Dr. Alexander Bedritsky, both President of the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and head of the Russian Federation for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet), was given a tour of WeatherBug headquarters recently.

A meeting setup by NOAA here in the states, this event provided an awesome opportunity to share what we have found effective for private and public partnership here in the US, with our friends from Roshydromet in Russia. Demonstrating what many see a strong model of cooperative thinking between the public sector and that of the private sector, WeatherBug efforts with NOAA could perhaps one day serve as a working model for other countries.

While visiting WeatherBug in Maryland, Dr. Bedritsky and his delegation had the opportunity to see WeatherBug’s efforts in action at Clearspring Elementary School in Damascus, Md. From there, the delegation traveled to WJLA TV in Washington D.C. in order to see how WeatherBug works with their media partners.

During his travels on his tour with WeatherBug, Dr. Bedritsky shared these thoughts.

“I am very impressed that you are able to deliver content to many different people and enterprises and deliver the different specific types of content. In Russia we have a slogan, you cannot choose the weather but you can choose the right decision to respond to the weather. Your company enables people to make the right decision.”

“Improvement and expansion of the weather sensing and environmental infrastructure is very important and this is one of the things that WeatherBug does that has real social significance. I believe this is just as important as transportation and communication infrastructures or other types of public infrastructure that we all believe are so valuable.”