Tag: INDIMA

Josef H. Riener, MSc, left, with Secretary of State, Dr Raed Arafat

EU HNS consortium meeting in Bucharest

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Bucharest: From 1. May till 2. May we had a very successful consortium meeting at the Department of Emergency Situations of Ministerul Afacerilor Interne România. This internal kick-off meeting was very important for the project management, we discussed the internal communication, timeline of the project, milestones, deliverables and roles and responsibilities within the project. Thank you, Bogdan Pop, Emilia Turucz, Artur Vladimir Sedei, and all partners for your high motivation and important contributions!
The next task will be to draft the project handbook…

Photo: Josef H. Riener, MSc, left, Project Manager of EU HNS, with the head of Department of Emergency Situations, Romania, Secretary of State, Dr Raed Arafat.

SIMEX successfully completed

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SIMEX, the simulation exercise of INDIMA project, had the aim to prepare the participants for new rchallenges in disaster management and to integrate all relevant stakeholders. In addition to the organisations of Civil Protection, these include representatives of “critical infrastructure” and private companies such as bus companies, construction companies, and telecom- and logistics providers. The use of state-of-the-art simulation techniques such as XVR Virtual Reality for the presentation of situations and feeds made the exercise very realistic, up-to-date and at the same time cost-effective.

INDIMA project, funded by the European Union, General Directorate for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection and was conducted in close cooperation with the Romanian Ministry of the Interior, (DSU – Department for Emergency Situations, Romania), the Hungarian Red Cross, iHELP Institute from Poland and publiComm GmbH, Austria in Timișoara, Romania on March 23-25. Austrian Red Cross, GQ, was involved in this project with several experts. The SIMEX had 78 participants, 37 of whom were involved in conducting the exercise and 39 as participants. The project will continue with a workshop in May 2022.

During the exercise, I had the honour to manage the exercise with Dr Bogdan Pop as project director and an excellent and very experienced team from Poland, Romania and Hungary. The result has exceeded our expectations, especially the possible applications of virtual and augmented reality simulations in the operational and strategic area of ​​disaster management in the near future.

New project: Host Nation Support exercises

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With our partner company publicomm GmbH, we again took part in a tenderof the EU General Directorate for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid, our consortium won the contract for two Host Nation Support (HNS) exercises. The contract comprises the design, planning, implementation and evaluation of two EU national support exercises for actors involved in the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. These exercises consist of an online preparation course and a tabletop exercise.

Two TTX are carried out in different countries, one outside the EU and one outside Europe, with different emergency management structures, with national, international and cross-border participation The concept is to introduce HNS as a “Train of Trainers” with prior online-training on UCPM and HNS to practice-oriented experts. Concept and curriculum are developed in cooperation with the consortium advisory board. A newly developed “HNS Toolkit” (paperback, training material, HNS manual with checklists) and the online training course will also be created.

Pre-exercise meeting on 3rd and 4th February in Timișoara, Romania

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The INDIMA consortium conducted the pre-exercise meeting on 3rd and 4th February in Timișoara, Romania, for an on-site visit of the venue of the SIMEX. Experts from iHELP, Poland, Hungarian Red Cross and PubliComm, Austria discussed with the executives from DSU (Department for Emergency Situations), Fundatia pentru SMURD and ISU Timiș (Timiș county Inspectorate for Emergency Situations) to clarify the last open topics. The Covid-19 situation and measures for the exercise were checked again to have a secure environment for all participants of the SIMEX.
The VR support was presented by Emilia Turucz, the exercise management and the schedule was successful updated, the Project Director, Bogdan Pop and the Project Manager, Josef H. Riener are now confident, that the preps for the SIMEX next March are on track.
#EUCPM #eusaveslives #eucivpro #Knowledgenetwork

INDIMA project: Pre Exercise Meeting

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Innovation and the implementation of contemporary tools are key for the DG ECHO’s Knowledge Network projects. Our participation in the INDIMA PEM (SIMEX pre-exercise meeting) was very important for the projects next step, the SIMEX (simulation exercise). Together with the consortium partners, we were working out the details, participants, venue and final setup. The PEM was held in Békéscsaba, Hungary, from 25. till 29. October 2021, I as INDIMA project manager participated.

The PEM was perfectly organised by the Hungarian Red Cross, Disaster Management Department, led by Dr Brigitta Sáfár. INDIMA project seeks to develop and improve a concept of a holistic approach to disaster risk management by integrating all relevant stakeholders into preplanned joint preparatory and response activities. The consortium running the INDIMA project (INtegrated DIsaster MAnagement) is coordinated by the Emergency Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Romania and has the following entities: Publicomm GmbH, Austria, Hungarian Red Cross, Hungary and iHELP Institute, Poland.

Organisational themes were addressed both in terms of coordination of the exercise (EXCON – exercise control), but also the definition of participating structures, representatives from the four project partners, but also the collaborative structures: Austrian Red Cross, Budapest Water Works, Szegedi Önkentes Tüzoltoés Mentöegyesület (Szeged volunteer fire and rescue service). The discussions were coordinated by the project director (Dr Bogdan Pop, deputy director-general DSU) and project manager (Joe Riener, Publicomm Austria). From the Romanian side, participated: Vladimir Sedei – DSU (Assessment Team Coordinator), Insp. Pr. Pr. Ionut Machiș – DSU (Assessor), Dr Emilia Turucz, ER-SMURD Mureș (XVR team coordinator) and Mr Andrei Poam – Banat Emergency Inspectorate of Timiș County.

The main objective of the INDIMA project, funded by the European Union (ECHO / B / 03 101017), is to develop a concept to optimise cooperation and improve coordination between a wide range of government and non-governmental, civil stakeholders and military as well as public and private. This concept will be tested in a SIMEX (simulation exercise) with approximately 40 participants from several European states, the situation will be viewed in a simulation supported by virtual reality. The objective of this two-day exercise is to test the implementation of the concept, gain knowledge for practice and finally explore and strengthen the synergies between civil protection, humanitarian aid organizations and private entities.