We develop and implement
effective human security systems
Creating Safer Futures
ihs
We’re a private-sector “profit-for-purpose” corporation specializing in the humanitarian sciences
Our grantors, affiliates, partners, and friends...
Our Staff:
Eric Rasmussen
CEO
Gregg Nakano
Regional Coordinator
Pacific Islands
Scott Paul
Executive Director
Kwajalein Atoll Sustainability Laboratory
Ebeye Town, Kwajalein
Republic of the Marshall Islands
Daniel Ascencio
Regional Coordinator
Latin America and the Caribbean
Jessica Block
Technical Director, Disaster Response
Associate Director, WIFIRE Lab
San Diego Supercomputer Center
University of California - San Diego
We work in slums, in refugee camps, in natural disasters, and in isolated communities far from conventional infrastructure.
A little context
Since 1950, the world's population has nearly tripled to more than eight billion people, with the majority now living in cities. At the same time, climate change has contributed to an increase in extreme weather events across the globe. Never before have so many been at such great environmental risk. According to the World Bank, "loss and damages from disasters have been rising over the last three decades, from an annual average of around $50 billion in the 1980s to just under $200 billion each year in the last decade." Tallied another way, an estimated 2.5 million people have lost their lives from natural disasters over the last 30 years and hundreds of millions more have had their lives disrupted. IHS helps address those growing threats through direct work on the ground.
Our Work
Infinitum Humanitarian Systems (IHS) is a Washington State "profit-for-purpose" corporation specializing in vulnerability reduction for systems and populations. We work with a range of partners to analyze the disaster risks within informal settlements in the developing world and we assist governments and communities with mitigation and adaptation strategies for those at greatest risk.
We work closely with both public and private sector interests to reduce the impact of industrial and natural disasters using geospatial information, taxonomic data management, system dynamics, complex adaptive systems visualization, public health epidemiology, water reclamation, industrial waste re-purposing, and a participatory educational process based on free and open-source tools.
We have designed and installed a number of unique water purification systems and several of them now serve as small businesses for the urban poor in the villages of Nepal, Puerto Rico, the Yucatan Bioreserve, and Kwajalein Atoll. We contribute to open GIS data efforts globally, and we stress clean, fair, responsible, and sustainable manufacturing and procurement processes with our several partners.
We also lead the Global Disaster Response Team for the Roddenberry Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Star Trek franchise.
Urban disaster resilience is our core focus at IHS. Natural and industrial hazards are often unavoidable, but we can reduce the impact that makes them "disasters". Our project teams work with governments around the world at national, regional and community levels to provide both strategic and practical recommendations for understanding risk and strengthening the infrastructure needed for human security, particularly in slums. We then work with local implementing partners to make those recommendations reality while building regional skills.
We use the term "human security" carefully. In contrast to national security, the focus of human security is the safety and well-being of individuals and the communities they form, regardless of their location, nationality, religion, race, politics, sexual orientation, or social standing.
Water
An important part of our work focuses on the delivery of safe drinking water, perhaps the most critical human need. IHS deploys compact, low-power water purification systems that can filter thousands of gallons per day from almost any local source in a disaster zone. We can use a rice paddy, lake or stream, a pond, an irrigation canal or even a roadside ditch. Our systems are rugged and comprehensive, removing contaminants ranging from cholera to E. coli, norovirus, and microsystin (the algal toxin that shut down the water supply in Toledo, Ohio in the summer of 2014). Our systems also remove microplastics, pesticides, gasoline, fertilizers, arsenic, lead, mercury, and a large fraction of many pharmaceuticals.
Our staff
With a collective fluency in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, our staff have been deployed on the ground to more than a dozen humanitarian crises all over the world, including Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami in Banda Aceh, Superstorm Sandy in New York, Supertyphoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the earthquake in Nepal, Hurricane Mathew in Haiti, and three times to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. We have led medical, public health and communications teams working at the front lines in war zones like Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and most recently Ukraine in 2022. We've worked in refugee camps for Sudanese in Kenya and Angolans in Zambia, and in the slums of Manila, Yangon, Dar es Salaam and Veracruz. We're on faculty in several locations and have taught courses in disaster management and disaster medicine at institutes in the US, Europe and Asia.
Why we do this
We are inspired by the goals laid out by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his famous "Four Freedoms" speech of 1941. In that speech Roosevelt laid out a simple framework for human security:
The right to live a safe, healthy, stable, and fulfilling life, free from want and free from fear.
We're doing our part.
— Eric Rasmussen, MD, MDM, FACP
— Alex K. Hatoum, MHS
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IHS is a Combat-Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business registered in the State of Washington.
Federal EIN: 46-2607266
Federal DUNS: 078-870-757
Washington UBI: 603-287-916
CAGE Code: 707Z4