4 | Technology Fighting For It’s Place In Disaster Management

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[SPEAKER_00]: Attention, buckle in, shelter in place and prepare.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is the disaster field show.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If we can give guys communications in the mountains of Afghanistan or Iraq, we can do it in the mountains of BC.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's very simple in the theory of behind it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It just takes a different way to look at it.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And so you got two or three or four weeks for people who are already heavily traumatized and other whole lives have been disrupted, they've lost everything they own.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I was a, I was a little bit of a technology like growing up, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's always been something that I was really focused on, you know, just at any time, even when I was a little kid and you get some for Christmas or, you know, I didn't just have to run, you know, the remote control car or anything like that to take it apart and see how the electronics worked, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: So,

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[SPEAKER_01]: That was a little bit of like what I did, you know, growing up on a farm and that sort of thing in amongst hockey and all the other things.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That was a real, I was big in attack and, you know, it was funny because when I ended up, you know, during tour, you know, in Afghanistan.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was one of those guys where everybody else was kind of like, how to surface level is to understand how the satellite, you know, phones would work and all that stuff.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I was that guy that basically maximized my benefit, you know, features of, you know, having these types of technologies in space.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, you know, this is 2008, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not like we had any of the video conferencing stuff that we have right now.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I used to I had we had a satellite phone and of course that satellite phones only for emergency's only I must are racked up Okay, I like it had to been thousands of thousands of days ago Well, you know, and because every night, you know, you had calling and you know, hey, how you doing sort of thing right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: But then it turned into half an hour call.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean at that time, you know, that's probably four or five bucks a minute, you know, thank you for those days

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[SPEAKER_01]: from those days.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I've always been like really keen on using the technologies that we've had at our fingertips and also understanding what value they bring to the table, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: In that time, it was a lot of value, you know, and, you know, few, few in coming rockets and some explosions when you're on the other than the phone, you know, with your girlfriend and your mother.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's okay.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm just watching the movie because it's that, yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's the best.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Popcorn, the soccer game.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just having fun.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So that was kind of where that all started and you know where we are here today and and where we're going into is just I don't know the last five years of really exposed you know these gaps if you will in these technologies right yeah you and I are on the same wavelength for sure on the yeah yeah a metric shit ton of gaps out there yeah and well and you know I I think if we you look at it from a 30,000 foot view there's no shortage of tech companies out there like like that

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[SPEAKER_01]: Or do we name it from like the drone companies like everywhere you you look you find a drone company down to like the sensor you know the guys produce a new sensors and new new systems really they just do a new version of an old sensor most of them right with some new software and that's really where the matter happens is in you know the utilization of that tool in my technology but.

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[SPEAKER_01]: you know, I don't know that the silos are big, the gaps are wide, the choices, the choices are confusing last night.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So I mean, when I look at this and as you know, like my interest is around what's out there and how can we apply it to make the broader process of emergency management better.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And there's all sorts of converging and emerging technologies, and I look at high level concepts like quantum computing or the AI thing, you know, those sorts of things, you know, the connectivity lower orbit satellites, all that stuff, it's all just we're being bombarded every day, like when I look at my email feed every morning, I got no less than six emails from different types of newsletters and blog posts.

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[SPEAKER_03]: about the next best AI and it's better than the one that they had the previous week.

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[SPEAKER_03]: There's just so much going on and myself personally, I don't think those industries are doing their clients any justice.

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[SPEAKER_03]: They're just so busy competing, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a total red ocean kind of a thing going on out there.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we got to what I see is that we almost have a missing piece of the overall, you know, framework of what happens like you look back into the military or the defense sector.

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's typically always a general contractor or a defense contractor in the middle.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He's kind of that, you know, those contractors are the catch-all for all technologies that come in.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to compete, you're really doing a deal with like general dynamics or locking Martin, you know, you're bringing in your sensors, you're bringing in your stuff and they go into the F-35s and they go into all the other aircraft, and all the other systems like weaponry, but in the disaster sector, what is the disaster sector?

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[SPEAKER_01]: We don't really have anybody in between.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a lot of bombardment to the local fire chief,

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[SPEAKER_01]: you know to try to say hey here's a new drone here's a new you know here's new tack here's a new widget here's new and but every fire department every police agencies being bombarded by thousands of different you know individuals trying to mapping tools dispatch tools yeah public notification tools yeah all of that stuff there's just a gazillion of motor

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[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me about, like, I guess, you know, obviously being coming from a really deep knowledge base and experience that in the wildfire space, what was your communications like in the 80s, the 90s, like where what types of technologies were you using?

