Ankit Verma

Real Time Knowledge

Assimilation to assist
decision making in disaster
response
Mob: +91 8130110292

Delhi

Ankitverma.master@gmail.co
m

Assimilation, categorization and dissipation of knowledge in an event of natural

disaster provides the pivotal edge to relief efforts. This policy document proposed a
framework to use mobile communication network over traditional methods for
knowledge assimilation to provide real time processing, segmentation and dispersion
of usable knowledge in backdrop of a natural disaster.

Table of Contents

Contents
Introduction____________________________________________1
Background_________________________________________________________1
Knowledge Management Concepts_______________________________________1
Growth of mobile communication in India__________________________________2
Disaster Management Role of Knowledge Management_____________________3
Looking Ahead_______________________________________________________3

Knowledge Assimilation using IVR__________________________5

Introduction_________________________________________________________5
Advantages of Mobile Technology________________________________________5
KM System Architecture for Disaster Response_____________________________6

Knowledge Management in Disaster Response________________8

Conclusion_____________________________________________9
Contact Information_____________________________________10

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Introduction
Background
Indian sub-continent is susceptible to of natural hazards owing to the unique
topographic and climatic characteristics. The losses to both life and economics
owing to natural disasters have been increasing over the years as the
Knowledge
management is

population density increases in the country. India has experienced many

massive disasters such as the Orissa cyclone in 1999, Gujarat earthquake in
2001, tsunami 2004 and many more in the past. Characteristics of growth in a
developing economy are always very unique, these unique situations demand
development of specialized solution to fulfill these unique set of requirements,
a solution that works for the developed nation is not necessarily the best suited
for the needs of a developing nation. We have to develop our own method of
disaster management which utilizes our natural conditions, demographics,
topologies and economics. Acknowledging the need for a disaster knowledge
networking platform to facilitate interaction and have concurrent knowledge
sharing with all entities with dealing with disaster response, the IVR based
knowledge management initiative has been thoughtfully envisaged as a tool to
store, retrieve, disseminate and manage information.

Knowledge Management Concepts

Knowledge Management is collection, assimilation, representation and
dispersion of available data in a manner most useful to assist decision making.
Nonaka and Takeuchi have categorized knowledge in domains of explicit, tacit
and implicit. Explicit knowledge is well defined form of knowledge. Tacit is
understood but not well defined form of knowledge. And the most familiar word
that can help us guide in the direction of what implicit knowledge is would be
intuition. To keep our focus on disaster response we shall focus on explicit
knowledge and its assimilation in a real time environment.

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Data
Assimilation

Data
Dissipaton

Knowledge
Management

Data
Processing

Data
Segmentation

The Knowledge Diagram

Growth of mobile communication in India

India currently is the fastest growing mobile telephony consumer base and
arguably the second highest users of mobile communication in the world. The
growth has rather been explosive in recent past with a wide range of services
been provided to its users. As per released data from the the worlds largest
mobile handset manufactures, India is the fastest growing mobile telephony
market with consumer emphasis on added services on their mobile platform.
While the west developed its strong infrastructure centric landline platforms at
an initial stage, India skipped the step and directly pioneered the mobile
communication revolution. From a knowledge management standpoint this is a

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strong indicator towards areas which are best suited for knowledge assimilation
and has the fastest rate of user acceptance.

Disaster Management Role of Knowledge Management

We assume that knowledge management is about identification of best
practices and their utilization. But in actuality it is a framework which is very
efficient in developing need specific customized solutions that has potential to
develop into world class benchmarks. We should view knowledge management
as a tool to develop cost effective solutions best suited to our needs.
In our context, the role of knowledge management in to provide, process and
display information in a usable formats that would assist in relief efforts in a
real time environment in event of disaster. For example in event of an
earthquake the use of mobile telephony to assist rescue teams in a dispersed
effort would certainly help save a number of lives.

Looking Ahead
This policy document proposed a framework to use mobile communication
network over traditional methods for knowledge assimilation to provide real
time segmentation and dispersion of usable information in event of a natural
disaster.

