Spot-On software and Yazmi satellites for Distant Learning

Yazmi USA, LLC recently contracted Spot-On to build and customize the "STRIX" software for schools. The satellite technology will bridge those schools that are deprived of access to the world wide web because of the absence of the Internet. Now those communities can receive digital content as well as receive live digital streams.

The STRIX software and local server infrastructure will give the students a similar experience as the world wide web. Experienced teachers living in any part of the world can conduct live classes with sharing presentations in real-time as well as real-time white-boarding functions and directly talk to the students in remote locations.

Educational content will be delivered to the local servers in the schools for students to browse and access content. It is an ideal solution for places limited by broadband access. The Yazmi School Solution brings the world wide web experience closer to their door step. All that the students will need is an affordable Tablet-PC.

STRIX software and Yazmi satellite infrastructure is not limited to the school solution. It is capable of serving multiple sectors and functions such as delivering severe weather forecast information to communities without access to broadband connectivity, such as to the large population of nomadic herders in Mongolia.

Multi-casting Severe Weather Forecast Alerts over Satellite-enabled Tablet-PCs in Mongolia

A  JASIL senior researcher: Dr. Hijaba Ykhanbai said - "The last disastrous dzud of 2009-2010 is still fresh in the memories of most Mongolians. Herders all together, lost a calculated 9 million livestock worth several hundreds of millions of US dollars. Many households lost up to 80% of their animals, and just become as poor rural families. These losses could have been easily prevented had their been technology to get the severe weather forecast data across to those vulnerable populations in a timely and effective manner."

Yazmi, Spot-On, and Omin-Sat in partnership with JASIL intends to introduce sustainable satellite-enabled technologies that server a dual purpose - one that is integrated in to the Herders' daily lives as well as one that can effectively communicate live-saving crisis information. The quality, affordable, ubiquitous miniature satellite receivers are portable and easy to maintain. It requires very little power that simply feeds from the Tablet-PC through a simple USB connection. The Tablet-PC batteries can be easily powered through solar cells or small wind turbines.

The use of Yazmi Alert Sending over Satellite Enabled Tablets (ASSET) concept was presented at the JASIL hoster workshop on "ICTs for sharing Weather Forecast Data with Mongolian Herders". The greatest challenge JASIL face is in getting, both human and animal, life-saving severe weather data to sparsely scattered thinly populated nomadic agriculture communities in Mongolia. That is where ASSET, unconstrained communications coverage can serve the information needs with data beamed to targeted populations any-time any-where.

Dream-IT-JASIL is an innovation that investigated the use of cellular technology coupled with micro-weather stations for accumulating climate data. However, the innovation falls short with the much needed downstream (or return path) leg of communicating the detected adverse events from the accumulated micro-station supplied weather data.

We will complement the system with the low-cost ASSET technology for disseminating text, audio, and video content; namely, real-time weather maps, preparedness instructions, response instructions to better serve the Mongolian needs.

ASSET DEMO VIDEOS

Part-One: Introduction	Part-Two: Hub-spoke set-up	Part-three: Sending data	Part-Four: Receiving data

Introducing the Sahana CAP-enabled Messaging Broker to ITU-D Asia Pacific Community

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The International Telecommunications Union - Disaster (ITU-D) conducted workshop in Thailand, introduced the utility of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) standard, to the delegates, through a the Sahana CAP-enabled software and a series of hands-on exercises. The CAP ease-of-use and utility were appreciated by those delegates. Participants experienced the efficiency gains of the single entry of a message being simultaneously disseminated through multiple technologies to multiple recipients, acknowledged the CAP message consistency removing ambiguity that may, otherwise, lead to false responses, and realized the capabilities of brokering multi-agency publishers and subscribers for improved situational-awareness^.
 

ITU-D hosted a session on the topic: “Introduction to Operationalizing the Common Alerting Protocol” at the workshop: “Use of Telecommunications/ICT for Disaster Management¹”. This hands-on CAP session was resourceful in producing positive outcomes. Delegates had the opportunity to assess the capabilities of the standard using the CAP-enabled Sahana broker software.

Click to view the workshop report available on the web and the slide deck .

Evidence points to the growing need for a CAP-enabled ITU-D Module (CAP-ITUM). The CAP-ITUM would foster the wider-scale adoption of the the CAP standard and the policies it offers. The ITU branded module would advance the member states, lagging in implementing CAP, with facilitating multi-agency all-hazards all-media warning, alerting, and situational-awareness capabilities, to effectively coordinate hazard events. Since the first release of CAP in 2005, only a handful of member states: North America, Australia, and Germany have adopted the standard. Sri Lanka, an early adopter, has carried out several research projects involving the standard but has not progressed beyond with institutionalizing it at a National level. Other member states have failed to realize the full potential of CAP beyond simply accepting as an interoperable XML schema.