AlertMe – Bringing IPAWS Emergency Alerts to the Windows Desktop – Key Learnings, Opportunities, and Challenges
Emergency alerts reach us through radio, TV and our cell phones. But those alerts are only one-way and miss the desktops and big screen TVs where many spend their time. AlertMe solves these problems and opens the way for additional technologies.
In 2019, the AlertMe project built a proof of concept system working with FEMA’s IPAWS emergency alerts. For Alerting Authorities, AlertMe used Azure Maps to define the affected area. For consumers, Azure received alerts and passed them along to Windows devices Further, the consumer could acknowledge messages thus closing the loop for Alerting Authorities.
We’ll cover how that project worked, what’s happened in the last few years and what we could see in the future for emergency alerts. We’ll pull the cover off Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) messages and how they’re the basis to push alerts into Azure Maps and now into Adaptive Cards.
While we’ll talk about technology, good communications is fundamentally a human problem. How do we get the word out as technology changes? How can technology craft an effective, actionable message that reaches people where they are? Can we build two-way systems that help us plan responses to get people what they need?
About the Presenters
Paul Hall completed CERT training in 2017 and has been involved with CERT ever since as class assistant and exercise photographer.
Paul’s day job has been engineering and management at Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Microsoft.
For the 2019 Microsoft Hackathon, Paul led the team creating AlertMe which delivered actionable emergency alerts to every device by connecting Microsoft Azure to FEMA’s IPAW’s system. Out of 6,891 projects, AlertMe ranked #9 in likes and #18 in video views.
Paul is now VP of Test and Quality at Ally Robotics.
Lewis Curtis is semi retired and helps agencies with digital response needs as an independent consultant, Lewis Curtis was the co-founder and past director of Microsoft Services Disaster Response at Microsoft for over 10 years. Accountable for disaster response mobilizations empowering teams across the company urgently delivering technical missions to communities after a disaster.
With over 18 years at Microsoft, Lewis cofounded and led the Microsoft’s Services Disaster Response (MSDR) program and was accountable for the success of tactical community disaster response mobilizations and missions for first response agencies in their time of need. With over 650 completed missions in over 75 countries and several thousand employees and contractors involved, the program repaired broken systems as well as rapidly build new solutions including cyber response at no charge helping impacted and response agencies with their work to reduce human suffering and stabilize the community.
In 2007, Lewis experienced a stroke which impeded his communication capability. As he recovered his speech, Lewis resolved to a drive positive impact for communities experiencing tragedy eventually founding the MSDR program
At home, Lewis and his wife live on a small 11 acre farm caring for dairy goats, chickens, honey bees, gardening and feeding the wild birds in Washington state. A couple of years ago, Microsoft featured an article with a video made by the University of Northern Colorado (his undergrad alma mater) on Lewis and the work at Microsoft