Ben Parker writes in IRIN. He is the co-editor of Humanitarian Exchange Magazine 59 “The Conflict in Syria” (2013), Ethiopia: Breaking New Ground (Oxfam) (2005). He also has a significant sideline in email, web development and coding in Perl and Python, including setting up pioneer email systems in East Africa in the 1990s, satellite data analysis of drought in Ethiopia, early deployment of Linux in the UN and as a board member of Kenyan web startup 3mice.