to contribute to a happy society, he believes that any little change could make the difference, so if a design can show that, maybe a seed is planted. His views Design as an holistic field that allows him to apply knowledge acquired from different disciplines.

Monika Korzeniewska

Master’s student in management of technology and entrepreneurship. Currently also intern at Toilet Board Coalition, platform for business-led solutions for sanitation.

Nastaran Fazeli

Nastaran was born and raised in Tehran, where she received her BSc in Industrial engineering from the Azad university of Tehran. Her fascination for science and physics took her to Leipzig, Germany where she got her BSc in Physics. Currently she is pursuing her PhD in Astrophysics at the university of Cologne. She is studying the circumnuclear region of galaxies where the super massive blackholes reside. Living in the international environments made her realize her interest in learning about new cultures, languages and food.

Peter Schioler

Peter is a Danish engineer working with knowledge tech at the Norwegian Refugee Council in Oslo. He is passionate about innovative ICT solutions to eliminating/reducing previously chronical problems causing human suffering and/or holding back socio economic development. Peter is currently leading the development of a new enterprise social network for NRC’s 1000 external humanitarian experts spread across the globe. Peter has previously worked with the UN and EU in the field of ICTs for development. He loves the outdoors and often spend nights in Norwegian mountain shelters called Gapahuks!

Phoebe Oriama

Phoebe is currently studying Electrical and Electronics engineering. She has particular interest in embedded systems and hardware programming. Social innovation is one of the main reasons she uses engineering and innovation as a tool. She is currently working with Gearbox and Fedha Electrics on different projects in Kenya that include developing and automation of systems that improve the lives of communities.

Ravi Shankar Amudha

Amudha is an architect & urban planner from India. She is a freelance GIS Consultant in Geneva. She had been part of crowd sourced attempt on mapping during the Chennai floods and Nepal earthquake. As an urban planner in India and Libya, she had been part of Disaster Management plans, master Plans and Traffic operational plans. As a volunteer and project assistant she was involved in content development of the CORE Humanitarian Training material in a NGO in Geneva and had assisted the GIS and Data Team of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative & Ebola Response, WHO, Geneva.

Réka Farkas

Réka is a risk management professional with a relentless passion for untangling knots and linking old with new. In her work at UNHCR she looks at countless “what ifs”, to make sure there is a plan for the unexpected. She is excited to help people move forward by speculating about the future. She has lived and worked in Hungary, Australia, Canada, Uganda and is now based in Switzerland. With a soft spot for understanding tradition, she can easily translate between people and cultures.

Virginia Azzolini

Virginia is a particle physicist working for MIT at CERN Laboratory. When she is not busy in caring about the quality of the CERN data, she collaborates with CERN education group to share curiosity and disseminate love for science with a wider audience.