Avagene Moore: Welcome to the EIIP Virtual Forum! On behalf of Amy Sebring and myself, we are happy to see everyone here today. We have a well-known speaker and an interesting topic for our first session of 2003. Avagene Moore: Our session today is an overview of ComCARE Alliance. The EIIP learned about ComCARE through contacts via IAEM and now we are partnering with them. Avagene Moore: For the benefit of any newcomers today, our speaker will be using some 'slides' to illustrate ComCARE. If you see a blue hyperlink, please click on it and it should open in another browser window. Avagene Moore: If it covers your chat window you will need to bring your chat window back to the top after viewing. Avagene Moore: Subsequent slides may not come to the top automatically so you may need to locate it and bring it to the top to view. Here is the title slide for our session today to practice. Please look at it quickly and come back to the chat screen so we can continue. Avagene Moore: http://www.emforum.org/vforum/comcare/slide01.htm Avagene Moore: We will begin with the presentation by our guest and then invite your questions. I will provide further instructions just before we begin the Q&A section but you may wish to jot your questions down as we go through the presentation. Avagene Moore: We are pleased to introduce Art Botterell who is no stranger to most of us in the disaster management field. Art has more than 30 years experience in emergency management and mass media. Avagene Moore: He has served on the national response staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and with the California Governor s Office of Emergency Services (OES). Art has also worked as a consultant to industry groups and government agencies in the U.S. and Asia. Avagene Moore: And now, Art is working with ComCARE and serves as an Associate Director of the organization. Please see Art's biographical information via the EIIP Virtual Forum home page after our session today. Avagene Moore: PLease help me welcome our speaker, Art Botterell. We now turn the floor over to you, Art. Art Botterell: Thanks for having me on your screens today! Art Botterell: If you would please, click now on http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-1.gif Art Botterell: The ComCARE Alliance is a national non-profit organization formed in 1998 to advance and improve communications... Art Botterell: in transportation, emergency medical services, public safety and emergency management. Art Botterell: ComCARE's more than 90 members are organizations interested in using open standards for emergency communications... Art Botterell: and in bringing technical "best practices" from the private sector into public service. Art Botterell: In particular, ComCARE is working on network architectures and protocols for the exchange of realtime emergency information... Art Botterell: to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of dispatch, response and resoruce management day-to-day as well as in disasters. Art Botterell: ComCARE got involved in this work through its advocacy for the Wireless Communications & Public Safety Act of 1999... Art Botterell: which led to the development of data formats for vehicular Automatic Crash Notification... Art Botterell: and more recently the integration of ACN with other formats... Art Botterell: including the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) in an all-hazards "E-Safety Network." Art Botterell: For a complete list of ComCARE's membership you can look at http://www.comcare.org... but for right now... Art Botterell: Please click on http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-2.gif Art Botterell: A number of important companies, organizations and associations have recognized the need for an integrated, interoperable E-Safety Network. Art Botterell: The E-Safety Network is an approach to interoperability for data systems... Art Botterell: as we all understand, "interoperability" isn't just for radios! Art Botterell: A variety of groups and companies have begun to focus on standards-based data messageing... much of it using the XML data-sharing language... Art Botterell: to link sensors, computer-aided dispatch systems, emergency managment software and mobile applications used in the field. Art Botterell: All in order to deliver "Better Information, Faster, to the Right People." Art Botterell: Please click http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-3.gif Art Botterell: The new awareness of recent days has brought a focus on issues many of us have recognized for years: Art Botterell: * At present we have no comprehensive interoperable national emergency communications and IT infrastructure. Art Botterell: * Most public safety communication systems are primarily oriented toward voice, with weak support for data or video. Art Botterell: * The lack of standards and shared networks impairs our ability to share data efficiently from fixed or mobile facilities. Art Botterell: * And most of our data is still after-the-fact and "siloed" for collection and analysis, not for decision support and action. Art Botterell: As a result, we reisk sending responders into situations without all the available information... Art Botterell: that's inefficient at best, and can be catastrophic at worst. Art Botterell: Please click http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-4.gif Art Botterell: Fortunately, private industry has been working for years on the problems of interoperabilty and