After I briefly read some of the current summary report for SA3, I realized that I need to spend more time blogging strong angel and less time at my day job!

I would like to share with you what happened at SA3 regarding the success or failure of standards based data exchange among the various parties that were collecting, sharing, and displaying GIS mapped Patient data information.

First and foremost, we had complete success in the collection, conversion, and display of the data collected from the Red Cross, Medweb satellite van based clinic, Loma Linda University Hospital satellite telemedicine vehicle, and the Army Battlefield medical PDA (BMIST) from TATRC to the half dozen or so vendors of GIS mapped data display systems. This was, however, accomplished using a very dynamic conversion Clearinghouse approach and we were thankful that we brought our programmers to SA3 since in the end, none of the originally selected formats was actually accepted by the GIS vendors. The USNS Mercy was on a mission and unavailable to participate in the exercise as hoped.

I participated in some great discussions - one on one and in groups - on the issue of trust in humanitarian aid. Trust was seen not just as a artefact of the information ecosystem, but also as a perception amongst those the systems is introduced to. Trust was seen in many different ways - as a protocol and point to point security measure by system designers, as a mutable construct by practitioners and as a complex, dynamic set of social rules coded into humanitarian systems by others. I've explored some of the issues that came out of these discussions in two blog posts. Is technology neutral?

Back in Sri Lanka after Strong Angel III and thought of writing some observations I had on the exercise. See Strong Angel III - Final observations for the full post. Sanjana Hattotuwa

08/25/06 - Friday
Sortie Plan
2508 – Point Loma, Data Collection – 2508
Sortie Lead - Myles Sutherland, ESRI, Tom Patterson, ESRI

The Plan– Visit a variety of sites in the Point Loma area. Make local contacts and collect simulated patient data on a variety of GPS enabled handheld devices such as; PDA, Cell phone, laptops. Transmit data to a data center via the Internet using various communication channels including – 1) Cellular Data Network, 2) Wi-Fi using the EVDO/Wi-Fi Bridge.

Data Flow using the EVDO/Wi-Fi Bridge

GPS enabled handheld w/ Wi-Fi >> Entree Wireless battery powered EVDO/Wi-Fi gateway>> Verizon EVDO Data Service >> Internet >> ESRI data center >> Internet >> ESRI Strong Angel Common Operating Picture >> Virtual Agility Strong Angel III Situational Awareness

08/25/06 Friday

Earlier this week I took the ICS/NIMS training and certification class. Today I spent the morning in the ShadowLite Command Center and observed and supported the deployment of multiple sorties to the field to collect demographic data.

The organization chart for Strong Angel / ShadowLite follow the ICS/NIMS model as follows

Strong Angel III Disaster Response Demonstration

PFO - Principle Federal Officer – Eric Rasmussen

Command – This is the facility has overall control of the Incident

IC – Incident Commander, John Gargett
. Command Staff
. . PIO – Press Information Officer, Jamie Imus

Met with Tod Williams, director of technology, Loma Linda University Medical Center and talked about ways to extend the reach of their MTV (METERV) Communications and Command Vehicle. Designed to respond to emergency and disaster situations, the MTV brings the expertise of a critical care center to patients that may be cut off from access to any hospital or medical care.

Tod has been testing a new mobile video head set that broadcasts audio and video over Wi-Fi.

The plan was to utilize the Entree Wireless Mobile Wi-Fi Gateway to extend the reach of the MTV by having Tod and team venture down the beach interviewing patients.

One of the most powerful visual memories of SA III I have is seeing the Second Life sim designed for SA III demonstrated live on site. I've blogged about this and the serious uses of the Second Life platform here.

There's a number of podcasts I've done with several leading participants at SA III here - http://ict4peace.wordpress.com. Also check out http://ict4peace.wordpress.com/strong-angel-iii for other posts on SA III.

Click on an image here to see a very low-tech proof of a concept: turning SMS messages into news flow. With the help of people from several companies, including Mitre, 2SMS.com and Google, we've created a small demonstration of how citizen journalists could create location- and time-based data that might be useful in any number of ways.
The idea, in this case, was part of a scenario involving a major disaster. We assumed people would be telling each other what was happening in their communities and neighborhoods, and that if they could post such information straight into maps they'd have better information to work with.

Didn't know quite where else to post this, but here's an interview that I did with Internews who are part of SA III -

More SA III posts here - http://ict4peace.wordpress.com/

Sanjana Hattotuwa

Creating content for bottom-up map...

strongangel3

We're part of an experiment called Strong Angel III, the third in a series of collaborations among many different organizations -- government, nonprofit, corporate and citizen-based -- to improve responses to disasters. You can learn more at the Strong Angel website:

http://www.strongangel3.net

and we hope you'll take a look.

