News and Updates
Nadia Saad Noori, Mehdi Ben Lazreg (UiA) gave an oral presentation at Virtual Symposium – Social Media Analytics and Crisis Communication. The topic of the presentation was "Humanitarian Crisis Response in Dangerous Places: How Social Media Analytics can Support Safer Passage for Aid Workers"
Place of publication or meeting: Web Conferencing
Type of audience: Scientific community (higher education, Research)
Size of audience: 20
iTRACK partners from Trilateral Research attended the International Security Expo in London on the 28-29 of November 2018
International Security Expo, formerly UK Security Expo showcases over 1,000 of the latest innovative security products to help you improve your security.
Featured over the 2 day expo are 13 free to attend, CPD certified conferences and workshops covering every major sector of the security industry. You will see ground-breaking, innovative features including the 300 SQM Protecting Urban Spaces Demonstrator designed to help every security professional understand how best to protect crowded spaces.
Read more about the event here
The 5th bi-annual IHSA conference took place in The Hague, The Netherlands from 27 to 29 August 2018. Olivia Lannelli and Katrina Petersen from Trilateral research attended IHSA Conference. A scientific paper has been submitted.
This conference invites panels that examine boundaries from all different angles, ranging from the intentions and practices of government control, international law, the ways in which people organize themselves in the face of crisis and, the rapid transformation of technological limits and the boundaries of humanitarian action.
Visit an official website for more information
Project partners Tina Comes and Bartel Van de Walle presented iTRACK poject at Annual Conference of the Dutch Coalition for Humanitarian Innovation.
The Conference took place in Hague (NL) on the 8th of Octiber 2018
Type of audience - Policy makers
Size of audience 300 people
DCHI official website - https://dchi.nl/
The HUMLOG Institute, in the frame of iTRACK project dissemination activities, participated in Global Logistics Cluster (GLC) meetings which took place at different locations (Washington, DC, USA, Rome, Italy) in June and October 2018.
The Logistics Cluster provides coordination and information management to support operational decision-making and improve the predictability, timeliness and efficiency of the humanitarian emergency response. Where necessary, the Logistics Cluster also facilitates access to common logistics services. Due to its expertise in the field of humanitarian logistics, the World Food Programme was chosen by the IASC as the lead agency for the Logistics Cluster . WFP hosts the Global Logistics Cluster support team in its headquarters in Rome. WFP also acts as a ‘provider of last resort’ offering common logistics services, when critical gaps hamper the humanitarian response. Click here for a visual overview of the Logistics Cluster and here for 2018 highlights.
Project partner Bjørn Erik Munkvold from UiA attended the FFI (Norwegian Defence Research Establishment) Seminar on the 19th of October 2018 and gave an oral presentation - "How can ny thechnology redefine the practice of crisis management.
FFI official website - https://www.ffi.no
Project partner Sofia Tsekeridoupresented the project at the AIDEX Brussels 2018 Security Workshops on the 14th of November 2018.
AidEx is the leading platform for professionals in humanitarian aid and international development. There are two annual events; our flagship conference and exhibition in Brussels and a regional conference in Nairobi. AidEx welcomes professionals from the sector and over 2,500 people attend each year from UN Agencies, the EU, Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, local and international NGOs, government and the private sector.
AidEx encompasses a conference, exhibition, meeting areas, awards and workshops. Its fundamental aim is to engage the sector at every level and provide an annual forum for aid and development professionals to meet, source, supply and learn. Click on the inidvidual events below, to find out more.
Follow the link for more information
Tina Comes (UiA) presented the iTRACK project at the Dies Natalis symposium
Type of audience : Scientific community (higher education, Research)
Size of audience : 250 people
Nadia Saad Noori, Mehdi Ben Lazreg and Ahmed Abdeltawab Abdelgawad Salem Aboughonim from UiA gave an oral presentation at the CAIR- UiA Workshop for Oslo police collaboration.
