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Community and Government Stakeholders Collaborate to Explore How Public Input Via Social Media Influences Emergency Response Emergency preparedness experts from community, state and federal organizations will come together October 1-5 to conduct a unique simulation experiment (SIMEX) to test the use of emerging technologies in crisis response. This first public SIMEX, convened by The MITRE Corporation, will explore whether public input via social media in an emergency impacts the response. In this SIMEX, multiple government stakeholders will explore the role of citizen participation in crisis response decision-making and study the potential of emerging technologies to improve the outcome of the response on the part of public entities. Emergency managers from Washington, D.C., metro area jurisdictions, with support from state and federal emergency management personnel, will process student feedback to develop response options (evacuate, shelter-in-place, etc.). The Emergency Operations Center will be housed in the Net-Centric Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Experimentation Lab (NCEL)* on MITRE's McLean, Va., campus. The results of this SIMEX—which takes place five years in the future, or in 2017—will contribute to the current body of crisis response research and help inform emergency preparedness, crisis communications and public policy going forward. The scenario: A completely virtual experiment in which an emergency occurs on the George Mason University campus. No actual emergency activities will occur on the Mason campus during this SIMEX. As the simulated crisis unfolds, student participants based on the Mason campus in Fairfax, Va., will use a Twitter-like application called Chirp to share in real-time what they are seeing and hearing. Their collective input will be shared with emergency managers via the Citizens' Emergency Response Portal System (CERPS), a set of technology tools used together to facilitate citizen participation in crisis response. The public: Represented by up to 200 students from George Mason University. The emergency response team: Emergency managers, operators and public information staff from Mason and local, state, and federal government agencies, including:
The CERPS-SIMEX supports Presidential Policy Directive-8, which states: "Our national preparedness is the shared responsibility of all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and individual citizens. Everyone can contribute to safeguarding the Nation from harm." For information: Contact Karina Wright of MITRE Public Affairs. Members of the media will have an opportunity to visit the NCEL on Tuesday, October 2, at 9:00 a.m. or 1:00 p.m. Contact Karina Wright to register. For information, contact MITRE Public Affairs. * The government uses the NCEL to conduct SIMEXs that place actual military and civilian operators in various crisis-based scenarios. During SIMEXs, operators use real command and control systems linked to simulated reporting and sensor systems. In the last 10 years, MITRE has facilitated 41 SIMEXs. Sponsors and customers from the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security have used these SIMEXs to develop concepts of operations and tactics, techniques and procedures around the use of emerging technologies.
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