time-critical, mission-critical data exchange. Art Botterell: Industry leaders like Walmart and VISA have learned that shared standards and multi-use networks can help them improve results and control costs. Art Botterell: As a result, they've moved to mature standards-based technologies like IP-based networks and XML to eliminate data "silos." Art Botterell: Please click http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-5.gif Art Botterell: This slide may be a bit hard to read at this size... a larger version is available on the ComCARE website... Art Botterell: but it describes a consensus architecture for emergency messaging and data exchange, the so-called "E-Safety Network." Art Botterell: Data flows among responders in the field and managers in their operating centers through a secure integrated message-switching system... Art Botterell: with a shared Emergency Provider Access Directory (EPAD) providing message routing information. Art Botterell: Please click http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-6.gif Art Botterell: One of the results is a tremendous improvement in the usefulness of GIS and CAD as emergency decision-support tools. Art Botterell: Computer-generated maps can help us enormously by integrating complex "situational awareness" information from multiple sources... Art Botterell: but only if we can pull together all the available data sources in realtime. Getting the data is always the big challenge for GIS. Art Botterell: The E-Safety Network creates a common platform for integrating all kinds of incident data... "telematics" data from vehicles, hazmat data, CAD data, etc.... Art Botterell: so it can be fused on the screen as a single "big picture" display for the working emergency manager. Art Botterell: Please click http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-7.gif Art Botterell: I mentioned the EPAD a moment ago. EPAD is a "spatially enabled" directory service... Art Botterell: which means it's fully compatible with GIS. Art Botterell: EPAD lets us query a latitude/longitude location and find out instantly which agencies are responsible for rescue, law enforcement or whatever at that location. Art Botterell: By creating EPAD as a shared service, operated on a non-profit basis and supported by usage fees, we can enhance database quality and reduce costs as compared to "stand-alone" implementations. Art Botterell: ComCARE is developing a managment framework for the EPAD directory service... Art Botterell: and a prototype is in use right now for a demo E-Safety system being built by a team of ComCARE member companies. Art Botterell: That project, in Virginia's beautiful Shenandoah Valley, is actually doing its first exercise with the system tomorrow. Art Botterell: Please click http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-8.gif Art Botterell: Using shared interoperable standards and a comprehensive shared directory service... Art Botterell: we can help our team work as a team... Art Botterell: now more than ever. Art Botterell: Of course, the E-Safety Network is just the sum of its members' efforts. ComCARE exists to bring people... like you... together to take advantage of the new opportunities for service that new technologies are giving us. Art Botterell: Please see the contact information on http://www.comcare.org/eiip/ComCARE-9.gif Art Botterell: Meanwhile, I'll be glad to address your questions at this point. Avagene Moore: Thank you for that overview, Art. Our protocol for audience questions is to enter a question mark ? to indicate you wish to ask a question or make a comment. Rick Tobin: ? Avagene Moore: Then go ahead and compose your question to have it ready, but do NOT hit your Enter key or click on the Send button until you are recognized by name. David Crews: ? Avagene Moore: We will take questions in the order the question marks are sent to the screen. We are ready to begin now. Please input your ? if you wish to ask a question. Avagene Moore: Rick, when you are ready, please. Rick Tobin: My question is about turning data into information. With the growing number of baby boomers leaving the profession, and training budgets cut, how will we bring people and information together in a meaningful way? Art Botterell: Good question, Rick. There's information, and then there's wisdom, of course... Avagene Moore: (Others may input your ? at any time.) Art Botterell: and the wisdom we lose through generation changes in our profession can only be addressed by giving the younger generation access to our experience... Art Botterell: and then getting the heck out of their way!... Donovan Hoggan: ? Art Botterell: Several of the most exciting applications of the E-Safety architecture are in the training Art Botterell: and exercise-support area. Avagene Moore: David, your question, please. David Crews: Art is there and effort with the US Auto makers to integrate traffic/er into data and voice systems for private autos. It would be extremely helpful for the traveling public to see/hear and avoid traffic emergencies as well as all hazards with a system like ComCare. Especially with the navigation systems being offered in vehicles based on GPS/CAD. A.J. Harrison: ? Amy Sebring: ? Art Botterell: As ever, David, the problem is at the input. There are plenty of tools now for getting information to drivers... Sunnie Baldwin: ? Art Botterell: and plenty more on the way. But the challenge is fusing all the different relevant data sources into a single, comprehensive