Emergency operations support through social networking and P2P multimedia services

In this paper we investigate the requirements and propose the design of a platform that will serve emergency operations such as in cases of wildfires or road accidents. This platform will provide assistance to the rescue and the disaster relief operations through the use of social networking and P2P based multimedia streaming. The general idea is to create a platform that will facilitate the provision of an efficient communication network between the stakeholders who will be involved in such life threatening situations and of the means for having a rich, multimedia based communication for first aid and guidance. Based on the use of the proposed platform the distribution of multimedia streams can be supported through innovative techniques such as media encoding and media distribution. The matching and notification of the most appropriate volunteers can be made through the use of personal profiles and the deployment of social networking tools. The access to multimedia content can be adapted to the obstacles which are introduced through the impairment of infrastructures of services capabilities.