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Description
The numerous advancements in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief technologies over the past decade have enabled emergency planners from across the globe to improve response and recovery efforts in all types of disasters. In a post 9-11/Katrina/ Indonesian-earthquake-and-tsunami world, geographic information systems with visual technologies and analytical reasoning capabilities have been at the forefront of emergency management research and theory. Advanced social cloud computing and crowdsourcing technologies were utilized in the responses to the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Mexico, as well as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The evolution of new social networks, international partnerships, advanced communications, and multi-disciplinary collaborations have cultivated the Common Relevant Operating Picture for "fifth generation command and control" -- that is, the combination of technology and organizational response. Exercise24 was a two-day-long, international and multidisciplinary crisis simulation in which smart technologies were implemented to connect civilian and military organizations in efforts for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. It explored how new social media components that support communication, logistics coordination, and disaster response affect mass populations and infrastructures. Traditional command and control methods are not effective for every catastrophic disaster because changes in circumstantial information and new events occur very quickly. Cloud media and crowdsourcing technologies, however, elevate and make immediate the awareness of situational changes for users. This type of knowledge management supports preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery in disaster situations in a way that is indispensable to effective emergency management. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how Exercise24's comprehensive, science-based, holistic approach is valuable to the future of emergency management. The thesis explores and analyzes the several technologies and thought processes that were implemented in Exercise24 to improve international civilian-military collaboration and coordination during a real-time crisis. Its conclusions about the effectiveness of social cloud media and crowdsourcing in disaster situations, as well as the use of these technologies for emergency management training and exercises, are drawn from observation of the simulation itself as well as the After Action Reports received from the participants. This thesis contributes to the ongoing discussion of how catastrophe training and exercises can be improved by utilizing available technologies and resources within an international, collaborative model of action.
