DISASTER MANAGEMENT WILL RECEIVE AN UPGRADE WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DISASTER MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (DIMS)

Disaster management will receive an upgrade with the implementation of The Disaster Information Management System (DIMS). DIMS is a digital platform that will be heavily used by disaster management stakeholders. Stakeholders such as The National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) Secretariat, the police, firemen, disaster volunteers and community disaster management staff.

 

Emagine Solutions Inc. and Business Tech Research Inc.

collaborated to develop the platform. Managing Director for Emagine Solutions Inc., Ian Mitchell says the platform will enhance NEMO’s ability to collect, store, access and analyse data integral to disaster management.

 

“That is going to be important for example what are the relationships we have with other companies, MOUs, what resources are available to DIMS, the volunteers around the country that we can get access to, what sort of skills do they have. Do they drive? Do they have any issues? Health issues and so on that prevent them from participating in certain types of scenarios for example,” Mitchell reveals.

 

The program will also play an integral role in deploying resources before, during and after natural disasters. The NEMO secretariat has extensive data to sort through in times of national emergency. Such data will be digitised and stored on the DIMS.

 

Quality Control Consultant on the project, Dr. Lyndel St. Ville affirms the data housed and accessed by DIMS will save lives.

 

“When a disaster strikes. When an impending disaster like a hurricane is approaching you want to have the information you need at the touch of a button. To be scrambling to find information at that time would not be good. So having that electronic information would make that process a lot smoother. A lot simpler and a lot more efficient,” Dr. St. Ville asserts.

 

DIMS was built using an open-source humanitarian platform called Sahana Eden. Open-Source platforms are free and can be customed to a user’s needs.

 

Team Leader for the DVRP initiative aimed at developing DIMS for the NEMO secretariat, Dr. Stephen Louis says the platform was heavily tailored to suit the organisation’s needs.

 

“The original Sahana Project actually emerged after the 2004 Tsunami in South-East Asia where there was a fairly extensive devastation and a very extensive relief effort following it. And at that point some persons found the need to develop something to maintain or keep track of the relief operation. Since then, the project and the product has evolved. The current platform that we spoke about Sahana Eden was developed subsequently and it was developed in a way that could be used as a framework that others could tailor to their own needs,” Dr. Louis discloses.

 

Exercises were held through the course of a week to instruct stakeholders on how to use the platform. Kazia Felix is one of those trainees.

 

“It’s a good way for NEMO to keep a record or up to date record of their staff and volunteers in the event of any disaster so that you can easily locate them, assign them to various functions and stuff, not that they don’t already know but it would just be better and more modern or up to date,” Felix notes.

 

Sahana Eden was used in Haiti’s earthquake response in 2010 and Japan’s Tsunami resources deployment in 2011. Currently it is used in Taiwan for preparedness for typhoons and earthquakes.