8:30 - 9:30 | REGISTRATION IN THE LOBBY

9:30 - 11:45 | OPENING SESSION - CURRENT TRENDS AND ISSUES IN PUBLIC WARNING

• ITU-T Welcome by Houlin Zhao, Director, ITU Standardization Sector
  
  
• OASIS Welcome by Patrick Gannon, President and CEO, OASIS
  
  
• Keynote Speech: WMO World Weather Watch and Public Warning
  Dr. John L. Hayes, Director, World Weather Watch Department, World Meteorological Organization
  Close to 90 % of all natural disasters in the last 10 years have resulted from hazards such as floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, severe storms and other geophysical phenomena. The World Meteorological Organization's World Weather Watch consists of observing, telecommunication, and data-processing and forecasting systems - owned and run by WMO Members countries - to generate and distribute meteorological and related geophysical observations, forecasts and early warnings The World Weather Watch system relies on international cooperation in science and technology, especially Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to alert people in time to act to reduce loss of life, injury and damage due natural or man-made hazards involving weather, water and climate. The World Weather Watch actively encourages international collaboration to assure that standards-based, all-media public warning is enabled for all manner of natural hazards worldwide.

10:25 - 11:45 | KEYNOTES

Developments Related to the Tampere Convention
Bo Bergner, Swedish Post and Telecom Agency
How could the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster and Relief Operations facilitate operations? One main object of the Tampere Convention is to encourage states and non-state entities to in case of disasters being prepared to upon request offer telecommunication assistance.
Telecom administrations and regulators not having any resources for such assistance can anyhow in a decisive way facilitate future relief operations by lifting or reducing national regulatory barriers to facilitate procedures
   - when assisting parties as part of a relief operation bring in telecommunication and radio equipment to the country
   - for the timely use of telecommunication and radio equipment by assisting parties.
These procedures could be further facilitated if state parties for planning purposes were kept informed with updated lists of the telecommunication and radio equipment needed and, most importantly, specific needs for radio spectrum included in the plans for relief operations of assisting parties.

Activities in the Private Sector as it Relates to Public Warning
Tony Rutkowski, Vice-President for Regulatory Affairs and Standards, VeriSign, Inc.
A new emergency alert and messaging marketplace is emerging that is based on a fusion of consumer demand, available and emerging technologies, and government mandates. In some cases, the platforms have a common base with consumer geolocation-based, Identity Management, and SMS/MMS services. For some implementations, the use of trusted third party service bureaus or aggregators may also have substantial benefits.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Emergency Interoperable Standards Efforts
Chip Hines, U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Emergency Interoperable Standards
In the aftermath of the tsunami of 2004 and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, emergency managers are more aware today than ever before of the importance and urgency of improved public warning. This involves an immediate focus on disaster management, prevention, and relief to avoid a loss of life and property due to disasters. The workshop will provide the audience an opportunity to learn and discuss the activities of the Department of Homeland Security's recent progress concerning public warnings, including the Common Alerting Protocol and other standards development efforts.

How CAP Alerts are Supported by the Google Earth Infrastructure
Frank Robles and Andrew Rogers, Neopolitan Networks

11:45 - 19:30 | INTEROPERABILITY DEMONSTRATIONS

14:00 - 15:20 | SESSION 1A: ICT STANDARDS FOR PUBLIC WARNINGS

OASIS CAP in Detail
Art Botterell, Manager Community Warning System - Contra Costa County, California
The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an international OASIS standard data format for public warning. By implementing a research-based design that is independent of any particular warning delivery system, CAP makes it possible to integrate and coordinate multiple warning technologies for maximum reach and effectiveness. CAP offers support for multiple languages, precise geospatial targeting, time-phasing and expiration, "rich media" attachments to the basic text message, and back-compatibility with existing warning methods. The architect of CAP, Art Botterell, will describe the process by which social-science research into warning-system effectiveness was translated into a technical capability. He also will review the structure and content of the CAP message format and discuss how CAP adds value and capability to other warning technologies.

Activities within OASIS Emergency Management TC
Elysa Jones, Engineering Program Manager, Warning Systems, Inc.