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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I might be dating myself, but I still don't want to carry around those old lunchbox radio, it won't spoil trade deals like, yeah.

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[SPEAKER_03]: literally that Hulk Hogan lunch box that you told me a little while ago we had a radio with a big antenna or we had the throw up antennas and you know depending where you were you had to get them up high enough in the trees and most of the time they were just simplex you know and by that i just mean like a walkie talking that's got a street line assigned to the next

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[SPEAKER_03]: That's right, to the line to say that's it.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And if there's a mountain in between, you're hooped, right?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And then of course, repeaters came in.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So you had a line to a mountain top.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And it just took the message and spun it around a bit and then sent it down to another radio.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And that's still a pretty prominent model in most parts of the world.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Certainly here in British India.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's still probably the model.

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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, but, but, and there's holes everywhere, of course.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And really that that whole piece around data packets over radio,

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[SPEAKER_03]: The technology's out there, you know, you could send the simple text, but it really never caught on either, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So everything is voice and man, there's so many pain points, but I'll give you the simple one.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So we would go it on a fire and somebody would have to radio into the fire center.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So like a regional dispatch room with a resource request, you know, I need

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[SPEAKER_03]: X amount of pumps and hoses and fuels and lunches and hoses and all, whatever, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: Or different kinds of resources.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So while one guy's hogging the the the channel reading this 15 list or 15 piece list off, you got seven helicopters trying to do their mandatory safety check-ins and they can't get on top because and and it just blocks up and it jams up so the solution let's not find a better way.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Let's just

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[SPEAKER_03]: aggravate the solution even more.

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[SPEAKER_03]: We'll just narrow-band so we've we've seen the narrow-banding and with the video world So all that really means is instead of a Big chunk of radio away frequency.

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[SPEAKER_03]: They just cut it into tiny pieces and people hop on and they're trying to afford the avoid that Kind of clogging of the radio waves and that's okay, but in addition to that they would create new frequencies.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so back in my day we had I think was

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[SPEAKER_03]: nine eight or nine duplex frequency so the repeater frequencies and they were all named after a color and then we had two simplex and that was it and those were our tactical channels around the fire well now I think there's like six or seven yeah simplex and and even more duplex or repeater frequencies so all they've really done is taking a bad situation and made it worse right yeah one and and a lot of it is that leg still today

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[SPEAKER_01]: we're continuing to try to rebuild an old system or repair an old system of repeaters and network repeaters when the tools really do actually exist in front of us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They do exist.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I've said this to some of the top guys in provincial wildfire response that if we can give guys communications in the mountains of Afghanistan or Iraq, we can do it in the mountains of BC.

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[SPEAKER_01]: in the theory of behind it is just takes a different way to look at it and not traditional terrestrial 5G networks, you know, and everything that goes into the old repeater stations that, you know, millions of millions of dollars is being pumped into every year just to try to keep that infrastructure alive.

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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, helicopter flights for maintenance as an example, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, and we need, and we need to, I think as a collective province of province, like we need to break down these silos.

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[SPEAKER_01]: to really be able to open up that commonality in communications.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So here's the other big challenge and I'll pick BC here but you could put any province or territory and just paste that instead of BC.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Almost always every year now we get to a point where our existing resources are overwhelmed.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So we import from other provinces and territories and countries.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So whenever those folks come in,

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[SPEAKER_03]: they've got to be issued one of our radios with our for example there's the warehouse is i've got stocks and stocks and stocks of fire radios just for that purpose right and those things get outdated over time as well right it's a capital expenditure and i mean it in my sense relevant

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[SPEAKER_01]: you know, the big part of it is it the wear and tear on this equipment, you know, is it's pretty extreme, you know, you got a type one walking through the trees or you got a, you know, you got any of these groups, you know, even to write down to the emergency management groups just running around and disasters all summer, you know, trying to manage these, these environments like all that equipment does have breakdown points to it, right, it does have.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and here's another, like, you've just figured out a button to push with me here.

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[SPEAKER_03]: You take these radios, and in B.C., we will have, just in the fire stock alone, not to mention the regular issue stuff for the seasonal fire crews and year-round staff.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So, every once in a while, there's an innovation or there's some new set of CTSS, Cones, or CTSS, Tones that sit on top of it, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: It's got to go into a local contractor, like a local radios shop.

