Emergency information sharing capabilities on display in Va.

Science Applications International Corp. demonstrated the capability of an information sharing project designed for emergency response organizations.

The Unified Incident Command and Decision Support (UICDS) framework is based on an open-architecture to allow multiple responding organizations (using their own equipment) to jointly manage personnel, direct equipment, and seamlessly communicate, gather, store, redistribute, and secure any mission-critical information needed by incident commanders and emergency responders during an emergency situation.

The Virginia Department of Emergency Management hosted the event at the Virginia Emergency Operations Center in Richmond, Va., April 29.

Chip Mahoney, SAIC UICDS project manager, said, “This demonstration illustrated how information can be shared through a diverse set of interfaces, data formats and networks using non-proprietary, open standards.”

The test involved twenty-three commercial, governmental and academic technology providers, demonstrating how diverse and disparate agencies could share information in the event of an emergency. Nearly on hundred real-time information exchanges were performed.

“Despite all the efforts devoted to data interoperability in recent years, the 23 technology providers represented in the demonstration came to the UICDS program with virtually no instances of sharing information with each other,” James W. Morentz, Ph.D., director of UICDS Outreach, said in a statement. “This exercise points the way to a successful continuation of this government-sponsored, technology provider-driven information sharing across the full range of prevention, protection, response, and recovery.”

Subcontractors GEOCommand, Inc. and KZO Innovations were among those supporting SAIC’s efforts.

UICDS is sponsored by the Science and Technology Directorate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The UICDS architecture has its foundation based on design criteria taken from the National Response Framework, National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS).

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