November 12, 2009 –
The workshop was co-sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security and UCI’s Center for Emergency Response Technolgies.
In an eerie coincidence of timing, on the same day last week that the Ft. Hood shootings occurred, CALIT2 hosted a workshop focused on the ways in which technology can benefit national emergency management . Co-sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate and UC Irvine’s Center for Emergency Response Technologies (CERT), the Nov. 5-6 event attracted more than120 government, industry and academic representatives from across the country.
CIA chief information officer Gus Hunt
The “Workshop on Emergency Management: Incident, Resource, and Supply Chain Management,” was co-chaired by CERT director and CALIT2 academic affiliate Sharad Mehrotra. A series of panel discussions scrutinized timely issues, including government and industrial perspectives on emergency management and response technologies, the impact of virtual worlds on homeland security, the role of cloud computing and use of sensors in emergency management, and challenges of pharmaceutical and healthcare supply chains.
The workshop also featured position papers, demonstrations and a poster session, as well as breakout sessions that focused on incident-level, regional and community emergency response.
Larry Skelly from DHS
Twenty members of the Unified Incident Command and Decision Support project, a new DHS program, were treated to a special preview of several CALIT2 lab demos before the workshop began. UICDS comprises representatives from more than 200 companies who are developing a framework and tools to enhance information-sharing and decision-making among first responders and emergency managers.
They viewed pertinent research demonstrations that included: HIPerWall, which displayed several emergency management applications; mobile ad hoc networks; bionic assistive technologies; embedded sensors; computer game-based homeland security applications; and TELIOS, a telepresence interactive operating system.
The Directorate for Science and Technology is one of three in the Department of Homeland Security. It functions as the primary research and development arm of the agency, providing federal, state and local officials with technology and capabilities that can be used for national protection.
Emergency response applications were displayed on HIPerWall.
Mehrotra, who co-chaired the conference with Lawrence Skelly and Nabil R. Adam from the science and technology directorate, was pleased with the proceedings.
“The main objective was to open a dialog between practitioners, academia and industry that can set the agenda for future research at DHS,” he said. “The workshop was very successful in that regard. Not only did the participants take stock of how technology has influenced response organizations and practice over the past 5 years, [but] many new and interesting directions were identified and discussed that could bring significant improvements to response.”
Mehrotra identified social media, the cloud infrastructure and sensor-based computing as among the most promising.
