Insight Magazine- Simulating for a Safer Tomorrow

May 3, 2010

Simulating for a Safer Tomorrow

There’s a Category Five hurricane stalking your neighborhood.  Winds greater than 155 miles per hour batter your home, weakening the framework with every gust. Torrential rains flood the streets. There’s creaking and cracking – your roof clinging to its support beams merely by a nail. For hours the barrage doesn’t end.

But, just then, you hear the faint squeal of brakes and an almost comforting banging at your door. It’s the National Guard. They’ve arrived and they’re here to get you and your entire family to safety. As the relief washes over you like a cold rain, isn’t it nice to know you’re being rescued by highly trained individuals who have experienced this exact scenario hundreds of times?

That’s right, hundreds of situations, hours of training for that one moment. Combining the latest technology with some of the brightest minds in the programming world, Orlando-based Engineering & Computer Simulations (ECS)  is creating advanced learning technology that develops and integrates state-of-the-art, game-based simulations, virtual worlds and learning environments to provide users with unique simulated scenarios to hone their skills.

The hurricane scenario described above is one of literally thousands of customizable scenarios available for users in the web-based Emergency Management Staff Trainer (EMST), funded by the National Guard Bureau. “The EMST program is designed to train emergency management command level decision makers dealing with domestic emergencies from floods to hurricanes and even terrorists, any large-scale disaster really,” says Mary Ann Pigora, senior principal investigator at ECS. The program allows the user to set the disaster, area of management, difficulty level and even location by county supported by real data from any geographic area around the United States. “We give them unlimited opportunity to train for situations that used to be next to impossible to train for,” she says.

National, state and local emergency management personnel and first responders are able to login and use the technology individually or in teams and run simulations of what they will have to go through in real life, from any browser on a computer with a broadband connection. Scenarios simulate every details of a real command center – people will constantly be knocking on your door; you will have phone calls and messages; e-mail updates with tasks to complete or delegate; and even news alerts from actual news stations that volunteered their time to edit reels together for different disaster situations. At the end of the simulation, users are graded for efficiency, timeliness and outcome.

“With this program we can set up six week pandemic scenarios and compress them into a day of training,” says Pigora. “With traditional methods, you sit in a course, nod your head and take a quiz; but, truthfully, that’s a lot different than going and having to do it.” The goal behind much of ECS’ technology is to give individuals the next best thing to real-world practice, engaging them so they know what action to take and who to coordinate with in the case of a real disaster. “We don’t have concrete numbers on the retention rate of this program exactly, but on similar programs we’ve done studies with, we’ve found that the retention rate on simulations versus non-virtual is double,” she says.

“The technologies developed under this contract will enhance the ability of the National Guard soldiers and leaders across the nation in their efforts to provide support for domestic emergencies,” says Lt. Col. Greg Pickell, a senior training manager for the National Guard Bureau. The $30 million contract has helped propel ECS to being named the 2010 Florida Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration as well as being recognized as an award winning company by Inc. 500, Deloitte Fast 500 and Washington Technology Fast 50.

Next for ECS is transitioning the technology into a “living” 3D interface called Nexus, which they will launch September 30. “The Nexus program will really take EMST to the next level utilizing the same scenario engine, you’ll now be able to walk around and interact with other avatars, adding to that realism factor,” says Pigora. “The end goal is to have the right personnel equipped with the right skill set when the time comes. Simulation offers the most realistic training opportunities available right now.”

Article by Corey Gehrold

http://insighteastorlando.com/index.php/featured/simulating-for-a-safer-tomorrow

Posted by InsightMG on Monday, May 3, 2010 at 3:36 pm