

Shefali J Lakhina
The FireTech Podcast
Welcome to the FireTech Podcast!
Season 1: Innovating on the Frontlines (2024), delivers insights from innovators on the frontlines of the wildfire crisis in America. Host Shefali J Lakhina asks how innovation unfolds in public agencies tasked with wildfire preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. We speak with fire captains and operators from across the country to understand innovation cycles and early adopter perspectives on FireTech. The four episodes offer a deep dive into agency and user experiences with co-developing and deploying technology on the frontlines. We aim to spotlight what the innovation cycle looks like for boots on the ground and what kind of FireTech is useful, usable, and actually used on the frontlines of the wildfire crisis in America right now.
Season 2: Partnerships on the Frontlines (2025), examines the emerging dynamics of public-private-people partnerships (4Ps) in building wildfire resilience. Through four conversations with community partners and technical leads, we examine how diverse partners cultivate trust, accountability, and responsiveness to shared wildfire resilience goals on the frontlines. We uncover what responsible innovation for wildfire resilience entails, particularly as it relates to co-developing useful and usable innovations that can amplify capacities on the ground.
Season 1: Innovating on the Frontlines (2024), delivers insights from innovators on the frontlines of the wildfire crisis in America. Host Shefali J Lakhina asks how innovation unfolds in public agencies tasked with wildfire preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. We speak with fire captains and operators from across the country to understand innovation cycles and early adopter perspectives on FireTech. The four episodes offer a deep dive into agency and user experiences with co-developing and deploying technology on the frontlines. We aim to spotlight what the innovation cycle looks like for boots on the ground and what kind of FireTech is useful, usable, and actually used on the frontlines of the wildfire crisis in America right now.
Season 2: Partnerships on the Frontlines (2025), examines the emerging dynamics of public-private-people partnerships (4Ps) in building wildfire resilience. Through four conversations with community partners and technical leads, we examine how diverse partners cultivate trust, accountability, and responsiveness to shared wildfire resilience goals on the frontlines. We uncover what responsible innovation for wildfire resilience entails, particularly as it relates to co-developing useful and usable innovations that can amplify capacities on the ground.