situational picture for the driver. Avagene Moore: Donovan, you are next, please. Donovan Hoggan: Please forgive my ignorance, but what does GIS stand for? Art Botterell: Please forgive me... Geographic Information Systems... the fusion of database, graphic display and spacial analysis applications to make computerized maps. Avagene Moore: We forget everyone doesn't know the acronyms. A.J. you are next, sir. A.J. Harrison: Art, as you know, I already have a E-Safety Alerting system in place. What is the difference in what my system does, and what your organization is doing? Can we help in some way? As you know, my goal has always been to help the American public! Avagene Moore: (Reminder: put in a question mark (?) if you have a question or wish to make a comment.) Art Botterell: I think there's a key role for your system, AJ, and others like it as elements of the E-Safety Network... Art Botterell: The problem for any warning system is to get the inputs... from all the different possible sources... and in all the possible formats... Art Botterell: And that problem isn't just limited to warning... all kinds of emergency managment and public safety systems face essentially the same challenge. Art Botterell: ... A.J. Harrison: The one thing that prompted the question is that we can alert 1,300,000 people at once. Of course we deal with E-Mail ONLY at this time. Avagene Moore: Art, you have an additional response, I assume. Art Botterell: So what we're trying to do is arrive at a set of data standards and to create a network infrastructure... A.J. Harrison: I'm afraid I have to drop out, but thank you for the information and the invite. Everyone take care. Thanks again. Art Botterell: to get you... and everyone else... the inputs needed to leverage all that great dissemination and display capacity. Avagene Moore: Amy, your question now, please. Others with questions, please input a ? Amy Sebring: Is there an implementation strategy beyond the demonstration? In order to make shared costs reasonable, it would seem you would have to have a good-sized user base. David Crews: ? Art Botterell: We're working on that. Fortunately, there's also some ability to phase the development both of EPAD and the network infrastructure to pace it to resources. Avagene Moore: Sunnie, you are next, please. Avagene Moore: ? Sunnie Baldwin: Will this mesh with such services as CMI-Services.org? Avagene Moore: (We have time for a few more questions - input your ? now.) Art Botterell: The E-Safety Network is based on open, non-proprietary data standards, so any system that wants to mesh, can. Avagene Moore: David, please. David Crews: Is the FCC one of your Federal partners? Are they working on information and broadcast standards/systems that will allow integration of ER data into future comm/data/video systems? Art Botterell: Federal agencies have to deal with some particular rules about how they can interact with private enterprise... Art Botterell: so we have to interact with the Commission through some formal filing and comment processes... that's one of the things ComCARE coordinates for its members... Rick Tobin: ? Art Botterell: In general the FCC is looking to industry to bring forth such standards, and ComCARE members ard doing that. Avagene Moore: Art, I have a 2-part question: you mentioned an exercise in VA tomorrow. What is the scope of that exercise (short version)? Will the results be shared beyond your internal needs? John Niles: ? Art Botterell: Small field exercise, with the E-Safety systems being used for information exchange. Don't know exactly what the after-action reporting process will be, but I'm sure you'll hear about it! Avagene Moore: Thanks. Ricky, your next. Rick Tobin: Art, do you see this centralization and distribution as an increase or decrease to cyberterrorism risks to critical infrastructure for communications? Art Botterell: No centraliation involved... as you understand, wht appear to be discrete functions are frequently implemented using distributed and redundant infrastructure... Art Botterell: But in general I think it's a lot easier to secure a few well- known open systems than a patchwork of proprietary ones, any of which could have an unrecognized vulnerabilty. Avagene Moore: John Niles, please. (we have time for one or two more quick questions if you have one for Art.) John Niles: Comment: ComCARE is helping Center to Bridge the Digital Divide and public safety agencies in Wash State implement E-Safety ...very helpful, great partnership! Avagene Moore: Thanks for that comment, John. One more question anyone? Art Botterell: Washington is taking a strong leadership role... thanks, John! Amy Sebring: ? Avagene Moore: Amy, please, when you are ready. Amy Sebring: Are the open GIS standards developed under the Open GIS Consortium integral to this ... Amy Sebring: that is, in the area of GIS will you adopt those standards? Art Botterell: Yes, we're working with OGC to keep the spacial components stanndards-based. Art Botterell: (Oops, sorry for the misspellings... ) Avagene Moore: We are about out of time. ... Avagene Moore: We will have a transcript posted by tomorrow / Thursday. Please look for it then. Thanks to everyone for participating today - you have been a great audience - and ... Avagene Moore: Please help us thank Art for his fine presentation. Art you did a great job! Amy Sebring: Thank you very much Art! Applause, applause! Avagene Moore: The EIIP Virtual Forum is adjourned! Clap, clap, clap! for Art.