OASIS Common Alerting Protocol - Workshop 9-10 December 2008

[Carol Cosgrove-Sacks <Carol.Cosgrove-Sacks@oasis-open.org>]

Dear eGov Members,

I am very happy to tell you that the OASIS eGov Member Section is invited to suggest major issues for discussion and  names of participants for a high level Workshop that will be organized jointly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), ITU and OASIS. The Workshop will take place in Geneva on 09-10 December.

The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), an OASIS standard 
adopted as ITU Recommendation X.1303, is the foundation 
standard for all-media public warning. Designed as an 
all-hazards alert format, CAP is being implemented 
worldwide for earthquakes, public health/edidemics, and many 
other emergencies, in addition to weather events.

I am writing to organizations that may be interested 
to participate in a 2-day CAP Implementers Workshop. 
If your organization is interested, please reply by 
September 8 ( mailto:echristian@wmo.int ) with a copy to me
as to:

 - How many persons from your organization are 
   likely to participate in this Workshop?

 - Is your organization interested in showing a 
   technology demo or best practices poster?

 - What high-priority coordination topics should 
   be discussed at this Workshop?

Please also forward this note to any discussion lists 
or individuals that may be interested to participate.

Details:

This Workshop is planned for 9-10 December 2008 at the 
WMO (World Meteorological Organization) in Geneva, in 
cooperation with OASIS and ITU. It will be primarily a 
forum for discussions among CAP implementers and 
ICT or emergency management organizations on topics 
requiring coordination. These topics may include, among 
others: having an internationally agreed list of authorities 
for common types of CAP alerts; disseminating, aggregating, 
and authenticating CAP alerts; making globally unique 
identifiers for CAP alerts; and, best practices for text 
in the CAP "description" and "instruction" elements.

There is no charge for participation in the Workshop.

You may be aware that this Workshop follows on the 
October 2006 "Workshop and Demonstration of Advances in 
ICT Standards for Public Warning" held at ITU in Geneva.  
see http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/ictspw and 
http://www.oasis-open.org/events/ITU-T-OASISWorkshop2006/proceedings.php


Since that 2006 Workshop, there have been notable 
developments including:

 - The ITU-D (ITU Development sector) approved guidance  
   for developing nations on CAP implementation
 - OASIS established its Emergency Management Member  
   Section to accelerate implementation of CAP and  
   allied emergency data exchange standards
 - The U.S. FCC (Federal Communications Commission) 
   issued an order requiring use of CAP
 - The WMO SWIC (Severe Weather Information Centre) 
   began work on CAP warnings of Tropical Cyclones
 - The U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) continued 
   improving its CAP messages and developing its 
   Next Generation Warning Tool
 - The Weather Channel underscored to NWS the need 
   to institute CAP
 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began 
   developing CAP alerts for air quality warnings
 - The Earth Observations Summit highlighted CAP 
   implementation as a major achievement
 - Canada and the U.S. coordinated on implementation 
   of their respective CAP-based alerting systems
 - EUMETNET began exploring how to adapt METEOALARM 
   to support CAP.

The Chair of the organizing group is:
Eliot Christian, WIS Senior Scientific Officer
World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Case Postal 2300, CH 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
phone: +41 22 730 81 71

I hope that the OASIS eGov Member Section can help to promote awareness of this important meeting, which has great relevance to the public sector at all levels, and to all those enterprises, not-for-profits and media interests concerned with disasters and public alerts.

Thank you for your attention,

Carol

Dr Carol Cosgrove-Sacks
Senior Advisor on International Standards Policy & eGov Convenor,
OASIS