This "Flash Mob" was designed to see whether we could mobilize people like all of us, in a disaster, to help each other get food.

We're not sure how you got the word. But we told people, via many different methods of communication, that we hoped they might bring food in a can, bottle or bag to a location in downtown San Diego or near "the Pyramid" on Thursday at noon. For exact instructions about the time and location, we asked them to text the word "soup" to a short message number -- 35842 -- by 11 a.m. today.

08/23 1900 Wednesday

The Good News- A Work Ticket as been submitted for my Gateway Port assignemennt.

The Bad News. - It is late and I am going home.

Tomorrow will be the day - Keep Smiling

0823 0930 – Wednesday

Met with Linda Branagan, Director of Research, MedWeb, to talk about the day’s scenario.

MedWeb is the industry standard for distributed telemedicine solutions and the delivery of Web-enabled, secure Tele-radiology and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS).

They have developed a medical response vehicle with a fully equipped mobile communication center that supports a variety of communication networks including satellite, 3G EVDO data and Wi-Fi.

Today MedWeb is planning a sortie to the mission beach lifeguard station to investigate reports of a number of people with flu like symptoms and identify potential patients that are part of the Asian Flu Pandemic.

08/22 0800 - Tuesday
ICS/NIMS training and certification - Better than a wireless network any day
Morning briefing

Wireless network still down

Decided to take the ICS/NIMS training class. Lee Sapaden, Instructor

Very good highly recommended

More to come - keep smiling

08/21 1130 Monday

We brought 3 products to Strong Angel III – Battery Powered Mobile Wi-Fi Router, Solar powered Wi-Fi Video camera and a Solar powered sensor net.

The Mobile Wi-Fi Router is a slam dunk. Just turn it on and in 30 seconds you have Wi-Fi Internet any time and any place (that is if EVDO/1xRTT is enabled). Case in point, the Mobile Wi-Fi router provided Internet service on the Sunday pre-event briefing. The Mobile Wi-Fi camera has some challenges when being deployed in a ‘dynamic’ (read going up/down often) wireless network.

My plan was to socialize the Mobile Wi-Fi Router with potential users and work through the camera issues on Monday PM after the wireless network was up. I got good traction socializing the Mobile Wi-Fi router but the camera was not easy.

08/21 0930 Monday
During the morning briefing they asked for 8 volunteers to help the with the power setup. I volunteered, not knowing exactly what I was getting into.

We assembled to the rear of 557 (main Strong Angel building) and waited for the GE Power systems 100KVA generators to show up. The lead from GE power talked us through the deployment of power to the second floor and the roof. Rich and I headed for the roof with an all too short rope and a 30 lbs. breaker panel. After a short delay because a door was locked and the key was missing we arrived at the roof. We did a quick look-see and moments later the generator arrived, we dangle the rope (it was just fine) and they attached a 1” diameter power cable. We hauled away and it took two of us as it was heavy. Minutes later we had hooked up the power distribution panel were headed down to the second floor. Now the real work started. Hauling those 1” cables down a 150’ hall way filled with ceiling tiles and fiberglass insulation is no picnic. Undaunted the team connect the power cable to intermediate distribution boxes and for there ran strings of power drop boxes down the rows of tables. The GE team did a final check and we flipped on the power – In less than 1.5 hours we were up and running. Bravo GE A flawless job well done! As they say at Staples – ‘That was easy’ - Keep Smiling

08/21 - 0800 - Monday
More that 250 participants filled the bleachers at building 557, the temporary home of Strong Angel III, and anxiously chatted about the days to come.

Eric Rasmussen lead the briefing covering many of the points from Sunday and emphasizing the value and importance of the Strong Angel III demonstration, the lessons learned and the bonds and friendships that will develop. The bottom line – We need to improve our efficiencies and capabilities because in a disaster response and crisis management, inefficiencies cost lives.

We also heard from Dave Warner on the ShadowLite plans which focus on collecting data from the community through multiple daily sorties and also will offer some seminars including ICS/NIMS training and certification.

Wrote this post - - based on some observations on the http://strongangel.nga-earth.org/ site launched in the afternoon today.

Sanjana Hattotuwa

Another interesting day was had at Strong Angel. The group imposed an ICS structured command unit on the group. The data groups went into the fields to gather more data. The people working in the core created visualizations of the area prior the incident. They mapped populations and area hospital capacities. Hospital data started to be used to update maps.