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[SPEAKER_01]: uh... and they've got a plug it into their computer and they've got a program willy sings and manually and that costs a ton of money but it's just and that's that's every year yeah so the digital world is evolving and i think you know where we're we're coming to that era right now we're like we have to make we collectively and i say we only because we are all uh... a small p piece and a larger puzzle you know and and we all we all play and and roll in

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, do we get this across the line?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Do we make this better?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Or do we just like you said, you know, is the definition of insanity?

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, doing things over and over again, expecting a different result, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, do we just stay in that pool or do we actually, you know, push to the next level?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think like, in order for us to do this and you correct me if I'm wrong here, but in order for us to actually effectively do this, we need to change

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[SPEAKER_01]: a bit of the the thought process and the culture at the top, you know, like that weren't like the bottom is not working against the top.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The the public is not working against the government.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The government is not working against the public.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we need to start be able to build bridges and break down these silos so that the new innovative technology can make its way in with open open minds and and be adopted because.

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[SPEAKER_01]: As you'll see, communication is the lifeblood of us, you know, whether you live or die in sometimes, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that, I mean, is the breakdown of relationships, of marriage, of, you know, business relationships.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a breakdown of everything.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And the first casualty in chaos is communications.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So why are we not keeping an open mind into the evolving, you know, space?

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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, is it just an old school versus new school or ding ding ding ding ding you just hit another pain or pushed another button with me here.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome.

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[SPEAKER_03]: This is going to be a good day.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I can see it already.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So I introduced another little quote that I like and it's quite simple.

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[SPEAKER_03]: It just simply goes, what God us here won't get us there.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, similar to the insanity thing, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: And a lot of the practices.

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[SPEAKER_03]: around innovation for starters, I was in provincial government for a long time.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I got branded as a bit of a road because I was always trying to introduce new ways of doing stuff.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And I would hit the silos.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I would hit the barriers.

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[SPEAKER_03]: That's not the way we do things, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: All the bureaucracy and the policy wants and all that sort of stuff.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And that was in provincial government.

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[SPEAKER_03]: The few dealings I've had with federal government.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And my mind is going to some of the military procurement stuff.

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[SPEAKER_03]: lead me to believe that they're also very bureaucratic, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, you might have a general dynamics or major defense contractor sitting in the middle to kind of filter a bunch of these technologies, but you know, they've got their processes for procurement and testing and then requests for proposal and then the the builds and and some of that stuff can take years.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, we're seeing a five year cycle at the provincial level.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, even not even a wildfire in certain provinces like we're seeing stuff that was ordered and tested and looked at five years ago, like a garment in reach is now finally hitting the table, but it's like it's so irrelevant it hurts right and so it's like we've as taxpayers were spending this money on this technology that is, you know, the tech spaces of all being on a six to 12 month.

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[SPEAKER_01]: a tradition cycle right now right like it's it's evolving.

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[SPEAKER_03]: That's that's short.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it is very much shorting.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So we got to stay as a collective on top of it and and you know, it's it's really not a, you know, it's it's not a side of, again, the old school versus news school.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it just we need to keep up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We need to get better educated, you know, with what technology is out there, but also,

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a side of this as well where I believe, you know, if you're a fire chief, you know, you want to do what you do well and what you paid for to do.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's managed your, your firefighters make sure that they're, they're, they're healthy.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They're safe.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They're, they're in, uh, you know, they're doing their job effectively.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They've got the right training.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, at no time, did you have to be able to like all of a sudden take on this whole role as being a technology expert because that just doesn't come naturally.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think this is what we're seeing the overwhelming effect of, you know, way it comes in, he got the 50-pound brain in the fire department or in the police agency.

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[SPEAKER_01]: you know, they bring in some like tack for example.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really good.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's a really good tool technology being adopted everywhere.

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[SPEAKER_01]: U.S.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Forestry services bring it in Colorado.

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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you got all these different Corona military had it policing long for exactly or embracing it.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's coming.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And no matter how many guys push it out there, like H.O.J.

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[SPEAKER_01]: J. J. O'Hansik, right down and down in front of fire, you know, just an amazing advocate for this

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[SPEAKER_01]: But then we're talking to, you know, Sam's on who, you know, Doc is used on their devices and it's a trickle down effect because they say, well, yeah, we got like a 90% fill rate on this technology has nothing to do with the tech itself.

