About | waddem

Who We Are?

WADDEM will cover disasters caused by all types of hazards including natural, technological, and human.

The alliance distinguishes itself in the following ways:

Process automation: The alliance focuses on novel techniques in automating disaster and management processes for command & control in the broadest sense.
Digital ecosystem platform: The alliance undertakes a ‘digital ecosystem engineering approach’. Instead of targeting disaster-specific applications, research and development activities are first carried out in the specification and implementation of a digital ecosystem platform, where disaster specific automation processes can be installed on the platform when needed.
The role of social capital in disaster preparedness and rescue: Social capital can be defined as the value of the relationships between people who work or live together and the knowledge and skills that they have and share. The research activities on this topic investigate the role of social capital in disaster preparedness and rescue from three perspectives: a) the role of richer social capital in disaster preparedness and rescue; b) coordinate the responsibilities and authorities of governmental and social capital roles in meaningful disaster management scenarios; and c) the methodological policies to increase wealth in social capital from the perspective of disaster management.
Economics for disaster prevention and preparedness: These research activities have three important goals: With the use of digitalization techniques, creating economical and industrial infrastructure which can a) withstand major disasters and emergency conditions; b) reorganize and optimize the capabilities in creating new resources and products in minimizing the negative effects; and c) guiding policymakers and practitioners to make smart investments that can strengthen disaster resilience.
The ADOPTS principle: The disaster and emergency management operations consist of six complementary phases:

The important concepts of the WADDEM approach

Awareness and Situation Detection: Aims to detect the effects of disasters efficiently and effectively, such as the damage made, conditions of humans and living creatures, etc.
Demand: Based on the observed damage and the environmental conditions, demand lists are automatically inferred for the necessary resources so that aid operations can be executed efficiently and effectively. Demands for resources can be various, including rescue operations, fire fighters, ambulances, security forces, repair teams, shelters, transport vehicles for evacuation, heating and cooking facilities, food, and water, etc.
Optimization: The available resources are optimally assigned to the inferred demands on time. In case of insufficient resources, prioritization, trade-off and/or dynamic selection techniques are applied.
Performance and Measurement: The performance indicators of operations are defined formally so that the desired objectives can be specified and measured. Accordingly, ongoing operations can be monitored online and in case of deviations from the desired performance values, corrective actions can be executed.
Tracking: This phase includes both monitoring, evaluation and controlling actions of the ongoing activities as well as coordination among the aid operations.
Simulation: To determine the effect of a large set of prospective disaster scenarios, determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the disaster and emergency ecosystem platform, evaluate the necessary quantity of resources and to optimize the locations of logistics centers, simulation environments and techniques must be researched, designed, and implemented. Even in times when no disasters are experienced, triggered by simulated disaster scenarios, the ecosystem platform must be continuously operational so that it can be optimized using online machine learning techniques.

What We Do?

The alliance carries out the following activities:

Starting from the human-centered disaster scenarios, formulate the areas where the current disaster and emergency management systems fall short of the needs.
Elaborate on the digital solution domains and define the areas of technological research in harmony with psychological, sociological, political, and spatial considerations.
Coordinate with the governmental agencies and work out strategies in bringing the importance of digitalization of disaster and emergency management issues high on the political agenda. Carry out lobbying activities in creating national and international granting programs.
Initiate, support, and collaborate within research and education activities. To this aim, create opportunities for mutual visits and joint research activities among the members of the alliance.
Organize workshops, conferences, special issues in journals. Publish and disseminate the generated knowledge as manifesto, standards, and ecosystem infrastructures and research contributions in the relevant public media.
Define professional certification criteria based on offered training plans and accredit evaluation bodies in various roles e.g., aid personnel, decision makers, managers, technologists, and entrepreneurs.
Support national and international standardization activities. For example:

Disaster & emergency data: Data that can be used in improving situation awareness can be fused.
Simulation: The required disaster management cases and scenarios within spatial dimensions can be reused, extended and shared.
Systems of systems infrastructure: Cooperation among distributed computing nodes can be facilitated for the common goal
Digital ecosystem and application stores: Applications developed by different parties can utilize the disaster and emergency management platform effectively.
Models of disasters and emergencies, GIS elements, events, digital twins, demands and resources: Independently developed system units can be integrated together.
Performance models: Independently developed systems can be optimized for the common goals.
Models for tracking and coordination: Independently developed and managed aid operations can be integrated.