MARS was recently invited to attend a briefing given by the NDRRMC (National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Centre) to demonstrate a new national emergency alerting system for first responders, the press and the general public. NDRRMC recognise the need to include MARS and the radio amateur community, but no specifics provide yet on how or when MARS might participate.
They are following up on the recommendations of the CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) consultants, who were here earlier (see previous post on this link). Government had issued a tender for an alerting system and subsequently appointed a Dutch software company – One2Many – to provide the alerting system.
The first phase of the new system is scheduled to go live in March 2020 with the aim to significantly improve the ability of NDRRMC to simultaneously send out messages and alerts to primary responders by email, fax and social media.
It is planned initially to use cell broadcast to reach the general public, with other social media links to potentially follow in a later phase. Additionally, it is expected that the media will augment their current broadcasting capabilities to carry audio messages and video banner inserts on TV channels coming from the NDRRMC system. Link to project report “A mass media communication system using mobile voice technology for information dissemination during crisis situation in Mauritius“
There will probably be more detailed meetings nearer the launch time to coordinate specific actions of those involved.