The Worldwide Incident Command Services Corporation (WICS), a California incorporated Nonprofit Public Benefit corporation, has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to support the National Public Safety and First Responder Community with access to the Next-Generation Incident Command System (NICS), called Raven.
This agreement makes RAVEN immediately available to interested organizations for the next two-years at no cost.
Raven is a mobile, web-based/cloud enabled/open source application that facilitates collaboration and enhances situational awareness across all levels of response agencies, government, and the private sector during emergencies as well as routine planned events.
(Learn More about the Raven Emergency Management Platform. This video presents an overview tailored for operators interested in the Raven Emergency Management Platform. Courtesy of Raven and YouTube)
The application is designed to improve safety and enable operational efficiencies, particularly for on-scene responders who must make timely decisions under extreme pressure to save lives, reduce property loss and shorten recovery and repopulation timeframes.
Raven can be operated from any computer, smart phone, or tablet with any standard web browser that has Internet connectivity.
No new software needs to be installed on an organization’s computers for basic Raven functions.
For mobile users, an enhanced smart phone-based version is available.
Raven is hosted in the Amazon Cloud and is available online 24×7.
WICS will provide its expertise and support to interested organizations to help them evaluate, train, adopt and operationally use Raven.
The objective is to foster and create communities of interest that use Raven to Prepare, Train, Plan, Rehearse, Respond, and Recover from all types of hazards and planned events.
In return, participating organizations will be asked to evaluate and critique Raven in order to improve functionality for the user community.
(Learn More about the Raven Emergency Management Platform. This video presents an Executive Overview of the Raven Emergency Management Platform. Courtesy of Raven and YouTube)
Key Features
- Multiple incident types
- Multiple collaboration rooms per incident with public and private chat.
- A variety of common base maps familiar to all users.
- Multiple data layers – import & export of common GIS file types – ESRI shape, KML, KMZ WFS, WMS, ARCGISREST.
- Simple drawing tools with symbol, line, and polygon styles.
- Measurement of distance and areas.
- Geolocation tools and products – Lat/Long/USNGS – AVL & PLI.
- Security; reliability; resilience; sustainability; support.
Advantages
- Simple to learn and use.
- Allows online collaboration in near-real time.
- Provides ability to operate from multiple remote locations (anywhere in the world that you can access the Internet).
- Reduces the information cycle time from hours to minutes.
- Provides customized access and views with the creation of collaboration rooms tailored to specific ICS functions or target audiences.
- Easy to configure open as well as confidential work areas.
- Open source.
- Users access data regardless of organization using a standard web browser.
- Can handle thousands of concurrent users and hundreds of concurrent incidents.
- Creates a permanent record of information developed during an incident that is fully discoverable.
- Provides a platform for rapid development of shared understanding, decision making and distribution of tailored information to incident stakeholders.
Interested organizations can obtain more information and register for a free user account at www.ravenwics.org.
