Today, I receive a brief introduction of our Plenary Speaker. His name is Mr. Srinivasa Popuri, who will deliver us the speech under the topic of ‘Smart Cities for the Blind in Modern Society’. His current position is the Senior Human Settlements Officer of UN-Habitat.
Mr.Srinivasa Popuri has worked over 28 years in the field of human settlements advancing Habitat agenda. Of these, over 22 years with United Nations in several countries in Asia and the Pacific after his service over for 5 years with Government of India and International Organisations.
The main goal of his work is for improving living standards of the people by advocating national governments in adapting right policies to enable the poor to gain their rights to land, shelter and services. With UN-Habitat he has had the opportunity to achieve this mission and to do some meaningful work in the field of urban development, poverty reduction through community driven development and safer human settlements. His contributions have been realized in some sound urban services and development,
disaster risk reduction policies in several countries in Asia and the Pacific. These include Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, India, Iran, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Timor-Leste, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines and Solomon Islands.
As head of UN-Habitat in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Maldives, he spearheaded the “people’s process” of post crisis (conflict and natural disasters)
recovery and reconstruction efforts. His efforts in making the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) mainstreamed into housing and infrastructure has been recognized regionally and by the highest political authorities in Myanmar.
Since September 2012, he has been assigned as Senior Human Settlements Officer based in Fukuoka, Japan in overseeing programmes of UN-Habitat in Asia and the Pacific countries.