IRDR is pleased to announce that its DATA working group will lead 2 sessions on the 23rd CODATA International Conference—Open Data and Information for a Changing Planet, which will be held on 31 October – 2 November, 2012 in Taipei, China.

These 2 sessions are scheduled on October 31, identified respectively as Session H1 (11:00-12:30) and Session I2 (13:30-1500) on CODATA International Conference (Program can be found at http://www.codata.org/Taipei/official-program.html), aiming to bring IRDR and its DATA project to the data stakeholders to increase its transparency to the boarder community. Moreover, they are orientated to touch the baseline of current status of the global disaster loss database, address the importance of data in disaster assessment, and identify gaps and needs of disaster loss database at different scales from different perspectives.

The sessions are also part of the 1st Expert Meeting of IRDR DATA working group, which will be succeeded in the following 2 days (1-2 November) to discuss about roles, possible approaches, and project plans for IRDR to improve the disaster data landscape, standards, terminology, and other technical aspects with regard to disaster impact assessments.

For more information about IRDR DATA working group, please visit: (http://www.irdrinternational.org/about-irdr/scientific-committee/working-group/disaster-loss-data/)