Vancouver, B.C., - November 24, 2009 - EmerGeo Solutions Worldwide Inc. (TSX-V: EMG), a leading provider of emergency management software and consulting services, is pleased to announce a contract award from the City of Vancouver. EmerGeo's software and services will be used in a federally funded project titled: "Integrating Situational Awareness: Publishing Alerts, Incident Information, Roadway Impacts, and Critical Infrastructure Data". The project's goal is to increase situational awareness within the City of Vancouver and help the Vancouver Office of Emergency Management achieve its vision of a disaster resilient Vancouver.
"We are pleased to be supporting this strategically important project for the City of Vancouver", said Michael Morrow, President and CEO of EmerGeo Solutions. "The City is advancing its existing implementation of EmerGeo Fusionpoint™ software to bring together critical information collected from 9-1-1 dispatch and ETeam® crisis management software. EmerGeo software will automatically detect any critical infrastructure near incident locations recorded by these systems, then immediately notify key staff that may need to respond", explains Morrow. The Fusionpoint system will have the ability to publish some of this data for consumption in other software applications used by stakeholders.
"When developing Fusionpoint, we recognized that agencies have significant investments in crisis management, public safety, mapping and other corporate systems. Our goal is to provide a platform that brings together data from these systems, displays it in meaningful ways in a web-based dashboard and provides "actionable intelligence. Our software gives customer's a way to cost-effectively leverage their investments in existing systems and data - rather than having to replace anything", clarifies Morrow.
The project will conclude on March 31, 2010 and the collaborators with the City and EmerGeo include:
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GeoConnections - a national partnership program led by Natural Resources Canada. The program works with partners in four thematic areas (public health, public safety and security, environment and sustainable development, and Aboriginal matters) and in the geomatics technology development domain;
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E-Comm (Emergency Communications for Southwest British Columbia) - provides the City of Vancouver and other jurisdictions with emergency services radio system, dispatch services, and a number of records management services;
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GeoBC - the Province of BC's geospatial (mapping) services group; and,
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Translink - the local transportation authority for Metro Vancouver.
EmerGeo has worked with the City of Vancouver's Office of Emergency Management for over 5 years and will be used to support the City's operations during the 2010 Olympics. A recent story published in The Vancouver Province newspaper provides additional background:
http://www.emergeo.com/user_files/TheProvince%20News%20Article%20October2009.pdf or http://www.theprovince.com/sports/2010wintergames/Mapping+trouble+spots/2091557/story.html.