The workshop took place at Grimstad, Norway. Tipe of audience were policy makers around 30 people.
The presentation title - Integrated System for Real-Time Tracking and Collective intelligence in Civilian Humanitarian Missions
iTRACK project partner Boyan Yuan from NORCE submitted a paper tp CVPR 2019 workshop proceedings.
The paper title is: "Real-time mobile surveillance using panomorph lens and deep neural network model"
CVPR is the premier annual computer vision event comprising the main conference and several co-located workshops and short courses. With its high quality and low cost, it provides an exceptional value for students, academics and industry researchers. Follow the link for more information - http://cvpr2019.thecvf.com/
iTRACK project partners Olivia Ianelli and Julia Muraszkiewicz from Trilateral Research, published a blog based on the D3.2 deliverable on the TRI website.
Deliverable 3.2 is called "Socio-curtural considerations for future development and it undertakes an analysis of the social and cultural implications of the use of the iTRACK tool and of each of its components namely: StaffSense, DSE and QR, on board sensing and threat detection and the use of multiple components.
The humanitarian community is on the cusp of a technological revolution, with new ICT solutions being developed and implemented in the every-day work of humanitarian organisations. Although these new technologies have been created and are deployed by humanitarian organisations with the best of intentions, there have been instances where the presence and use of such, often experimental, ICT tools, could cause more ‘harm’ than good.
For this reason, Trilateral Research has carried out an assessment of the technological tools developed in the iTRACK project as part of its role as Ethics and Privacy lead within the project.
The full text is available here
The International Humanitarian Studies Association: World Conference on Humanitarian Studies
By Katrina Petersen (Trilateral Reserch, UK)
Dates and location of the conference
27-29 August 2018
The Hague, The Netherlands
https://conference.ihsa.info
The main topics of the conference
The conference theme was (Re-)Shaping Boundaries in Crisis and Crisis Response. This conference presentations ranged from the intentions and practices of government control in humanitarian response, international law and the humanitarian principles, how people organize themselves in the face of humanitarian crisis, what it means to foster a local response, how to be upward and downward accountable in practice, and discussions on the rapid transformation of technology in humanitarian action. One of the primary foci within the talks presented was the many open questions regarding the importance of humanitarian principles and the effectiveness of the humanitarian response, particularly in light of the recent calls at the World Humanitarian Summit for localisation and greater ties to development activities. Another was how to be locally accountable in a globally funded/driven world. A third was challenging and trying to provide critical and practical tools for rethinking the role of technology, and more specifically ICT technologies, in humanitarian response. Another was trying to determine lessons learned (and how to encourage learning, not just training) in humanitarian history/practice. There were also a set of panels on gender, but they conflicted with others I attended.
iTRACK project partner Katrina Petersen attended the World Conference on Humanitarian Studies and presented the latest developments of iTRACK project.
The presentation is available here iTRACK_PresentationIHSA_TRI
iTARCK partner, Olivia Iannelli (Trilateral Reseaach) will attend an ODI event on Disaster risk reduction in fragile and conflict affected contexts, 16:00-17:30 BST, 7 June, 2018.
She will be joined by Dr Thomas Helfen (BMZ), Amjad Abbashar (UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction), Dr Ayesha Siddiqi (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Rina Meutia (GFDRR, World Bank) for an open and frank discussion on why DRR policy, programming and financing has yet to be sufficiently applied to conflict and fragile contexts. Dr Sara Pantuliano (ODI) will chair.
Olivia Lannelli from Trilateral Research attended the "Data protection and humanitarian action" in Brussels hosted by VUB - Privacy Hub Brussels, Belgium Ministry of Foreign Affairs & ICRC on the 12th of March 2018
iTRACK Project attended the EU Industry Day that took place in Brussels - Covent Garden between 22-23 February 2018.
