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ICT & disaster research findings discussed Print E-mail
Monday, 02 April 2007
LIRNE AsiaThe findings of a pilot project designed to learn how ICTs and community-based training can help in responding to disasters such as tsunamis were discussed by community leaders and international experts at a workshop on “Sharing Knowledge on Disaster Warning with a Focus on Community-based Last-mile Warning Systems” held on March 28th and 29th, 2007 in Sri Lanka. The project is part of LIRNEasia's work related to the WDR theme on ICTs and disasters.

These finding ranged from the difficulties experienced in communicating disaster warnings to villages when mobile GSM and fixed CDMA telecom networks were not functional due to conflict conditions to the importance of not leaving newspapers on top of sensitive electronic equipment which can overheat and shut down as a result. In terms of the five communication technologies that were evaluated across multiple criteria, the addressable satellite radio sets and the java-enabled mobile phones performed the best, with the GSM-based community warning device developed locally by Dialog Telekom, MicroImage and University of Moratuwa following closely. The VSAT based warning system did not perform too well in the tests.

Read LIRNEasia executive director Rohan Samarajiva's full report on the workshop on the LIRNEasia website.