^{Date Published: 13 Oct 2011 9:48am}

In preparation for their group meeting earlier this year, the AFAC Chief Information Officer’s Group decided to hold an open seminar on emergency communications and how well they worked during recent disasters. Open to AFAC member agencies and other organisations to attend, the Seminar focused on how high volumes of emergency information was received, used and dispatched during the disasters in New Zealand and Australia early in 2011.

The Seminar provided a lesson’s learnt opportunity for those in attendance, allowing for sharing of critical information and other factors relevant to a mining disaster, two earthquakes, a cyclone and major floods and fires across Australasia.

Full event summary here.

One key message from the two day seminar was the customer evolution within emergency situations, where they are increasingly becoming stakeholders, not just customers. It is also clear that the changing nature of the emergency management business is emerging to be more than simply responding to incidents. As there is more and more of a growing need for agencies to work together, there appears to be no excuse for not working together. Commonality amongst lessons learnt shared was the need to focus on the ‘people’ component of technology and the need to be prepared, resourceful, able and flexible when it comes to emergencies.

Guest presentations from the Australian Red Cross, Telstra, Geoscience Australia and Airwave Solutions were well received with fantastic workshopping from participants following each presentation. The opportunity to network and share information will prove extremely valuable for these CIO’s into the future as the nature of our business continues to change and emerge.