After the floodings in Central Europe this summer many authorities and organizations realized that social media is playing a big role in emergency managment. Therefore a lively discussion has started to find out which technologies already exist and which of them are useful in preparation for and during a crisis.

One of these discussions lately took place in Heidelberg on October 17th, 2013. The department of geoinformatics of the University of Heidelberg together with the IT specialists of Leiner&Wolff had invited several experts in this field to talk about new develpoments regarding social media in civil protection and flood control. Many speakers also shared their experiences with the floodings this summer as well as with other events or presented their current research.

VASA was discussed in the presentation of two speakers from the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance who took it as an example of how to use big data and especially social media during a disaster. You can find the presentation here (in German).

The other presentations of the conference have been uploaded to this page (all in German).

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