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[SPEAKER_01]: The tech is great.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's amazing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: People love using it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They, they train on a very well.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It really comes down to the fact that the one guy that was available.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say this is a good idea.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Let's bring it into our fire department.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Um, they start to use it, and then of all of us, and he just moves off into his career.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He goes to another another hall.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He goes to whatever it is and that or he just simply moves on his career.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the the the the the gap in knowledge base in order to keep that system alive.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And plus the three or four, you know, people that you have to hire in order to be able to support the back in this, this, the servers and everything else.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And now starts to collect dust in the corner.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now all the devices that were bought and then starts to build the bad taste in, you know, in the, in the council, you know, whoever voted in, you know, that capex expenditure.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then you start getting this resurgence of push back and kick back against these technologies.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, we bought you this stuff and now you're not using it, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: I see that so many times.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so here we are, you're kind of almost in a revolving door of these cyclical events of technology coming in.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great thing and then it fades off into the past.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know, the baseline behind this is really bold.

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[SPEAKER_01]: What I see anyways with technology, the only way that we can effectively use it is if it's at on our sustainable, reoccurring platform, like on on a on a on a space that you can utilize it in that has a full support base behind it that delivers the solutions.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So part of that problem, I think, cool is that a lot of these software tools and different tech solutions and stuff are kind of purpose-built.

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[SPEAKER_03]: They're domain-specific, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: And I have always maintained that if you're going to use tools and emergency management, which is kind of a sporadic somewhat unplanned kind of a thing, right?

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[SPEAKER_03]: Very dynamic in terms of the frequency and impacts.

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[SPEAKER_03]: You should be using them every day for every day kind of business.

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[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So that they're there.

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[SPEAKER_03]: People know how to use them in any operations.

18:06.780 --> 18:06.960
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

18:07.080 --> 18:11.445
[SPEAKER_03]: Like all of the support side, all of the consumption of the data they generate and the value they bring.

18:11.545 --> 18:12.487
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just already there.

18:12.587 --> 18:14.369
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just inherent in the organization.

18:14.389 --> 18:14.829
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.

18:14.870 --> 18:16.071
[SPEAKER_03]: Then when an emergency happens.

18:17.323 --> 18:21.666
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just another day at the office while I'm not exciting, but yeah, and that's just it.

18:21.846 --> 18:29.832
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, there's there's been countless, I guess, countless different, you know, great technology systems that have come out, right?

18:29.852 --> 18:39.739
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's wildfire detection, you know, down to, you know, predictive modeling, you know, you got a lot of different softwares coming out of a lot of different groups, but, you know, you know,

18:40.918 --> 18:41.998
[SPEAKER_01]: the data management.

18:42.018 --> 18:51.761
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we started with communications, and then specifically, we were talking about, you know, the, your, your experience with communication infrastructure, you were only voice only.

18:51.922 --> 18:56.363
[SPEAKER_01]: We're now getting into a very, very data heavy world where data needs to flow.

18:56.783 --> 19:03.505
[SPEAKER_01]: So you need one, one set of train tracks for, you know, that data to flow on as well as voice, right.

19:03.585 --> 19:05.786
[SPEAKER_01]: So because that data is becoming, well,

19:06.597 --> 19:10.261
[SPEAKER_01]: arguably more valuable than the actual push.

19:10.582 --> 19:11.823
[SPEAKER_01]: It is 100% for sure.

19:12.023 --> 19:17.830
[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't set up the sustainable conduits that don't have borders that aren't defined by provinces.

19:18.230 --> 19:24.177
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not owned by anyone, you know, or any page and see specifically where, you know, the shackles get put on it.

19:24.836 --> 19:35.565
[SPEAKER_01]: If that infrastructure is able to be utilized on a universal and agnostic kind of level, you're going to get that data flow, that again, we talked about this previously about insurance.

19:35.606 --> 19:42.191
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, being able to utilize that data through these technologies and systems, but it's not just a plug it in and go.

19:42.452 --> 19:47.316
[SPEAKER_01]: There's there's system integrations that need to happen in order to make that repeatable and sustainable way.

19:47.336 --> 19:48.337
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well,

19:49.242 --> 19:50.263
[SPEAKER_03]: make no bones about it.

19:50.303 --> 19:54.586
[SPEAKER_03]: There's some very smart people have recognized this and they're positioning themselves.

19:54.647 --> 20:02.733
[SPEAKER_03]: Like if you just Google something like top 10 or top 20 data owners in the world, you're going to see some pretty common household names there.

20:02.753 --> 20:03.454
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's right.

20:03.714 --> 20:05.896
[SPEAKER_03]: IBM Amazon, just a name a couple, right?

20:06.396 --> 20:07.317
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's going on.

20:07.537 --> 20:07.637
[SPEAKER_03]: And

20:08.898 --> 20:10.560
[SPEAKER_03]: I like the, you know, the internet of things.

