Watchtower: An operational management system with integrated Telstra messaging and CSIRO data analytics for a smarter, more connected modern emergency service

Team Name

Club Platypus

Team Members

Project Description

Australia has many emergency services, Vic SES, NSW SES, CFA, RFS, and so on. The duty officers of many of these services still rely on spreadsheets to organise their crews, and when a job is on they have to activate crew by manually typed text message.

"Current systems are fine for small emergencies, up to 200 crew, but it breaks down when you have a Black Saturday type event where you need crew from multiple regions to coordinate, and especially when state lines are crossed."

Natural disasters such as bushfires, floods, and cyclones occur frequently across Australia and are expected to get worse as a result of climate change. There are many resources from top government agencies such as the CSIRO's ERIC and Data61's Spark, but volunteer divisions find it difficult to keep up with the latest information.

To better prepare and cope with larger natural disasters, we need to provide communities with early warnings of natural hazards, improve consistency of information across jurisdictions, and create reliable authoritative solutions that people can rely on.

We have created an operational management system that can get the right message, at the right time, to the right people.