CODES+ISSS keynote: To alert, rescue and recover: Critical information technologies for managing mega disasters

This talk will discuss why despite recent advances, state-of-the-art disaster management IT infrastructures and information systems are not as effective as they should be for managing mega calamitous events of unforeseen sizes and severity. It will then discuss critical gaps in information technology. Examples include methodologies, tools and middleware for: ▪ Exploitation of complementary network technologies to prevent communication failures during disasters; ▪ Flexible and responsive management of logical connectivity and information flow among information sources, fusion modules, applications and end-users, providing them with support for pub/sub messaging, syndication and feed services, dynamic event-triggered messaging and so on; ▪ Trustworthy information brokerage services for safe and responsive emergency access and flow control of information from independently developed information sources owned by government agencies, businesses, institutions, NGOs, communities, private property owners and individuals; ▪ Common models and views, open standard interfaces and API functions to enable independent development of disaster management applications and services; ▪ Advanced disaster management applications and services.