Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Spot contributions to policy paper wins first prize at ITU conference

We presented our paper on the “intricacies of implementing the ITU-T X.1303 recommended warning standard for cross-agency situational-awareness in Myanmar, Philippines, and Maldives at ITU Kaleiderscope (2016). It is an IEEE conference sponsored by the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB). The paper was not technical in the strict sense but discussed ICT policy relevant findings that the conference reviewers perceived important for the standardization process and the standards community. We were awarded “the best paper”. READ THE FULL STORY.


Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Presenting SAMBRO Implementation Challenges at CAP Forum in Thailand

The Sahana Alerting and Messaging Broker (SAMBRO) has certainly been gearing up to provide a complementing service. In one aspect, SAMBRO is capable of subscribing to CAP messages, aggregating them, and then allowing authorized personnel to relay those messages, whether they be public, private, or restricted. The process of originating and relaying was already tested in the Philippines. CAP messages that come into SAMBRO can be offered through a RSS feed or a RESTfull API. Users may subscribe to receive alerts from SAMBRO though email, SMS, FTP, and Mobile APP as well. The outcomes of this work, in relation to the Common Alerting Protocol warning standard, was presented in Thailand at the 2016 CAP Implementation Workshop. READ THE SAHANA BLOG.

Friday, April 15, 2016

State of Nepal's Emergency Comms, after the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake

With the assistance of LIRNEasia, we carried out a comprehensive evaluation of Nepal's Emergency Communication; August 2015 - April 2016. The report was presented at INET-Kathmandu.

The key message that I delivered was that for any Information Technology to triumph during crises and emergencies (shown by the green pinnacle in image to the left), a sturdy foundation of ICT resilience is compulsory. Robust infrastructure is the shouldering basis for ICT resilience. Thus, roads for engineers to travel to fix ill-fated BTS and Transmissions and electricity to power the telecommunications are essential elements for keeping the ICTs alive.

The venn diagram, to the right, illustrates the elements contributing to “Resilient Emergency Communication”. Robustness requires ensuring survivabilty and availability of the telecoms; especially a Government Emergency Communications (GECO). The GECO weaknesses are complemented by a Rapid Restoration of Access to Telecommunications (RREACT) program. The two complementing elements contribute to an effective Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan (BC-DRP).

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT