ResponDrone project to hold a special design thinking workshop for first responders
The international ResponDrone Project, which is developing a situational awareness system for emergency situations, and provides critical information and communication services to first responders, will hold a special design thinking workshop, bringing together industrial, technological and end-user partners of the consortium. The workshop will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece on November 12–13, 2019. ResponDrone has begun developing an integrated solution for first responders to easily operate a fleet of drones with multiple synchronized missions to enhance their situation assessment capacity and their own protection. This system of systems will simplify and accelerate situation assessment and sharing, decision making and operations management, while requiring only a small crew to operate it. ResponDrone partners representing different end users will convene to ensure that the ResponDrone system will meet the needs and requirements of emergency response organizations. Workshop participants include regional and national authorities in charge of first response, state agencies responsible for carrying out on the ground first response actions, rescue services and fire departments from Greece, France, Armenia, Netherlands, Latvia, Bulgaria and Israel. The workshop, hosted by ResponDrone partner Region of Central Macedonia, will focus on developing a set of tools and methods to solve future design problems in a way that is most beneficial for the end users of the ResponDrone system. "The emergency situations addressed by ResponDrone are complex and involve many stakeholders, making it particularly challenging to design a system that satisfies all requirements," said ResponDrone project coordinator Max Friedrich from the German Aerospace Center (DLR). "One of our main challenges in developing the ResponDrone system is to align the functionality of the new system with the actual needs of end users. The workshop will enable us to hear from our users what they would like to get from the system, so that we can tune the design to their specific needs."