Billy Haworth completed his CRC PhD with the University of Sydney in 2016, which looked at volunteered geographic information, community engagement and bushfire preparation. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of Billy’s thesis see https://billyhaworth.com/publications/. Natural disaster events remind us of the importance of geographic information in all aspects of disaster management.  A new stream of online user-generated geospatial data termed volunteered geographic information (VGI) presents new opportunities for the creation and dissemination of disaster-related geographic data from a dense network of intelligent observers.  Authorities and individuals are already embracing VGI technologies, creating a new landscape of geo-data production and knowledge sharing for crisis events. VGI technologies enable rapid sharing of diverse geographic information for disaster management at a fraction of the resource costs associated with traditional data collection and dissemination, but they also present a number of important challenges.  These include a lack of data quality assurance and issues of data management, privacy and security.  There is an urgent need for researchers to explore and comprehend the implications of these data and data practices for disaster management. Billy is now a researcher and lecturer in geography and disaster management at the University of Manchester.