Introduction

“A Collaborative Multi-Agency Platform for Building Resilient Communities-MOBILISE”  project, funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) in UK, is developing a digital infrastructure that can offer intelligence to a range of agencies to work together to reduce the impact of natural disasters on communities.

It aims to address the priority number two of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030) which is to strengthen disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk and also contributes to the remaining three priorities. Furthermore the MOBILISE project addresses three recommendations specified by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN/ESCAP) which are (a) Urban resilience which needs urgent attention; (b) Capitalising on innovative space technology applications and emerging technologies; and (c) Political leadership for the success of disaster risk reduction and management. The MOBILISE project will directly contribute to three UN Sustainable Development Goals: Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11), Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17) and Industry Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9).

Project Aims and Objectives:

MOBILISE uses digital technology to create a collaborative environment to enable various agencies (responsible for managing localized disaster) and communities to act collectively to reduce the impact of disasters. The R&D activities of this project aim to make advances in the following areas:

  1. Digitally-enhanced multi-agency collaboration models;
  2. Resilience frameworks that can measure resilience;
  3. Digital approaches for modelling community & infrastructure vulnerability;
  4. Modelling of the cascading effect of disasters;
  5. Social media and real-time intelligence gathering to support disaster response; and
  6. 3D visualisation of real-time satellite data for constructing live disaster events to support disaster response.

Project Funding:

The THINKlab, University of Salford, UK received research funding (£1.2 million) from the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF, UK and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council(EPSRC) to develop a Collaborative Multi-Agency Platform that can be used for building resilient communities in disaster-prone areas in the Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), namely Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Malaysia.

Organized by the MOBILISE Project Consortium, funded by Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF), UK:

“MOBILISE International Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) – MOBILISE 2018” will be conducted on 29th and 30th October 2018 at Le Méridien Putrajaya, in order to assess and validate data from the project partners and professional partners.

Day One (Multi-Agency Collaboration Platform for Building Resilient Communities in Malaysia) is by invitation only. Day Two (Digital Technology Platform for Enhancing Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in Malaysia) is open but pre-registration is required for Malaysia Disaster Management Agencies (MDMA).