1. Considerations for Developing a Resilient Emergency
Communication System
ITU Asia-Pacific Center of Excellences Training on ICT Applications on
Mitigating Natural Disaster
2013 November 28
Crowne Plaza, Hanoi, Vietnam
Nuwan Waidyanatha
Senior Research Fellow, LIRNEasia
Email: nuwan [AT] lirneasia [DOT] net
http://www.lirneasia.net/profiles/nuwan-waidyanatha
Mobile: +8613888446352 (cn) +94773710394 (lk)

2. Outline
□ LIRNEasia Overview
□ Focus on Emergency Communication
□ Resilience of Emergency Communication Systems
□ Action research findings: key considerations
■
Bridging the last-mile
■
Public health mitigation
■
Voice-enabled ICTs for CERTs
■
Pictographs to aid lingustically challenged

3. Regional ICT Policy Think Tank

4. Our Work in Disasters
Mitigation Risk Reduction
Recovery
Response
Prevention
mitigation, prevention and
preparedness are predisaster activities that
constitute actions to be
taken to limit the impact of
a disaster
Preparedness
Hazardous event Warning

5. Resilience of Emergency Communication Systems
Towards a Multi-agency All-hazards All-media Situational-Awareness and Response
1. Understand the Natural & Industrial hazard risk profile (e.g. Mongolia)
Number of
Occurrences
(past 10 years)
Economic
Losses
(past 10 years)
Number of
People
Affected
(past 10
years)
2. Determine the emergency ICT system:
(a) State of the plans, policies, and procedures
(b) Clarity of EM stakeholder roles and responsibilities
(c) Implementation of multi-agency situational-awareness
(d) Gaps in communications and business continuity plans
(e) Readiness on all-hazards all-media communication
3. Monitor and evaluate through:
(a) Silent-test
(b) Table-top exercises
(c) Controlled-exercises

6. Resilience of ICT infrastructure
Infrastructure
-----------------Submarine cables
Fibre optics
Microwave
HF/VHF
Satellite
Vulnerable to
-----------------Earthquakes
Earthquakes, infrastructure
Cyclones, Wildfire, power
Sever weather
Solar flairs, space debris
ICT infrastructure ecosystem
- is located in physical space
- it is powered by energy sources
- it is operated by people
Backhaul networks
[issue] :: wired & wireless public networks depend on domestic and international backhaul
networks for effective functioning
[remedy] :: Competitive market approach to redundancy and business continuity (i.e. liberalized
environments, multiple suppliers and technologies)
Congestion
[issue] :: consequences of congestion for first responders are extremely serious.
[remedy] :: is subscriptions to TETRA networks which are not interconnected to public networks

7. Bridging the last-mile for warning households
Hazard
Information
Hub
ICT Networks
ICT-G(n)
Domestic &
International
Sources
ERP-C(n,1)
ERP-C(n,2)
ERP-C(n,m)
COMMUNITY (n)
National Early
Warning
Center
CDMA
Phone
(FXP)
Java enabled
Mobile phone
(MOP)
Sarvodaya Hazard
Information Hub
(HIH)
Communications
Providers
Sarvodaya
Communities
Remote
Alarm
Device
(RAD)
Addressable
Satellite Radio
(AREA)
Very Small
Aperture
Terminal
IP alerting

8. Communicating health risks with Healthcare Workers
Response
Physical World
Affected
Population
Sensor
Health Providers,
Relief Workers
At present health workers
learn of adverse health
events through MEDIA
and WORD-OF-MOUTH,
in some cases from
PEERS
RTBP
m-HealthSurvey
Observe
Relevant Data
Record and
Transmit Data
GSM phone
network
Store Data
Broker
Manage
Relief Effort
RTBP
Server and
Database
Analysts, Health Officials,
Epidemiologists, Decision Makers
Monitor Data
I nternet,
GSM
network
Automated
Alerts
Interactive
Analytics
I nternet
Decision
Survey responses from 28 health workers from June 2009 to March 2010
RTBP
I nteractive
Visualization,
Analysis and
Event Detection
Software
Detection
No formal Government
procedure for sharing
health risk information
with health workers
Survey responses from 15 health workers from June 2009 to March 2010

9. Voice-enabled ICTs for Situational-Reporting
2010
Telephony voice quality affecting operating procedures
51.84%

10. Pictographs to support Linguistically Challenged
~30% avg in South/West Asia
and Sub-Saharan Africa are
illiterate
~ 10% avg improvement in the
last 20 years
~ 955,000 million/year
international tourism
departures 2008-2012
~ 1.6 billion/year foretasted
for 2020
Most countries speak more
than one language
Source UNESCO:
http://tinyurl.com/bwj3stl
Source World Bank:
http://tinyurl.com/bwj3stl
Source Ethnologue world
languages:
http://tinyurl.com/csfg45v
Many of them with over 50
languages
1. Symbols would serve the:
a) Illiterate and people with other disabilities
b) Overseas travelers and Expatriates illiterate in the local language(s)
2. Reduces the
a) need to message in too many languages
b) load on the networks during a crisis

11. Mobile pictograph alerting

12. Library of symbols to consider
UNOCHA Reliefweb, World Humanitarian and Country Icons :
http://reliefweb.int/map/world/world-humanitarian-and-country-icons-2012
Emergency Mapping Symbols (Canada): http://emsymbology.org/index.html
Homeland Security Working Group (USA) – adopts from http://symbolstore.org/ :
http://www.fgdc.gov/HSWG/ref_pages/SymbologyBackground_ref.htm
h
UNOCHA Noun Project (not defined for alerting):
http://thenounproject.com/collections/ocha-humanitarian-icons/

13. Spot-On & Yazmi “STRIX” + “ASSET” satelliteenabled addressable + broadcast solution
Aligned with ITU's
SMART SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MODEL
School solution with synchronous and
asynchronous content delivery
Can be adopted for health; e.g.
illustrating complex medical
procedures
Also available for Warning &
Response at the time of need

14. ISCRAM-Asia 2014 @ IOTX Lanka
www.iscramasia2014.org
www.iotxconvention.org

15. Thank You
Nuwan Waidyanatha
Nuwan [AT] lirneasia [DOT] net