Ankit Verma

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Knowledge
assimilation in a
real time
environment in
even of a
disaster is a
strong ally to
assist the
response team
to direct their
efforts in a

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Knowledge Assimilation using IVR

Introduction
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a method of communication through
prerecorded messages designed to convey critical pieces of information or
direct the user to input specific data needed. These kind of systems we
generally encounter when calling up customer care where the system tries to
locate the areas of focus of the customer and directs it to the relevant
departments.
These system are remarkably efficient in collecting specific information. They
are designed to get specific responses to precise questions. Such a
mechanism would be very handy in retrieval of critical information for
designated authorities at the time of disaster. For example a call to CMO to
update the status of current number of patients in the hospital at 5pm would
provide real time information about the healthcare situation in disaster hit
areas. Such a system that takes specific data into account would help
authorities come up with accurate estimates of the damages.

Advantages of Mobile Technology

Mobile technology use de-centralized interconnected set of networks to
communicate with various hubs. The individual mobile towers has a Base
Switching Station (BSS). These BSS communicate over optic fiber or
microwaves to Master Switching Station (MSS) which helps route calls
between independent BSS. These MSSs are further connected to switching
hubs and PSTN. In event of a natural disaster even if one center is affected
then also MSSs interconnect with their peers and keep up with basic calls and
sms services intact.

Furthermore every mobile network tower has an

independent generator that supplies power so a network will remain functional

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for 8 hours in event of a massive power failure. Also since these towers are
places a specific height above ground, they are slightly shielded from floods
and other water based calamities. These properties of a mobile communication
network makes it an ideal network to rely on in event of a natural disaster.

A typical mobile network architecture

KM System Architecture for Disaster Response

A Knowledge Management (KM) based disaster response system would
broadly be categorized into 3 subsystems.

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The first subsystem consists of elaborate database of cellular numbers of

authorities that would provide IVR with specific responses. This database has
to be regularly updated and maintained with real time information of transfers,
leaves, current acting authority, etc. The efficiency of the IVR data collection
system is highly dependent on this subsystem.
The second subsystem function is to identify which information is most easily
accessible from which authority and can check relevancy and accuracy of
information by applying certain predefined check methods. The systems maps
the information to its source of origin and directs the third subsystem to retireve
it. The subsystem will also need constant updating to remain tuned with the
organizational changes.
The third subsystem consists of IVR which would call those respective officials
and collect information in real time. This information would then be populated
to requisite databases to be assesses by the response teams.

Database
of
authorities

Map
specific
data to its
source

IVR
system
retrieves
the data

Ladder diagram of Disaster response system architecture

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Knowledge Management in Disaster

Response
The data is assimilated in real time environment and simultaneously processes
and pushed upstream to assist decision making. This complete process can be
analyzed at a later stage to improve its efficiency further to provide leaner
services and to assist in much broader perspective of disaster risk reduction.

time
Data assimilatedReal
data

Situation
Data segmentation
Assessment

Designing
Maintaining
relief Dissipation
Data
Infrastructure
operations

Plan Relief
activities

Provide inputs
to
management

Generalized KM architecture to assist Disaster Response

A constant self-improvement mechanism that incorporating use of both human
and machine to increase the efficiency of the system and gradually increase its
scope of activity would certainly create a strong platform to deal with
emergency situation.

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Conclusion
The system serves as a base system which can be further developed to take
inputs from other sources as well to deal with a wider range of data sources
and categories. Incorporating features like short message service (sms)
response from disaster hit areas to triangulate affected locations would
certainly seem possible with such a system serving as a backbone. Building
the system further would help us create an emergency response system that is
both fast and effective. It will be such a system that already has a high level of
user acceptance and is a very cost effective solution to disaster response
where we are using our existing infrastructure. This system, owing to its high
level of user acceptance, reduces the need for any kind of specialized training
to the intended user base. The most striking feature of this system is that it
does not require an office with loads of papers being fed into a system by
typists. This system retrieves the information in real time and on need basis
with minimal human intervention thus reducing the risk of typographical errors.
Last but not the least, this system serves as a cost effective solution making
use of our existing infrastructure and serving our specific needs.

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Ankit Verma
Ankitverma.master@gmail.co
m