I went out in the field with the Loma Linda Medical Center response unit. They were able to establish communications with multiple locations and connect to the Medweb DMECH to enter data. Approx. 50 patient reccords were entered into the database. GIS data was sent back and mapped by the core. Data continues to build in the DMECH. I look forward to seeing the data move from the DMECH to some of the core mapping systems. I hope the applications will help provide better understanding of where people are sick and where people are health so resources can be brought to bear.

Interesting to see how use of ICS/NIMS got participants engaged today. I went out with MedWeb (Shadowlite) to observe and discuss mobile telemedicine. Setup time was about 10 -15 minutes for medical to start, since they do registration records on local server. Took about 1 hr to get uploads via satellite going due to internet connection.

Back at Core Site, found out that one of the cases I sent by web yesterday on Peter Buxtons project actually received a response from a Dr in New Zealand. With all the network problems, that was pretty amazing.

Late afternoon had more interesting discussions, including details of SSE on a Mac.

Sahana now ported to a PDA. Requires network connectivity as offline mechanism not yet functional.
Plan to try out mobile data collection tomorrow.

Sahana now able to accept SSE feed (read only at present). Developed in less than 1 day of coding. Currently at proof of concept stage.

8/20, 1000 -
Sunday morning the Strong Angel III participants gathered at 10:00 for a pre-event briefing by Dr. Eric Rasmussen, Strong Angel III Director, Dr. Eric Frost, Regional Coordinator, Dave Warner, Shadow Lite Director and Nigel Snoad, Demonstration Design.

Eric R. talked about the world wide representation of technologists, service agencies and humanitarians that have gathered for this integrated disaster response demonstration. He emphasized that this event is not a scripted exercise but a Jazz like impromptu gathering of people prepared to adventure beyond their normal limits and explore the boundaries of what can be accomplished when mere mortals simply agree to collaborate in a honest and sincere manner. Above all, when frustration builds and tempers get short – Keep Smiling.

I've been in San Diego this week at something called Strong Angel III, a project/demonstration/exercise designed to improve responses to emergencies and catastrophes, both those which are natural and caused by humans. Several hundred smart folks looking at technology and its applications in this kind of situation, and as with the last Strong Angel exercise (which took place two years ago on a lava bed in Hawaii), this one is proving immensely educational.

08/20 - Preparation
Entree Wireless is a provider of battery/solar powered wireless solutions for the first responder market that enhance key aspects of situational awareness, disaster response and crisis management.

Current products are the Warrior Battery Pack (WBP-KR1 - EVDO – Wi-Fi router), the Battery Powered Wi-Fi Video Camera and the Battery/Solar Power Wireless Sensor Network with EVDO backhaul.

These products are completely self contained standalone sub systems designed for reliable rapid deployment – Just pick up and go. Because they employ common low cost COTS equipment and a minimalist design approach they have been dubbed the ‘$100 solution’ referring to the cost of typical individual components. Generally upgrades and repairs can be completed with a visit to an electronics/hardware store and screw driver.

Morning briefing indicated demonstration events would unfold during the next few hours.

The difficulty I am experiencing is finding the central repository for collecting these incidents. They are crucial to our experiment in that they generate the "events" which populate the Signature Analyst assessment.

There is a ten o'clock meeting that might define this...

I have nothing but sympathy for the networking folks here at Strong Angel. They've worked incredibly hard on providing Internet access but have encountered a classic tragedy of the commons.

Which is fascinating, when you think about it. Because this is an exercise filled with smart-to-brilliant technology folks, who all surely realized that when everyone banged on the available wifi network at the same time, it would not hold up.

Yesterday, Eric Rasmussen finally put down the hammer on the access problem. He ordered everyone off the system and told the network guys to make it work. It got up, sort of, by late yesterday afternoon.

Bit9 is participating in SA3 under the task #17 Zero Day Cyber-threat mitigation. We are a new venture-backed company and shipped our first product in 2004. Our current customers are coporate or educational institiutions that typically have full time IT staffs, defined procedures for deploying software and a stable infrastructure. SA3 provides a challenging, 'hostile' environment for deploying software because there is no IT department, potentially intermittent power/communications and no standard computer configuration. The challenge is to adapt our solution to support such an environment.

Today I had planned to head out with the Loma Linda Telemedicine group to observe their onsite procedures. The trip was cancelled due to (I understand) their satellite connection being down. I then (tried to) assist Peter Buxton with his exercise in telemedicine for the Swinfen Charitable Trust. Surfed various networks in the AM, but was unable to upload images. After the network was reconfigured in the afternoon, I was able to get web pages and acknowledgements – but the images did not upload. Sigh.

