The case for Situate Me’s emergency management intelligence chatbot gains momentum with $60,000 investment
Investment from the Westpac Government Innovation Fund will take Situate Me’s virtual disaster assistant, Ema, to pilot, marking a very positive step for the future of how emergency management groups collect and receive key welfare information.
In the dark with no data
When the 7.8 magnitude Kaikoura Earthquake rocked the top of the South Island of New Zealand in November 2016, around two minutes after midnight, emergency management services knew within 30 minutes that the township was badly affected and were ready to coordinate and execute their disaster recovery plans.
What they didn’t know was what the situation was like further north and south of Kaikoura. While residents across the affected area were using social media as the ‘go to’ communication channel – with 15,840 reports of an earthquake within the first hour on New Zealand’s GeoNet website and 250 million hits on the website in 24 hours – with no direct link through to emergency management teams, this information wasn’t being collected or shared.
This meant that little was known about the extent of the damage to outer-lying towns and villages, roads, water supplies and sewage systems until later.
Investment from the Westpac Government Innovation Fund will take Situate Me’s virtual disaster assistant, Ema, to pilot, marking a very positive step for the future of how emergency management groups collect and receive key welfare information.
A definite place for Ema
Situate Me’s compassionate and conversational chatbot, Ema, would have been a vital resource here in capturing this vital information direct from anyone and potentially everyone affected by the earthquake that night. Ema would have been able to quickly communicate the welfare needs – be they food, water, shelter or sanitation – to emergency management groups to assist them in their tasks.
Of course, Ema hadn’t been designed back then. Ema was developed just last year but, importantly, has been steadily gaining momentum as well as recognition across the emergency management sector.
Investment takes Ema to next stage
The latest milestone in Ema’s development is a $60,000 grant from the Westpac Government Innovation Fund. The Innovation Fund provides monies and expertise to support innovative ideas and opportunities that will make a difference for New Zealand.
And Ema fits into this category perfectly.
Situate Me will use this investment to take the chatbot to the next stage – a pilot in conjunction with a local emergency management group in a locale with a population of around 1.5 million.
The pilot will be provide a very real environment for testing Ema, informing and educating the public about emergency preparedness and gathering data a large scale.
We believe Ema will be a game-changer for the emergency management industry.
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If you would like to keep up-to-date with Ema’s progress, follow us on Facebook www.facebook.com/situateme and on Linkedin www.linkedin.com/company/situateme