Humanitarian needs evolve, and the products designed to address them must evolve too. Developing effective emergency shelter solutions requires more than engineering and manufacturing. It starts with understanding the challenges faced by humanitarian organisations, continues through product design and testing, and benefits from ongoing dialogue with the people who deploy, use and procure these solutions.

For NRS Relief, humanitarian exhibitions are an important part of this end-to-end process. They bring together operational experience, technical expertise and new ideas, creating opportunities to explore emerging needs, demonstrate innovations and gather perspectives that can inform future product development.

In 2026, our exhibition circuit spanned three important humanitarian hubs: Dubai, Nairobi and Geneva. Each event offered a different perspective on the sector and a valuable opportunity to connect our emergency shelter solutions with the evolving needs of humanitarian operations.

DIHAD 2026, Dubai: Bringing Product Innovation to Life

From 24 to 26 August, NRS Relief exhibited at the DIHAD Conference and Exhibition at the Dubai World Trade Centre, at Stand M10. Having participated in DIHAD since 2004, we continue to value the event as a platform for engaging with humanitarian organisations, exchanging operational insights and demonstrating how product innovation can support changing requirements in the field.

This year, the centrepiece of our stand was the Huggy Pro HPT 36, a 36 m² multipurpose humanitarian tent. Presenting the full-size shelter allowed visitors to experience its layout, examine its construction and explore the possibilities offered by its modular configuration.

The Huggy Pro HPT range is available in 24, 36, 48, 72 and 96 m² sizes, with accessories including inner and winter liners, hard flooring, lighting kits and the Patient Liner. Its laminated woven outer fabric is designed to provide waterproofing, UV resistance and fire-retardant performance.

Demonstrating a complete shelter helps bridge the gap between product specifications and real-world application. Conversations around the tent’s configuration, accessories and intended uses also create opportunities to better understand operational challenges and the features that matter to humanitarian teams.

NRS Relief also contributed to the conference programme, with our Marketing Director, Svitlana Voznyuk, serving as Master of Ceremonies. Alongside showcasing our products, this role provided an opportunity to engage with the wider humanitarian community and the discussions shaping the sector’s future.

EAHS Africa 2026, Nairobi: Connecting Regional Needs with Shelter Solutions

The 13th East African Humanitarian Conference and Expo took place in Nairobi on 1–2 October 2026. Across Africa, humanitarian operations can involve diverse climates, difficult logistics, large-scale displacement and urgent deployment requirements. These conditions influence how shelter products need to be designed, configured, transported and deployed. Understanding these differences is essential to developing solutions that are relevant beyond the drawing board.

As Mohammed Cherchali explains:

“Africa is where speed and scale matter most. NRS Relief offers a wide range of shelter solutions that are customised to each operation and ready for rapid response at scale, so our partners get what they need, where and when they need it.”

Mohammed Cherchali, Business Development Manager, NRS Relief

Exhibitions create space for these conversations. Direct engagement with humanitarian organisations helps us understand regional priorities, identify practical challenges and explore how existing products and future innovations can better support operations. This exchange between field requirements and product expertise is an important part of the product development journey.

AidEx 2026, Geneva: Visualising the Next Generation of Shelter Systems

AidEx returned to Palexpo, Geneva, on 21–22 October 2026, under the theme Future-proofing humanitarian aid. The event provided another opportunity for NRS Relief to present its latest innovations and explore how individual shelter products can work together to address increasingly specialised humanitarian needs.

Geneva has a significant place in our exhibition history. NRS Relief launched the Eco Viva Tent at AidEx in 2024, and our fire-retardant range received recognition through the Aid Innovation Challenge Award in 2014.

In 2026, we introduced 3D-printed miniatures of our latest innovations. Rather than presenting products only as separate items, the models helped visitors visualise how different components could be combined into larger, interconnected shelter layouts.

The display featured several solutions developed for distinct operational requirements:

• Patient Liner: A partition system designed to create separate patient areas within compatible tents, supporting the configuration of medical spaces for outbreak response. It can be installed in the Huggy Pro HPT 24 or Huggy Air 24.
• Huggy Air X36: A component designed to connect inflatable tents and support more integrated shelter configurations.
• Huggy Air 48: An inflatable tent for rapid deployment. Three people can assemble it in under 15 minutes.
• Huggy Pro 48: Shelter solutions for different operational needs, from multipurpose emergency accommodation to family shelter.

This approach reflects an important aspect of humanitarian product development: solutions are not always used in isolation. Understanding how products interact, how spaces are configured and how different operational requirements can be accommodated helps inform discussions about future designs and system integration.

Looking Ahead

Dubai, Nairobi and Geneva gave us the same message: humanitarian partners want shelter that arrives fast, adapts to the mission and respects the environment. Thank you to everyone who visited our stands, and to the keynote speakers who joined us in Dubai. We look forward to turning these conversations into the next generation of emergency shelter.

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