The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) announce a Call for Participation in a simulated disaster response exercise that will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 7th, 2017, during the Disaster Risk Reduction (DDR) Across the Americas Summit.

Many disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean affect multiple countries which means that sharing of best practices and other information across national boundaries can improve disaster response capabilities in the region. Bringing together the disaster response community, inclusive of data providers and end users, through the simulated exercise, will help identify the best practices, gaps and information needs among all stakeholders and ensure that future work plans are tied to real gaps and needs.

The DDR Across the Americas Summit will provide an important opportunity for enhanced dialogue and planning between representatives of the scientific earth observation (EO) and the DRR community, including stakeholders in preparedness and planning, disaster mitigation, emergency response, and recovery.

To ensure the success of the exercise we specifically encourage participation from emergency managers, earth observation data providers, the academic sector, non-governmental organizations, and commercial companies. The Call for participation is available at: http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/requests/158 and registration is via the main summit page.

The summit week will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina from September 3rd to 8th, 2017. More information on the summit is available at this link: https://disasters.nasa.gov/argentina-summit-2017