I am forwarding this message from Chamindra de Silva, one of the project leads for the Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System (<a href="http://sahana.lk">http://sahana.lk</a>). As this list is bound to involve much geo-related discussion, I would encourage any OSGeo folks involved or interested in disaster management to join. In particular, if there are any OGC members interested (or any other member organizations of the W3C), in order to become an incubation group of the W3C support is needed from 3 W3C member organizations.
<br><br>Thanks,<br><br>David<br><span class="gmail_quote"><br><br></span>Hi all,<br><br>Information Systems can have a tremendous value to help manage the scale<br>of humanitarian operations. However when a disaster strikes the
<br>informations system that do crop up are often themselves silo-ed and are<br>not built to share information with other systems. This greatly reduces<br>the overall potential of using IT holistically to solve the many<br>
coordination problems. To solve this technically (first) such systems<br>need to agree on a common language (ontology) and define data sharing<br>standards. This will then permit each system to have a more overarching<br>
view of the disaster based on data collected from other parallel<br>repositories systems and thus make each more effective as a response tool.<br><br>In recognition of this need the W3C has setup an email address and a<br>
WIKI for us to collate, discuss, define and recommend standards in this<br>domain.<br><br>You can register on this list at:<br><br><a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-disaster-management-ont/">http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-disaster-management-ont/
</a><br><br>And the respective WIKI can be found at:<br><br><a href="http://esw.w3.org/topic/DisasterManagement">http://esw.w3.org/topic/DisasterManagement</a><br><br>Some of the area that Ifeel should be covered are:<br>
<br>- Missing People / Victims / Displaced People / Evacuees<br>- Relief Organizations ( "Who is doing what where?" )<br>- Situation awareness (location of camps, incidents, affected areas...)<br>- Assessment (of destruction and needs )
<br>- Relief Logistics (Aid/resource classifications, transport, storage...)<br>- Alerts (e.g. CAPS)<br><br>A quick thanks to Tim Bernes-Lee for initiating this for us with the W3C<br>and helping us to get started. In addition a diverse group of experts in
<br>crisis management met at a ISCRAM BOF on Ontology / Interop yesterday to<br>work on contributing to this effort.<br><br>You are most welcome to join us,<br><br>--<br>Chamindra de Silva<br><a href="http://chamindra.googlepages.com">
http://chamindra.googlepages.com</a><br><br>