Global Humanitarian Relief Experts Gather in San Diego to Demonstrate Disaster Response Innovations

Strong Angel III to Test New Combinations of Integrated Technologies and Social Techniques for Disaster Relief

Contact:

Lorena Nava
SDSU Marketing & Communications
Tel: (619) 594-3952 office, (619) 309-5179 cell
lnava@mail.sdsu.edu

SAN DIEGO (Monday, Aug. 14, 2006) – The situation is grim. A pandemic has swept across the globe. Simultaneously, a terrorist network begins systematic cyber attacks, disabling communications throughout the United States. Now, local governments must provide humanitarian relief without an established telecommunications infrastructure.

This is the scenario facing the participants of Strong Angel III, a collaborative demonstration of civil and military cooperation and communication capabilities put together by a partnership of private companies, government agencies, humanitarian and relief agencies, and universities. Hosted by San Diego State University and taking place in San Diego August 21-26, Strong Angel III will field test effective means of delivering life-saving humanitarian relief and rapidly deployable communication systems in the wake of major disasters.

"Our major goal is to establish a model of community resilience in the face of adversity," said Eric Rasmussen, M.D., director of Strong Angel III and an adjunct professor in SDSU's College of Sciences. "Strong Angel III will explore how to overcome devastating losses of communications infrastructure during major catastrophes."

Strong Angel III's core operations center is the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Training Facility site, located at the former Naval Training Center near downtown San Diego. This site will host the demonstration participants throughout its buildings, grounds and parking lots during the six-day event.

SDSU's Visualization Center, the secondary site of operations, will be the central point for information processing, mapping and incoming visual footage and data from remote cameras at the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Training Facility site and from satellite sites throughout San Diego County.

After an initial setup phase, teams from various organizations will conduct more than 40 pre-defined experiments. The experiments will test and demonstrate the usefulness of various technologies and proven techniques, providing valuable information on which solutions and combinations thereof will be of most benefit to first responders, health officials, defense personnel and others in the event of a major disaster.

As the demonstration progresses, Strong Angel III participants will face additional unannounced challenges and constraints, including technical, social, operational, and environmental problems, that are characteristic of humanitarian operations during major natural disasters. Major sponsors and event participants include Microsoft, Bell Canada, Save the Children, Cisco Systems, Sprint Nextel, Google, the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Department of Defense and CommsFirst.

"Strong Angel III is an exceptional collection of very smart, experienced and impassioned people who will pursue solutions to complex and persistent problems that really matter," Rasmussen said. "We'll address proposals for solutions to issues that frequently impede disaster relief efforts."

The overall demonstration and individual experiments will be fully documented by participants, and the results made public.

"Strong Angel III will release anything that is created during the demonstration to the public domain, developing free and open source capabilities when possible," Rasmussen said. "We are very deeply interested in how we share resources effectively with those who have very few, as they will be the most in need of these ideas and capabilities in the event of a major disaster."

Strong Angel III is the latest and largest in a series of demonstrations designed to improve community and international response to disasters and humanitarian problems.

The first Strong Angel was held near Puu Pa'a on the Big Island of Hawaii in June 2000 and was designed to address problems seen in the international response to the Kosovo refugee migration. Strong Angel participants established and distributed medical intelligence communication infrastructure at a mock refugee camp using the latest global communication technologies.

In 2004, Strong Angel II was held on a remote lava bed near Waikoloa, Hawaii, and pursued problems identified by members of the first Strong Angel team who were later deployed to post-9/11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Strong Angel II incorporated 83 tasks designed to propose answers to problems seen in civil-military integration during those conflict deployments, including trans-boundary communications, civil-military transportation coordination, sustainable power provisioning, machine-based translation services and extensive cultural awareness. Those tasks were each eventually completed, with variable degrees of success, through the efforts of more than 60 staff.

Strong Angel III is a demonstration of globally relevant methods for improving resilience within any community under pressure. As an ad hoc demonstration, Strong Angel III has no dedicated staff and minimal serious funding. Each prior Strong Angel demonstration has altered some aspect of corporate or governmental behavior over the long-term. For more information on Strong Angel III and a full list of participating organizations, please visit www.strongangel3.net.

*Editor’s Note: Strong Angel III will host a media day on Thursday, August 24. To RSVP or for more information, please contact Lorena Nava at (619) 594-3952 or lnava@mail.sdsu.edu.

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