Mobile Information Technology for Emergency Response

SIG Workshops
Mobile Information Technology for Emergency Response
Sunday 10-05-2009
14:00 - 16:00

Chairs: Markus Klann, Fraunhofer FIT Germany
Jobst Löffler, Fraunhofer IAIS Germany

Room: ISCRAM 3

Many mobile ICT systems for emergency response look nice on slides or when demonstrated at fairs. But looking at them many people including prospective users get an uneasy feeling about actually using them during an emergency.

We believe that these concerns are mostly well justified. Addressing them requires covering two distinct aspects. First, the technologies and designs must match the actual requirements of the fields. Given the diverse and extreme nature of many emergency response operations this is already surprisingly difficult to achieve. Second, even systems that match the requirements of the field still have to earn the acceptance of their users to use them efficiently, effectively and with informed confidence. Understandably, emergency workers are particularly reluctant about adopting new systems because they have to rely on them for the effectiveness of their support efforts or even their own lives. The particularity of supporting emergency response with mobile ICT is that the requirements and constraints of the domain are especially hard to study and understand and that in terms of both the products and the process of design very specific solutions are required. What we would like to offer with this workshop is an opportunity for emergency response practitioners as well as researchers and developers of mobile ICT to exchange their experiences with the challenges of creating mobile ICT for emergencies.