Emergency Interoperability Consortium Announces Agreement With Department Of Homeland Security

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://www.directionsmag.com/press.releases/?duty=Show&id=10967&trv=1>  

Directions Magazine 

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EMERGENCY INTEROPERABILITY CONSORTIUM ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT WITH DEPARTMENT
OF HOMELAND SECURITY TO PROMOTE DATA SHARING DURING
 January 17, 2005

Company: E Team, Inc.
Industry: Homeland Security
Location: Washington, DC, United States of America

 Groundbreaking public/private sector alliance will promote the development
of standards for sharing emergency response information

 WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Emergency Interoperability Consortium (EIC)
announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to promote the development and
proliferation of data sharing standards for emergency response. Thought to
be the first of its kind between DHS and a non-government entity, the
agreement establishes an alliance between the organizations to jointly
promote the design, development, release, and use of XML standards to help
solve data sharing problems commonly encountered during emergency
operations. The initial term of the agreement is three years.

 "This DHS/EIC alliance is an important step towards realizing the
potential of a public/private partnership to rapidly develop and
proliferate valid and commercially sustainable interoperability standards,"
commented Matt Walton, EIC chairman and vice chairman and founder of E
Team, Inc., a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of crisis management software.
"Removal of the barriers that currently hinder data sharing in emergencies
will benefit everyone involved - from the government agencies that work to
secure our nation against potential threats to first responders in the
field and the people they assist."

 Initial collaborative efforts between DHS and EIC have already borne fruit
in the release in 2004 of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), the first
data standard for sharing alert information between dissimilar systems. The
next generation of data sharing standards, being developed with the
leadership of emergency response organizations, is called Emergency Data
Exchange Language (EDXL). It goes beyond alerting to address the routing
and substance of a wide variety of interagency emergency messaging. The
first of these, a common "header" for routing emergency messages, has been
passed from EIC with DHS concurrence to the OASIS formal standards
development organization. This EDXL routing tool was first trialed passing
messages among ten different emergency communications products in a
demonstration at George Washington University sponsored by EIC, DHS, and
others late in 2004. Steve Cooper, the DHS Chief Information Officer and
signatory on the MOA with EIC, was the keynote speaker at the
demonstration. Barry West, the CIO of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), also signed the MOA.

 "The Department of Homeland Security is pleased to have established an
alliance with EIC to promote the rapid development of both valid and
commercially sustainable standards to share data between all levels of the
emergency response community," said Gordon Fullerton, executive sponsor of
the Disaster Management Program of DHS. "Based on the early success of CAP,
we are committed to working with emergency response practitioners, EIC, the
OASIS Technical Committee, and others to produce multiple standards in the
coming year that will make it possible to get critical emergency data to
those that need it."

 The Memorandum of Agreement provides for a collaborative process to
improve information sharing capabilities to protect the nation and its
citizens from the consequences of disasters and other emergencies,
regardless of cause. It encourages broad-based participation in the design,
development, acceptance, and use of XML standards to enable emergency
organizations to receive and share data in real time. EIC and DHS are to
work together to educate federal, state, local, and tribal governments, the
media, citizens, and industry on the meaning and importance of data sharing
within the emergency response communities, and to promote innovation and
collaboration in these communities around open architectures and standards.

 By working together, both DHS and EIC believe that government and industry
can more quickly and cost-effectively bridge the data sharing gap between
organizations that must be able to interoperate in response to the natural
and man-made hazards that form the core of the DHS mission. After an
initial term of three years, the agreement can be renewed for additional
two-year periods.

 "Data interoperability is at the heart of effective response," said
Richard Taylor, chairman of the safety non-profit ComCARE Alliance, and
9-1-1 director for the State of North Carolina. "We are delighted at the
effective and cooperative way EIC and this DHS program are engaging our
emergency response members in rapidly developing common standards." ComCARE
is represented on EIC's Board.

 About EIC The Emergency Interoperability Consortium (EIC) was launched in
October 2002 to address the nation's lack of consistent technical
interoperability and standards for emergency and incident management. Now
comprised of over 50 private entities, public agencies, university groups,
and non-profit organizations, EIC promotes the development and adoption of
standards for using Web services, Extensible Markup Language (XML), and
existing exchange protocols that support the timely and accurate exchange
of incident information throughout the emergency response communities.

 For more information on EIC, see www.eic.org, or contact Matt Walton at
matt.walton at eic.org or 818-932-0660 ext. 204.  Contact: Dina Frale,
818-932-0660 x207, media at eteam.com

Matt Walton (matt.walton at eic.org)
Phone: 818-932-0660 ext. 204


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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
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