20:10.880 --> 20:23.391
[SPEAKER_03]: I like to call it the internet of absolutely everything because we have billions of sensors right now on the planet that are generating all sorts of data and with AI and particular and now bringing quantum computing and some of the capabilities around that.

20:24.112 --> 20:39.375
[SPEAKER_03]: There is the ability to process data in new different combinations and configurations, much faster across a wider range of potential what if scenarios and analyze it, much quicker than it ever did before.

20:39.795 --> 20:49.517
[SPEAKER_03]: And to do that, we need bigger better AI systems, we need bigger better data centers, we need more power and energy to power those systems up.

20:50.397 --> 21:09.556
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just we're at a time in the history of the planet that we've never experienced before where we're into that point where we got to get smart about training like you know, it's almost like having a pet you know to me like when you're going to utilize AI you got to do it responsibly like we of course we went back to talking about this multiple times where

21:10.236 --> 21:16.460
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, AI is really about, if you train properly, it's a great enhancement tool.

21:16.681 --> 21:19.663
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it, it's an enhancement tool is not a replacement tool.

21:20.083 --> 21:34.392
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the minute that we start stepping over and think that we can hit the easy button and just like go to AI to basically make, you know, decisions that we as humans would, would have made, you know, just a hard stop with no empathy, no judgment, none of that stuff.

21:34.713 --> 21:39.156
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where we start getting an extremely dangerous ground to where emergency management could actually start.

21:39.985 --> 21:41.866
[SPEAKER_01]: causing its own internal problems, right?

21:41.926 --> 21:54.510
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's about the management of that AI tool in the large learning module, you know, and having these AI functions so that they operate in our benefit, not as a replacement of what we're already doing.

21:54.590 --> 21:57.490
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we need to almost as a force multiplier.

21:57.630 --> 22:01.172
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to do more with less people because we only have so many people to do it.

22:01.672 --> 22:04.533
[SPEAKER_03]: But I mean, that's a whole huge rabbit hole.

22:04.573 --> 22:08.494
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think we've got enough hours in today to go down right now, but I'll just sort of,

22:09.094 --> 22:13.801
[SPEAKER_03]: quickly captured by by stating that there's that big fear out there that AI is going to replace people.

22:14.281 --> 22:19.208
[SPEAKER_03]: And in fact, where it's huge strength really, really nice is around augmenting what people already do.

22:19.228 --> 22:19.749
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

22:20.250 --> 22:21.571
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me give you a little example.

22:21.611 --> 22:22.933
[SPEAKER_03]: And I experienced this just last week.

22:22.993 --> 22:23.995
[SPEAKER_03]: I was in another province.

22:25.923 --> 22:30.426
[SPEAKER_03]: co-delivering an incident command system, ICS operation section chief course.

22:31.247 --> 22:40.673
[SPEAKER_03]: And we had some folks from different government agencies in there, and there's some team exercises, and there's a few of the standard ICS forms that we use.

22:40.734 --> 22:48.419
[SPEAKER_03]: And once them called the ICS or the I-2115, which is really it's just an operational planning work sheet that outlines what do you want to do?

22:48.439 --> 22:49.159
[SPEAKER_03]: What are your objectives?

22:49.480 --> 22:50.540
[SPEAKER_03]: How many resources do you got?

22:50.620 --> 22:51.201
[SPEAKER_03]: How many do you need?

22:51.221 --> 22:51.841
[SPEAKER_03]: What are your gaps?

22:52.021 --> 22:52.182
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

22:53.122 --> 23:15.881
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's basically it right and we're sitting there and I'm sitting beside this guy It was really really smart and we just sort of casually get talking because he's a little bit aware of some of my AI Yeah, dabblings if you all done some of the tools we've built and We just get talking we said you know what there's that big sort of controversy out there about Taking the human element out of AI and letting AI just dominate and we said

23:16.976 --> 23:19.357
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a perfect opportunity for AI to augment.

23:19.918 --> 23:27.182
[SPEAKER_03]: So you've got a group of really smart experience, emergency managers up there doing their sort of planning around their operational objectives and what have you.

23:27.922 --> 23:29.523
[SPEAKER_03]: So he jumps on chatGPT.

23:30.283 --> 23:35.786
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would just say it was his chatGPT because his organization does not allow him or them to use it.

23:35.826 --> 23:36.447
[SPEAKER_03]: So he got on there.

23:37.087 --> 23:43.010
[SPEAKER_03]: And he started putting the inputs from the exercise scenario as we kind of built on the stuff over the course of a couple days into it.

23:44.211 --> 23:51.974
[SPEAKER_03]: And what we discovered was the AI was getting some stuff that the humans missed and the humans were getting some stuff that the AI missed.

