The Seventh Asian Preparedness Partnership Regional Steering Committee Meeting (APPRSC) took place on 24th August 2022. The partnership’s key stakeholders gathered in Bangkok, Thailand to focus on regional updates. These reflections included appraising the key tools and guidelines that have been developed as well as South-South knowledge sharing through the regional technical working groups (RTWG) and digital platforms.
The Innovation Forum organized as a part of the event provided a platform to showcase the findings of the seven winners of "APP’s Social Grand Innovation Challenge". The seven winners, who came from five of the APP countries, gave presentations and demonstrations of their product/service and then answered participants’ questions. A team led by Dr. Chandana Siriwardana, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Moratuwa, was among the seven winners out of 51 candidates representing six APP countries competed in the Social Innovation Grand Challenge, organized by the Asian Preparedness Partnership (APP) funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Each of the winning strategies promoted the leadership of local actors in addressing pertinent DRM-related challenges. Solutions included new early warning systems, online community networks, and geospatial mapping tools to identify varying levels of risk between localities.
Eng. Chamika Kannangara (PhD Student, RMIT-UOM PhD Program), representing the team as a funding recipient of the “APP Social Innovation Grand Challenge”, presented the developed digital platform, "Dis-Map: Disaster Management Platform for Emergency Response, A stakeholder management platform to enhance communication in disasters" at the innovation forum. "Dis-Map" is a collaborative research project with the support from the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), Sri Lanka, Dialog Axiata (Pvt) Ltd., Sri Lanka, the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and the Federation of Sri Lankan Local Government Authorities, Sri Lanka.
“Dis-Map” has the potential to engage more stakeholder groups in the disaster management process and can be translated into multiple languages. In response to a question concerning data security on the platform, Mr. Kannangara explained that the Disaster Management Center (DMC) would be the only organization with access to personal details. During the Q&A session, Chamika also shared plans to hold community awareness programs during the pilot studies. The audience supported this initiative while emphasizing the need to engage local communities to reach the last mile effectively.
