Visiting Research Fellow Pablo Suarez Facilitates COVID-19 ‘Cartoonathon’

Pablo Suarez, a Pardee Center Visiting Research Fellow and Associate Director for Research and Innovation at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, recently designed and facilitated a “cartoonathon” exploring the impacts of COVID-19 on the future of humanitarian work.

The event, hosted by The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Solferino Academy, included over 150 participants from more than 60 countries.

The participants discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing perceptions of vulnerability and risk, and explored innovations to better confront challenges in an increasingly complex future. The conversation focused on three areas of future transformation: complexity and chaos, rapid digitalization, and innovation and agility. During the discussion, professional cartoon artists from cartooncollections.com simultaneously produced a set of draft cartoons, which the participants used to stimulate the discussion.

Read more about the “cartoonathon,” and view the final versions of the cartoons, here.