23:52.334 --> 23:58.577
[SPEAKER_03]: But together augmenting one another, there was a better list of considerations.

23:58.597 --> 23:59.297
[SPEAKER_03]: That's absolutely right.

23:59.597 --> 24:01.478
[SPEAKER_03]: To me, that's how this stuff really needs to work.

24:01.978 --> 24:10.422
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, and it has to be, again, you know, we start setting up these conduits of data flow, you know, the data has to be, um, it has to be reputable.

24:10.642 --> 24:13.803
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to be trusted, you know, and that's secure.

24:13.983 --> 24:17.044
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really, yeah, and that's where we were blockchain comes into place, right?

24:17.124 --> 24:28.349
[SPEAKER_01]: And the utilization of the blockchain and and smart ledgering, um, you know, this, these are all pieces that are embedded into overall larger platform, like, you know, what we're doing here at Vexel, right?

24:28.369 --> 24:30.130
[SPEAKER_01]: It is really just put these pieces together.

24:31.044 --> 24:45.329
[SPEAKER_01]: and to be able to create a level where like, you know, the first responder, the search and rescue team, the fire department, you know, anybody, you know, we always talked about this with the, with the wooey, right, the wildlife and urban interface.

24:45.749 --> 24:50.631
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we have this really crazy challenge right now where you have to try to communicate with everyone.

24:51.111 --> 25:01.561
[SPEAKER_01]: and anyone at all times when it relates to their businesses, their homes, you know, all the properties that are all within this jurisdictional kind of boundary of like whose responsibility is it?

25:02.041 --> 25:05.064
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it municipality or is it, you know, provincial, wildland?

25:05.585 --> 25:05.805
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?

25:05.865 --> 25:07.887
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have these these

25:08.902 --> 25:31.702
[SPEAKER_01]: these things that are happening in a real time were both sides of the fence have to know right and have to know what's going on they just evacuated for hundreds of 15 kilometer south of us last night that's right yeah we're sitting right and and I go back to Jasper Jasper is a really good example yeah Jasper and Jasper Alberta you know the the national park you know you got a lot of conflicting you know things going on in that space and I make no

25:32.522 --> 25:37.846
[SPEAKER_01]: claims Danny sort of like, you know, if it in knowledge on on how that, you know, response happened.

25:37.866 --> 25:49.694
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've got the tidbits that I've get been given, but really when I boiled it right down to the very core function of what was the failure there, it was communication and situational awareness.

25:50.194 --> 25:54.037
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, a province on each side, you got federal government in the middle.

25:55.061 --> 25:59.064
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they couldn't make a good decision in six months, let alone, you know, six fucking hours.

25:59.124 --> 25:59.585
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?

25:59.605 --> 26:00.766
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's just not happening.

26:00.826 --> 26:08.832
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, but, you know, again, with these tools and these technologies and the ones that we've embedded into our system, this is where all of them can be looking at the same common operating picture.

26:09.253 --> 26:14.337
[SPEAKER_01]: They can see where those resources or where those threats are and be able to allocate resources adequately.

26:14.757 --> 26:19.061
[SPEAKER_01]: Let us let companies worry about what happens with AI and the data inputs and

26:19.461 --> 26:21.182
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, to produce that output, right?

26:21.262 --> 26:27.465
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's really the basis of what any subscription as a service model might be, right?

26:27.645 --> 26:27.805
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

26:27.885 --> 26:37.530
[SPEAKER_03]: The onus is on the service provider to be the latest greatest, bestest, newest, most reliable technology and provide the service that is being purchased from them, right, or they go out of business.

26:37.550 --> 26:40.632
[SPEAKER_03]: So the onus is, and their survival depends on this stuff.

26:40.992 --> 26:42.573
[SPEAKER_03]: That doesn't happen in government, right?

26:42.753 --> 26:43.173
[SPEAKER_03]: No.

26:43.293 --> 26:47.055
[SPEAKER_03]: If they sort of have a proprietary system that they have developed and what have you.

26:49.723 --> 26:50.507
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to go back here.

26:50.789 --> 26:53.625
[SPEAKER_03]: You kind of open up a little bit of a rabbit hole a moment to go.

26:55.272 --> 27:05.338
[SPEAKER_03]: And it comes back down to, I think, this whole piece around government's supporting innovation or their inability to support innovation.

27:05.438 --> 27:14.624
[SPEAKER_03]: So you've kind of opened this up here today with a question around why isn't all this new technology being sort of adopted readily, right?