As an Observer looking at medical management during disasters, today showed me again that technology cannot be depended upon – as I also saw in Katrina Relief Medical in Houston. However, a large number of the participants were caught up in their “techno-focus” and so did not reach out to others via personal chat and sneakernet – which *did* happen in Katrina Relief.

After not having wireless for, well, all day, the network is now up. I am now connected by wireless, and this blog entry is going through the ether.

I will get off the wireless and go back on the LAN for connectivity whenever possible.

Sat in on 1600 hrs incident briefing regarding "white smoke across border".

Here are the facts as I gathered them:

Mobile home emitting white smoke. Chem/bio hazard (unk). Border closed N and S. Air samples not taken. No reports of human or animal illness.

Detalis:

Lat: 32.54227N
Lon: 117.02949W
Time: 1310 22 Aug 06

Winds from west at 15-20 mph.

I passed this information to ESRI and also to idvsolutions.

I also sent this data to our reachback elements for insertion into SA as an event.

One of the first folks to get LAN connectivity on 22 Aug after comms were shut down since noon. Was using wireless previously.

DRASTIC have already been blogging Strong Angel III at http://drastic-sa3.blogspot.com/. Rather than duplicate entries, just follow that link. rlonghurst@drasticom.org

one thing I have already learned.....I am very network ependent with my solution. I need to address this in development.

Was up 'til 2am this mornng getting the Matrox TripleHead2Go running on the Viz Lab's three screen (and very old) ViewStation 36. These are three of those old heavy projectors with the CRT guns (red/green/blue) that display side by side to a single screen. The Matrox product worked pefectly, but aligning those CRTs was quite painful. Anyway, now we can display Google Earth across the entire display. Very cool.

Remember the 'big equipment' I alluded to? Well, so far this morning, I have seen GM's hybrid trucks that have 2400W power supplies in them. You wouldn't even know they had this power capability, as the outlets are under the drivers seat and embedded in the wall of the pickup bed. Ruggedized, and I am told by Cindy Svestka, GM Integration Engineer, Two-mode Hybrid Energy and Drive Quality, that the performance of the vehicle, even with the added electrical system, is identical to its non-enhanced counterpart. As long as the engine is running, there are four standard 120V outlets for use. And this is just the morning!

For me, the day was fairly light. Groove had some hiccups, but nothing I had the power to resolve. A known problem involving relay servers, that eventually fixed itself.

Still more hardware coming in, and I am told some of the heavy stuff, the really cool stuff, comes in tomorrow.

Saw an interesting technology today. Special cell phones had been programmed to broadcast their locations via their internal GPS systems to the internet, and then one could watch as the phone moved from location to location. Most modern cell phones are GPS capable, but the companies who supply the service disable the feature. Most phones can also send data, in addition to sound, and it was this data line that was used to transmit information to the Internet. Once on the net, a specially designed site coupled to Google Earth was used to display the phone's location. The site would then update every couple of minutes. It was amazing. You could even see when the phone was inside a building. Only downside I could see was that since the data signal was sent every couple of minutes, the phone was ultimately broadcasting all day. This would decrease battery life. Small price to pay to track the kids though...

My creative side has rebelled against me, and refuses to come up with any more spiffy blog titles. The date it is.

Yesterday saw more equipment coming in, but not too much. Still waiting on the bigger stuff.

I brought in my Matrox TripleHead2Go so we could display on three screens from the output of one video card. If three screens are connected to multiple video cards, any image that uses 3D acceleration will only display on the 'primary' card. This is because multiple video cards do not share the same RAM, or to be more accurate, the same frame buffer. By outputting from a single video card (which typically has only two outputs anyway), a single frame buffer is used. Coupled to Matrox's way cool product, 3D acceleration can occur across three screens.

Learned more about Groove yesterday. Got to see the server side of it. Very cool.

Had to figure out how to connect an IP camera connected directly to a PC. Used a USB to RJ-11 adapter I had laying around, with a cool adapter that turns any standard CAT5 cable into a passthrough cable. Finally connected to the camera, but had some difficulty doing dynamic DNS.

The inventory system is now fully up and running, which allows us to track all the goodies we are using during SAIII. There is a checkout system, so everything that is checked out is tracked to specific individuals.

Though SAIII starts next week, yesterday was the beginning of the command staff coming to town.

Felt good to put faces to names, getting to know the leaders of this exercise, and trying hard to be useful.

Took some pictures of some cool technologies (attached), something I will do the entire event.

Seabotix rep Sean Newsome showed us the 'bumblebee', a remote controlled modular submersible with a grapple. John Graham worked a way to remote control it from the Viz Lab. Hope I can see it in action.