Following the launch of the innovation prize of the European Innovation Council on 'Affordable High-Tech for Humanitarian Aid' (the 'Prize'), the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) and Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) organised a roundtable on High Tech for Humanitarian Aid. It brought together around 60 representatives of the humanitarian sector, industry, research and scientific communities and other interested stakeholders. The roundtable discussion focused on the identification of humanitarian needs that could be addressed through the frugal application of advanced technologies.
iTRACK's technical team has succesfully delivered a prototype of a first version of the iTRACK system. This includes many technologies that help humanitarian teams do their job logistics-wise and also be aware of any potential threat that could put the team in danger. These are technologies that help the team to be in touch 24/7, report threats to any affected iTRACK user and also do the follow up of all missions that are in the field aiding benefitiaries and trying to come back safe home.
The team has developed a logistics user interface (Backend DSE: Backend Decision Support Engine) that gathers all the information from missions in real time (routes conditions, missions' progress,etc.) that also includes a wizard for fast mission set up. This tool also includes a security assessment module that enables the creation and validation of threats coming from many information sources such as official reports, social media and intra-network messages. This component includes a machine learning based module that recognizes patterns in plain text and deliver alerts about potential threats. Moreover, logistics is supported by a mobile application that enables the registration of goods inside all missions and the reporting of lost/damaged goods.
iTRACK partner - Trilateral Research (UK) published a news article about the project on their official website.
The original full text is available here
On December 1st the project had its first technical Review at REA premises in Brussels.
In the beginning of November, the iTRACK consortium held their 5th project meeting, hosted by Treelogic in Madrid, Spain.
This technical meeting was dedicated to finalizing the first phase of component development and the integration plan. Partners presented demos of all iTRACK components, ranging from key-cloak for secure messaging by Teleplan to the on-board tracking components by Teknova.
On the 11th of July 2017, Heide Lukosch, developer of the iTRACK Board Game and researcher at TU Delft gave an interview and presented the project at the Dutch national news.
iTRACK partner Hlekiwe Kachali from Hanken organised a workshop on Humanitarian logistics in conflict zones. The workshop aimed at alumni from Hanken Svenska Handelshögskolan.
The Finish Red Cross decided to pick up the iTRACK Board Game, designed by iTRACK partner TUD, for their internal trainings for the volunteers and staff on standby.
On the 11th of July 2017, Heide Lukosch, developer of the iTRACK Board Game and researcher at TU Delft gave an interview and presented the project at the national news
The original interview is available here: https://nos.nl/artikel/2182663-bordspel-voor-humanitaire-hulpverleners.html
iTRACK project has been presented at the ISAGA 2017 conference by Yan Wang from the Delft University of Technology (TUD). On the second day of the event project partners from TUD (Yan Vang and Simon Tiemersma) preseted the iTRACK Board Game during the dedicated workshop.
As part of project dissemination activities Yan Wang from TUD has presented the iTRACK project to the Beijing Earthquake Administration
The 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM 2017) took place at Albi, Occitanie Pyrénées-Méditerranée, France 21-24 of May 2017. The conference aims at exploring all dimensions of Information System domains to improve and contribute to Crisis and Disaster Management. Each article presented during the ISCRAM conference must cover both “Information Systems” and “Crisis and Disaster Management” research.
3 research papers submitted by the iTRACK consortium partners were accepted by ISCRAM
iTRACK project has been represented at the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) 28th Annual Conference which took place at Hyatt Regency Bellevue Seattle, Washington, USA between 5th -8th of May 2017.
The latest project meeting has been mentioned in a Press Release publihed by the Hanken School of Economics (one of the project partners) The prsee release is written by Gyöngyi Kovács
The full text is available here
iTRACK project invites you to attend the CNRS THEMATIC SCHOOL ON "SOCIAL NETWORKS & CRISIS MANAGEMENT", which will take place at Telecom ParisTech's main location: 46 Rue Barrault 75013 Paris between 15th to 19th of May 2017
The Spring School involves both technical (information related) and social fields It targets a mixed public and aim at mobilizing the mixed competences & backgrounds from Spring School attendants & contributors in order to promote collaborative aspects. The thematic school is supported by the CNRS and the ISCRAM association.
iTRACK project has been highlighted in Spring edition of the Crisis Team newsletter from Trilateral Research Ltd.
