'Phase-free' design builds disaster preparedness into everyday life Tadayuki Sato, representative director of the Phase Free Association, has introduced the phase-free concept in a bid to seamlessly integrate disaster preparedness with everyday life and business operations. A ball-point pen that can write on a wet piece of paper is an example of everyday goods that fit the phase-free concept. Fifteen years after the devastating March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Japan is seeing growing momentum behind phase-free design, a new approach to disaster preparedness that integrates emergency functionality into everyday items. As major quakes have continued to strike various parts of Japan, Tadayuki Sato, representative director of the Phase Free Association, recognized the limitations of traditional disaster preparedness. Conventional approaches, led primarily by government bodies and focused on stockpiling specialized emergency supplies, were falling short. Around 2014, he introduced the phase-free concept in a bid to seamlessly integrate disaster preparedness with everyday life and business operations.

Imagine a hurricane has just devastated your town – and flattened your home. Before you could even begin to consider rebuilding, you'd wait weeks – or even months – for a property assessor just to visit to take a look at the damage, let alone unlock the funds you need to get back on your feet. But what if you could take pictures of the damage on the day of the hurricane, using your smartphone, and upload them – and when your insurer receives them, they deposit the funds into your bank account on the same day? If this sounds like the future, it's not – it's happening now. Real-world impact In September 2021, we at Tractable launched our estimating technology for the home, in Japan.

Over the past several decades, climate change has led to major disasters in Eastern Africa countries including Tanzania. From floods, chronic droughts, landslides, strong winds and earthquakes to their secondary impacts of diseases and epidemics, these are some of the recent disasters plaguing Tanzania. These disasters lead to death and displacement of people, loss of properties and livelihoods, disruption of social networks and services such as water, food, and healthcare thereby leaving communities more vulnerable and susceptible to the next extreme event. Lack of disaster preparedness and awareness makes the situation worse as communities remain helpless in the event of disasters hence face its full impact. Combining citizen science and modern technological innovation provides an opportunity to build the resilience of communities and reduce risks.