Standards Work at ITU-T
Ken Smith, Verizon

16:00 - 17:40 | SESSION 1B: IMPLEMENTING ICT STANDARDS FOR PUBLIC WARNINGS

UNEP's Global Environmental Alert Service Using CAP
Ashbindu Singh, Ph.D., Regional Coordinator, UNEP Division of Early Warning & Assessment - North America, UNEP RONA
Empowering people with engaging environmental information in a near-real time mode is now in the realm of reality. The basic objective of UNEP's Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAS) to provide people compelling and dynamic information about environmental changes as they occur. It is envisaged to have three components. Component 1: Near Real-time Environmental Hazards Alerts : a notification service that uses appropriate formats (email, SMS, web service with real-time maps) to alert people to what is happening to their environments so that timely decisions can be made; Component 2: Environmental Hotspots Alerts: Through change studies of photographs, satellite images, maps and narratives, document visual evidence of global environmental change resulting from natural processes, human activities and the interaction between them; Component 3: Environmental Science Alerts: to provide interested users with policy-relevant scientific research about the environment condensed into short report briefing notes.

Cell Alert Harmonization
Mark Wood, Honorary General Secretary, Citizens Emergency Alert Services Association International (CEASa)
The CellAlert program seeks to put the power of Cell Broadcasting to the service of the humanitarian agenda. CellAlert intends to provide government to citizen mass communications, for the purpose of public safety. However there are two issues: First, in many regions, more than one official language is used. In such regions, people speaking one language, can be regularly crossing borders into countries, which in themselves have multiple official languages, with primacy in different order. And in some cases, such as the maritime service, information must always be on the same code, regardless of which country the ship is in range of or the benefit of a large enough audience would be lost. The presenter will discuss these issues and solutions in depth.

Implementing Common Alerting Protocol for Hazard Warning in Sri Lanka
Gordon A. Gow, Assistant Professor, Graduate Program in Communications and Technology (MACT)
The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 made clear the urgent need to develop means for disseminating warning messages to local communities at risk in the region. However, local warning systems are part of an interconnected system of diverse communication technologies that require integration through a common data interchange format, such as the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). The CAP standard was developed and introduced in 2004 to facilitate the interoperability of hazard warning technologies but is yet to be widely deployed, especially in less-developed countries. This presentation will address findings from an ongoing study headed by Lanais (www.lirneasia.net/) that involves the implementation of the CAP standard to support a local all-hazards warning system in Sri Lanka. In particular, it will discuss the challenges of implementing a CAP-based information system for managing multi-lingual warnings across a set of five technologies in 32 tsunami-affected villages along the southern and eastern coast of Sri Lanka. Issues to be covered will include, localizing the warning message, establishing alerting procedures, implementing a user interface for CAP message generation, as well as using the CAP template for structuring upstream data to support situational awareness for emergency managers.

Challenges of Implementing the International Health Regulations
Véronique Inès Thouvenot, World Health Organisation, National Epidemic Preparedness and Response

The Anny Network: A CAP-based Warning System
Pierre Alexandre Genillon, WorldSpace
The WorldSpace satellite network consists of two geostationary satellites. AfriStar and AsiaStar, serving Africa, Middle East, Europe and Asia. Each satellite has three beams with each beam capable of delivering more than 40 crystal-clear audio services and a variety of web content, text, data, imaging and streaming video directly to portable receivers in a coverage area that includes that includes the most recent natural disasters affected area. Recent disasters pointed out the lack of adequate infrastructure for proper and timely warning of people and administrations and consequently the need for a resilient alerting system which can cover all hazards and can be operated by authorized and authenticated agencies involved in disaster management WorldSpace is a perfect vehicle for timely delivery of warnings. Anny Network Early Warning System (ANEWS), based on the OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), as a whole is built on a multi-purpose system allowing authorities to deliver many types of audio and data alerts — independently of any terrestrial communication infrastructure— it can be deployed and sustained in the most remote locations even after disaster strikes to local authorities down to the village level. Anny Network has developed a Web-based platform allowing administrations to manage their recipients, to generate and transmit geo-referenced alerts. Alert is represented using CAP formalism. This choice should allow to ensure a certain level of interoperability with other COTS solutions including sensor networks in order to build a more complete early warning infrastructure. CAP was identified in 2005 as the only protocol in the area of alert and WorldSpace fully supports its adoption. ANEWS main objective is to build a cost effective, and sustainable warning system easy to set, use and maintain with in mind : Robustness, light maintenance and efficiency. Anny is not a substitute to existing solutions. It can be used as a unique reliable warning system or as redundant linked to other solutions with the appropriate partnerships.