Conference Topic - Future First Responders: An International Perspective

PSCE conferences are about sharing and learning. In Brussels we will address the future of first responders from an international perspective, namely featuring speakers from Australia and South-Korea.

Security management for big events is a great challenge, from which can be drawn precious lessons and insights. Mr Chang will present Safenet and discuss the challenges associated to the organisation of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, while mr Geoff Spring will provide an update of the latest public safety developments in Australia. Further, will be discussed XVRSIM, a virtual Reality training software for safety and security as well as the most-wanted first responders' technologies in Europe.

Mr. Ryoo will discuss general information on Public Safety LTE matters in South-Korea namely focusing on activities for Public Safety LTE communications during the Winter Olympics period as well as the future deployment plan. The Republic of Korea selected LTE as the communication system for public safety (PS-LTE), railway safety (LTE-R) and maritime safety (LTE-M) and will co-exist and integrate among 3 kinds of LTE systems. Mr Ryoo will also briefly introduce the Safe-net forum in Korea.

Geoff Spring is a Senior Industry Advisor in the Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety which is located within the University of Melbourne Australia. Geoff will provide an overview of the mission critical public safety communications ecosystem in Australia with a focus on the need for countries to share information and lessons learned for each component of the ecosystem and its overall strategic direction.

Incident response training is essential for well-qualified personnel. Therefore, XVR Simulation developed a virtual reality training platform called XVR for education, training and assessment of incident commanders of operational level up to strategic level. The objective is to create flexible, reliable & user-friendly simulation tools where learning is key and the instructor is in control. You can use the different modules separately but they can also be linked together and run simultaneously. The XVR platform is used in both single- and multi-agency settings.

Based on the results of questionnaires gathering the views of first-responders associations across Europe, Marie-Christine Bonnamour will discuss what has been identified as the most needed technologies to improve future public safety operations.