Disaster management app or how we can all become helpers

Volunteering has a long tradition in Austria. A remarkable 46 percent of the population aged 15 and older does some form of volunteer work, and many of them provide important support for rescue organizations, fire departments and authorities in disaster management. Time is an important factor, especially in the fight against natural forces. Digitization has arrived in disaster control and is becoming an increasingly important aid in providing targeted and timely assistance.

An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 according to Richter shakes Eisenerz in Styria, 1,000 people lose their lives, 300 are buried, the infrastructure is massively damaged, the power supply is down in large parts. Local forces are overwhelmed, the EU alerts additional relief teams - it is a frightening but realistic scenario designed for the disaster control exercise. From September 12 to 14, 2019, the last of a total of four civil protection exercises under the EU-funded DRIVER+ project took place in Eisenerz with TRIAL Austria. The large-scale exercise was conducted by AIT and the Austrian Red Cross and state-of-the-art digital solutions were used for the first time.

One problem in the event of disasters is the different and historically evolved IT solutions of various emergency organizations. However, efficient and optimally coordinated crisis disaster management (CDM) is the be-all and end-all in the event of a disaster. AIT develops state-of-the-art command & control communication solutions and takes a holistic approach. The digital application CrowdTasker was developed in many years of intensive research work. CrowdTasker was used alongside a variety of other applications - such as a shared information space with a special focus on seamless information exchange between military and civilian IT systems - during the exercise in Eisenerz.

Quick help can save lives

CrowdTasker enables the involvement of aid workers and volunteers from the population in crisis management, as well as real-time communication between them and the emergency services, which issue a wide range of search and rescue tasks and use them to obtain a real-time situation picture of the affected area for their efficient mission planning and decision-making. Potential responders can be targeted with geographic constraints in mind, subject to specific skills and qualifications if desired. CrowdTasker proved to be an innovative crisis management solution during the exercise, passing the elk test with flying colors and making a significant contribution to the success of the disaster exercise. Should an emergency ever occur, CrowdTasker is an effective coordination and deployment planning tool that can save lives.