27:14.784 --> 27:15.724
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

27:16.125 --> 27:19.187
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have the absolute answer, but I can tell you that in my experience,

27:20.327 --> 27:22.230
[SPEAKER_03]: Governments don't really know how to be innovative.

27:22.570 --> 27:35.967
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they'll have some shop and some ministry or some crown corporation that supports innovation You know, so here's a bunch of money go find some new startups and support them that kind of stuff But internally the systems don't allow for innovation so

27:38.394 --> 27:42.435
[SPEAKER_03]: What I've seen of your disaster field tool, nobody else has got it, right?

27:43.776 --> 27:49.758
[SPEAKER_03]: And this also speaks to that whole problem that we also highlighted a moment ago in that there's just so many choices and there's so many systems.

27:50.238 --> 28:03.823
[SPEAKER_03]: So many new software developers starting up because they've got a great new idea and they're so fragmented and there's not really a common standard around any of this sort of stuff and they're all in that red ocean fighting for that same sort of finite piece of market share, sort of a thing, right?

28:05.243 --> 28:07.925
[SPEAKER_03]: There really isn't that one true common operating picture.

28:09.287 --> 28:10.628
[SPEAKER_03]: Governments will say we've got one.

28:11.288 --> 28:19.114
[SPEAKER_03]: And really it's not a whole lot more than a dashboard created in, you know, a major GIS mapping tool or those kinds of things.

28:19.134 --> 28:21.316
[SPEAKER_03]: Regurgitation and data.

28:21.616 --> 28:23.097
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's some data visualization.

28:23.137 --> 28:26.880
[SPEAKER_03]: It's spatial side and charts and graphs and lists and reports and all that kind of good stuff.

28:27.521 --> 28:28.982
[SPEAKER_03]: But at the end of the day,

28:31.148 --> 28:44.235
[SPEAKER_03]: it's almost impossible for an incident commander on any incident that's got any sort of size or multiple orders of resources there to have 100% true kind of awareness of what's going on, right?

28:44.595 --> 28:49.097
[SPEAKER_03]: These common operating pictures are claiming to be just that, but they really are part of a solution.

28:49.578 --> 28:52.719
[SPEAKER_03]: What I really like about your tool and where I would hope that the governments

28:56.461 --> 29:20.375
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that you can bring all of these disparate systems in under one common platform and create that true common operating picture, but I don't think that's the right phrase even though I think I think what is just a common operating environment like it really is it's a common user interface that is supported by like really what's missing right now is that common operating network of individual groups right.

29:20.795 --> 29:40.892
[SPEAKER_01]: So the agencies, the businesses, you know, you talk about like, you know, a mines or oil and gas companies, you know, like there's some social communication communities like or indigenous communities as a whole, you know, there's a lot of economic impact that comes with, you know, these disasters and devastation, right?

29:40.932 --> 29:44.175
[SPEAKER_01]: If they don't react efficiently, not just to the

29:49.139 --> 29:57.122
[SPEAKER_01]: then it creates confliction with the local, you know, government agencies that may be in there trying to help think about the drone issues that we have right now.

29:57.602 --> 30:05.445
[SPEAKER_01]: People are just going up, you know, unintentionally, you know, in the airspace, it's just natural curiosity that they want to watch out there.

30:05.545 --> 30:06.986
[SPEAKER_01]: Or even just, you know, you have.

30:07.686 --> 30:23.243
[SPEAKER_01]: different fire departments that are buying their own drone systems and they're trying to do their own thermal yeah and they're trying to they're trying to bring in their own thermal capabilities and stuff like that like if you could simply just request and and it you know it's on your tablet it's on your phone it's on your device

30:23.703 --> 30:26.944
[SPEAKER_01]: and you can request that from a common source of that type of information.

30:26.984 --> 30:29.645
[SPEAKER_01]: Where you don't have to apply your own resources to process your own.

30:29.665 --> 30:30.586
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to buy your own.

30:30.626 --> 30:33.567
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to do all that stuff like you just got the solution.

30:33.767 --> 30:43.851
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's what these technologies are designed ultimately to do is that you don't shouldn't have to, you know, the goal is not have to engage with the technology itself, but to receive the solution.

30:43.871 --> 30:46.052
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, we deal with everything on the backend, right?

30:46.872 --> 31:02.140
[SPEAKER_01]: And so all these amazing companies that are out here right now, you know, they're they're not good on the doors and and the only door they have to knock on is the provincial wildfire groups or the the state wildfire groups and that sort of stuff and everybody's doing their own thing very well, but they're doing it on their own silos.

