The International Telecommunication Union - Development Sector (ITU-D) invited me to present on an "Introduction to Operationalizing the Common Alerting Protocol (ITU-T X.1303) Standard". The presentation was made at the 4th Asia Pacific (AP) Telecommunity on Disaster Management / Communications; held at the SMX Convention Centre, Manila, Philippines, from 23-25 July 2013.
The panel was Chaired by: Dr. Eun-Ju Kim (Regional Director, ITU Regional Office for AP), Mr. Wisit Atipayakoon (ITU Regional Officer for AP), D. Manluz Hazarika (AIT Geoinformatics Center Assistant Director), and myself. The panel topic termed as the "ITU Session".
A noteworthy historic event was meeting Manzul who is affiliated with the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Goeinformatics Centre. His presentation was on: Applications of Geoinformatics and Space Technologies for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). Besides speaking of CAP, I also spoke about the Sahana Disaster Management Software, specifically the developments of the Sahana CAP Broker. Then we got to talking about ongoing and possible future projects. Our conversation continued at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Manila.
The propositions were on combining the AIT Goeinformatics remote sensing and risk mapping technologies with the Sahana Software. The pre-disaster risk mapping exercises would complement the alerting and post-disaster incident reporting. The integrated technologies would offer solutions for Regional Governments and In-line Organizations. That is when I brought up the idea of a Sahana Centre of Excellence at AIT.
The intent of the Sahana COE@AIT would be to foster research and development capacity at the Goeinformatics Centre to provide the essential information management systems and the know how. Manzul and I agreed that we would set sail with this idea and fine resources to make it happen.