SMART, Ateneo de Davao collaborate on Disaster Preparedness
Leading wireless services provider Smart Communications, Inc. (SMART) and Ateneo de Davao University (ADDU) recently signed an agreement to formalize a partnership aimed at using cost-efficient wireless technologies to help reduce disaster risks and respond to calamities.
On hand to sign the agreement were SMART Network and Platforms Services Division Regional Manager for Mindanao, Engr. Rodel Agustin and ADDU President Fr. Antonio Samson.
Photo shows the students from SWEEP partner schools who are participating in SMART’s summer on-the-job training with (standing first from right) SMART Network and Platforms Services Division (NPSD) Visayas Senior Manager Ma. Hiyasmin Quiñal and (standing, leftmost) and Regional Command Center Senior Supervisor Noel Hermosisima.
SMART and ADDU have been working on the development of a weather monitoring and disaster alert system that is being eyed for implementation initially in Davao City.
The collaboration has its beginnings in the SWEEP Innovation and Excellence Awards, SMART’s annual awards program held to recognize innovative wireless applications development by student-faculty teams of partner schools under the Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (SWEEP).
With SMART’s support, ADDU further refined its search and rescue management system, which placed second during the 5th SWEEP Awards finals in 2009. The system, which was initially designed to help officials track sea vessels during emergencies more effectively, has since been expanded to track land vehicles as well.
Aside from the tracking device, the team headed by ADDU faculty Engr. Marloue Pidor, has also developed a mini-weather and river monitoring station to help gather data that might be useful in terms of developing an early warning system for flood-prone areas of Davao City.
The system is in its development phase, with ADDU working closely with SMART and concerned local government agencies like Rescue 911, Davao City’s 24-hour emergency response team, and the Davao Gulf Management Council and Coast Guard in testing the sea and land-based prototype and the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) for the automated weather station.
Pidor and another member of his team will undergo an immersion program with PAGASA in preparation for the installation of the mini-weather and river monitoring station in more areas, to help strengthen the government agency’s weather monitoring capability.
The collaboration between SMART and ADDU is part of the telco’s commitment to deploy its technologies in strengthening the country’s capability to prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies under Kabalikat, SMART’s corporate social responsibility and community service program.
SMART, along with sister companies under the PLDT Group, is a member of the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation, the private sector arm of the Special National Public Reconstruction Commission created in the wake of the devastation brought about by typhoons Ondoy, Pepeng and Frank.
(Published 13 April 2010, Smart Communications Inc.)