Then David Ahlgren, brought in a portable unit that uses a battery during the night, solar during the day to receive inputs from remote sensors, and then transmit through wireless. Uses off-the-shelf hardware, packaged into a small hardened briefcase. Think it is being used by geologists right now as the nexus for a sensornet in a cave.

Linton Wells, the Defense Department's principal deputy assistant secretary for networks and information integration, recently authored an interesting article in Federal Times that focuses on the core of the upcoming SA-III demonstration. Says Dr. Wells: "Experience from domestic and foreign humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations shows that shared situational awareness and the systems that support information sharing are critical to all other functions."

This is an interesting perspective that's worth a read...

When we impose bandwidth restrictions it would be better to use websites designed for PDAs as these will consume fewer network resources. I suggest we produce a list of useful sites beforehand and post it as a SA3 resource somewhere. I have made a start in a post on the Software and System Integration forum.

SAIII Network Communications Architecture Summary

Author: Brian Steckler, Professor Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA (SAIII Communications Director)

Purpose of Posting: The purpose of this summary is to provide a laymans description of the various Information, Communications, and Technology (ICT) components of the Strong Angel III event taking place from 20-26 August 2006 in San Diego California. In addition it describes the purpose of the activities, who will provide various services/demonstrations, what technologies will be showcased, and how it all ties together to address the art of the possible for communications in austere environments for future US or international disasters, whether natural or manmade. Most of the solutions that are brought to bear are in response to a number of communications lessons learned from recent large scale disasters including our own Hurricane Katrina, the SE Asian tsunami of December 2004, the recent earthquakes and mudslides in Indonesia and the Philippines, the Pakistan/Afghanistan earthquakes, etc.

Lets see where can i plug this in ........

...and a fascinating event, and thank you for the interest you've shown in joining us here on this website. My name is Eric Rasmussen and I've been the director for the Strong Angel series for the past seven years. In Strong Angel I lead a remarkable team of people, both the returning core and our new participants. Their efforts - as will be seen within the demonstration in August - will challenge and expand our common understanding of what's possible in disaster preparation, community resilience and humanitarian response.

Strong Angel is an unusual team. We have no formal structure, no dedicated staff, and no official tasking, yet we have a track record that argues that these rare Strong Angel demonstrations have been quite worthwhile. We have, in a few small ways, altered policy, teaching, procedures, and perspectives in several areas around the globe, with ripples that have affected a wide swath of those populations in need since 1999.

This time, for the week of 20-26 August, we'll again have an exceptional collection of very smart, experienced, and impassioned people, flying in from around the world to pursue solutions to complex and persistent problems that really matter; problems that have recurred again and again within both natural and man-made disasters.

It is worth noting that members of the Executive Committee have deployed to more than 20 disasters over the past few years, including the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the Kashmir earthquake, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and for the genocide in Darfur. While deployed to these tragedies, we've seen that a poor performance of those tasks we've listed in the Objectives section may cause lives to be degraded, and sometimes lost, through circumstances that might be avoidable.

So, based on recent disasters to which the Executive Committee has responded, we have collected a set of tasks we think need to be performed better when lives are at stake. To be honest, we'll probably perform most of them within the first day or two of the demonstration. From that point on, however, the complexity will increase and resources will be removed, so the challenges will expand considerably. We will work with our teams to devise methods for synthesis and synergy, optimizing our capabilities in each of the response areas we've found important.

It might also be interesting to note that we offer from this work everything we possibly can as a gift to the world, releasing anything that we, ourselves, create to the public domain. That way, a portion of the work so creatively performed during Strong Angel can live on without restriction, available to anyone on the planet, especially those with very limited resources . While we certainly value the proprietary contributions of our many partners and participants, we are very deeply interested in how we share resources (power, water, shelter, software, and news...) effectively with those who have very few; those who are living on the edge and at the margins, most in need of these ideas and capabilities. We should also note that, within the Strong Angel teams, we work aggressively to maintain our own sense of corporate responsibility, carefully respecting copyrights, patents, and intellectual property, while we also, at the same time, strive to develop free and open-source capabilities where we can. It's an unusual approach, but we've found it effective.

On a small side note for those coming to San Diego: If you're willing to take a few moments while you're there, I'd like to personally thank each of you for your contributions. You're all aware that we have very little money, and yet you've each done absolutely astonishing work. It has been terrific to watch. So, if you can, please drop by Building 557 during Strong Angel just for a few moments. You'll find me on the balcony, left side, watching the remarkable events unfold...