HSD Café Crisismanagement: Application of Technology Before, During, and After Crises

The increasing complexity of crises, partly due to the ubiquitous cybercomponent, has prompted a new focus on crisismanagement within HSD. Last month this theme of crisismanagement was kicked off with an Expert Roundtable session in which multiple experts came together to discuss topics regarding informationmanagement and trainingexercises. This session gave rise to the organisation of the HSD Café New technologies in Crisismanagement on 24 November. 

The HSD Café Crisismanagement consisted of two parts. Firstly, Jelle Groenendaal and Joyce Koch of The Hague University of Applied Sciences put forward a theoretical exploration of technology in crisismanagement. One of the important take aways: technology should support people, not vice versa! 

The second part consisted of a showcase of innovative solutions by HSD partners. Werner Overdijk from Crisisplan explained the importance of catagorising information during a crisis while presenting their innovative solution Crisishub. Cybexer’s director Lauri Almann described how decisionmaking during crises is about the framework that is in place as part of the theory behind their STRATEX trainingsoftware. Ian Wasti of Booz Allen Hamilton addressed the challenge of how we can create realistic crisis simulations that should discover our true response. While crisis simulations often do not provoke the real response people would get during a crisis.  Jochem Lowiessen and Erik van de Schaft of Pandora Intelligence gave a demo of their solution Crisis Control that gives real time insights during crisis situations, and emphasized that in order to learn you need to store information in a structured way.  

With great questions from the audience it is clear that crisismanagement stays as relevant as ever, but needs to keep up with the times and technology. Further focus of HSD on the topic of crisismanagement will include a research exploration with academic partners and a follow up meeting of the Expert roundtable.