The new project achievement is here! Architecture and Design Specifications deliverable, has been successfully submitted to the EC.
Project presentation has been given to different organizations in Japan in the frame of visit by Norwegian Minister of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, Ms. Monica Mæland to Japan (23-26 January 2017) and within the delegation accompanying it.
Yan Wang (TUD) attended the 9th Service Operations Management Forum and gave an oral presentation about the project to a scientific community.
Hanken & WFP attended the Helsinki Conference on Supporting Syrians and the Region, which took place in Helsinki, finland on the 24th of January 2017. iTRACK was referred to in the public discussions only
Kenny Meesters, Yan Wang (TUD) gave an oral presentation about the project to around 30 representatives from the scientific community. The event took place on the 6th of January 2017 at the Institute of Disaster Prevention, Beijing, China.
Project presentation has been given by Teknova AS in the frame of international networking activities: IEEE embedded Vision steering committee in USA, and euRobotics
Project presentation has been given by Teknova AS in the frame of networking activities in Norway: representatives from East Agder and West Agder Counties, SINTEF and different industries in Norway.
iTRACK partner Gerardo Glorioso (TREE) gave a presentation at the IDI Week in Treelogic central office, which took place during the IDI Week 2016, in Asturias, Spain on the 21st of November 2016.
iTrack project has been presented by Kenny Meesters and Yan Wang (TUD) at the national institute for earth physics at Bucharest, Romania.
The presentation reached around 40 representatives from scientific community.
After several months of discussing and updating our application for approval of the iTRACK research by TUDelft’s ethical committee, we finally got the approval. As informed earlier, all research activities of all partners had been included in the last version of the proposal and the project’s risk analysis/self assessment.
iTRACK project has been announced in the Trilateral Research Crisis Team newsletter.
Julia Muraszkiewicz from Trilateral Research Ltd published a project related press release at the organisation website
On 4 October 2016, as part of the GDPR Workshop series, the Brussels Privacy Hub hosted a workshop on implementation of the EU GDPR and Privacy Impact Assessment. Trilateral delivered a presentation which explored the methodology for an Ethics and Privacy Impact Assessment used in iTRACK. The event was attended by a wide range of stakeholders (around 25) from the humanitarian community, academia, private sector and the technology industry.
iTRACK will have their next meeting in The Hague on November 10-11, the project will initiate Ethical and privacy issues workshop let by Trilateral Research Ltd
The European research project iTRACK was successfully launched in May 2016. The project brings together academics, innovators and end users to build the next generation intelligent tracking platform to provide better protection for civilian humanitarian missions. The iTRACK approach combines technology development with process and policy innovation to address real-world practices of humanitarian aid workers.
The ISCRAM conference aims at exploring all dimensions of Information System domain to improve and contribute to Crisis and Disaster Management. The scope is by far incredibly wide, which makes one of the main attractive features of ISCRAM conference: “Information System” includes social, psychological, organizational, technological (and many others) aspects, while “Crisis and Disaster Management” refers to all kind of events that affects significantly human kind, from natural disasters to terrorist attacks via all types of accidents. Each and every article presented during ISCRAM conference must have one “Information System” component and one “Crisis and Disaster Management” component.
The 48th ISAGA Conference on Simulation Games for Sustainable Cities and Smart Infrastructures will take place in Delft, The Netherlands, close to The Hague, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam on the July 10 - July 14, 2017
The even arranged in cooperation with Saganet – Simulation and Gaming Association The Netherlands
For updates and further information visit www.isaga2017.com
