Disasters of natural and technological origin have caused enormous socioeconomic losses and millions of victims in the past years. Hazard prediction and risk mitigation need improvements through research and developments to curb damages and protect lives. A good cooperation and coordination of crisis response operations are of critical importance to react rapidly and adequately to any crisis situation. Technology progress to support crisis response has advanced greatly in the last few years. System for early warning, command and control, decision-making have been successfully implemented in many countries and regions all over the world. However, many aspects related to efficient collection and integration of geo-information, applied semantics and situation awareness for disaster management are still open. To advance the systems and make them intelligent, an extensive collaboration is required between emergency responders, disaster managers, system designers and researchers.
Gi4DM 2012 is specifically important because it is initiated by the Public Safety Districts of the Netherlands. They want to share several years of experience with one common Emergency management system. This conference is the place to exchange of experiences, knowledge and ideas towards finding appropriate solutions to crisis response challenges. Researchers will be able to talk with officers to check and validate their direction of research. Technicians will be able to work with their prototype systems in real field tests. Vendors will be able to show products that can collaborate on interoperability. Officers will be able to see tests and demo’s displaying the state-of-the art technologies. Last but not least this event will be entertaining and pleasant. To make all this true, many exciting events will be organised next to the scientific presentations and discussions:
- Public Safety District Twente will organise the Troned main exercise
- COMMIT Sensafety project will present and demonstrate its first year project results.
- Several test scenarios will be developed in collaboration with partners like Schiphol Airport, Tata steel and Studio Veiligheid
- The Dutch National first responders platform for innovation, i-Bridge, will demonstrate a number of field tests
- Demo tents will be set up at the former facilities of Twente airport
- Heated tents for accommodation will be available for everyone who wants to be close to the field tests and exercises
- Workshops and discussions hours will be organised through the days (and nights).
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