31:03.100 --> 31:08.003
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that, you know, we talk about we talk about communication.

31:08.043 --> 31:12.605
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it has to be everything, but we got to start breaking down the walls and the barriers between these

31:13.240 --> 31:14.721
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, how do we actually do it?

31:14.801 --> 31:28.306
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the cool ideas are great, you know, they need to be continued to be innovative and pushed down the, you know, down the road, we got some amazing drone capabilities for fires, you know, for swarming capabilities that are coming down the pipe.

31:28.346 --> 31:29.866
[SPEAKER_01]: We got some amazing new aircraft.

31:30.827 --> 31:34.868
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all going to play an amazing role in the overall picture, right?

31:34.968 --> 31:38.630
[SPEAKER_01]: But for one individual in a government agency to try to take

31:42.071 --> 31:48.715
[SPEAKER_01]: where they may not have the full depth of knowledge or experience or say, they should be vetting the solution and not the tech itself, right?

31:48.735 --> 31:56.919
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they should be identifying what the true need is from the people that use it, you know, the operational practitioners, the general public, the local governments, first nation communities.

31:56.959 --> 32:04.263
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I ask you like in some of your experiences with the with these, you know, as I understand, you've been part of a lot of the, um,

32:05.357 --> 32:09.138
[SPEAKER_01]: when you call that recovery, you know, bull, yeah, that's right.

32:09.438 --> 32:14.580
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of the recovery spot for a, even going back in the open organ valley here to the 2003 fire, I believe, right?

32:14.620 --> 32:15.300
[SPEAKER_01]: Were you part of that?

32:15.980 --> 32:18.481
[SPEAKER_03]: I was the planning section chief on the incident management team.

32:18.501 --> 32:18.681
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

32:18.961 --> 32:21.362
[SPEAKER_03]: When the open organ mountain fire burnt the first houses.

32:21.422 --> 32:24.603
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, I was flying around about 20 minutes before the first house burnt.

32:24.663 --> 32:31.306
[SPEAKER_03]: And I saw these perfect little concentric circles starting to burn out in all the landscaping chips and all of the pine needles around.

32:31.326 --> 32:32.366
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, for the embers dropping.

32:32.426 --> 32:32.606
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

32:32.986 --> 32:56.550
[SPEAKER_01]: we're dropping or fire brands as we call them and and then the first place went and then yeah that was a you know people talk about that like it was yesterday still around here right and it's it's it's pretty fascinating because it's like you know with that data transfer so that information you know you're the you're the planning section chief you know you're you're working on that um that incident

32:58.098 --> 33:19.117
[SPEAKER_01]: what's your experience been on like on being able to like transfer information from the readiness side and you know the training side into the response side and then being able to make sure that the recovery individuals have that data available to be like is there a continuity between those relationships or that's a whole another episode for sure is that okay

33:21.952 --> 33:42.234
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe what I can do is I can share with you a couple of contrasting examples that I've had and and just I'll frame it by saying I've been last well since I guess I first go into the consulting gig back in 2018 I've been reasonably involved in disaster recovery planning initial recovery planning for some of the larger events.

33:43.155 --> 33:49.239
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, and I just did a couple of gigs in Alberta and Saskatchewan here the last three weeks for communities that got burnt over right.

33:49.260 --> 33:52.942
[SPEAKER_03]: So I got a pretty good idea how things should work and how they really do work.

33:53.863 --> 33:53.983
[SPEAKER_03]: And

33:56.158 --> 34:07.287
[SPEAKER_03]: Both the communities are not both, but some of the communities are a lot of the communities that I go to disaster recovery planning is usually a two or three or four weeks out before somebody actually starts doing something.

34:07.828 --> 34:20.738
[SPEAKER_03]: And so you got two or three or four weeks for people who are already heavily traumatized and other whole lives have been disrupted, they've lost everything they own for that just to keep manifesting, right?

34:20.758 --> 34:20.858
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

34:22.039 --> 34:30.523
[SPEAKER_03]: And what I've discovered in, and I predicted this to the T here with one of my team members when we're deploying recently to one of these events.

34:30.683 --> 34:38.327
[SPEAKER_03]: I said there's going to be a lot of angry people there because they've had three and a half weeks to let the stuff start to fester, right?

34:38.627 --> 34:43.729
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was right, because only because I've been the guy in the stage that has been yelled at and sworn at so many times.

34:45.610 --> 34:50.655
[SPEAKER_03]: But by saying contrast, and I'll use City of Merritt 2021.

34:50.715 --> 34:52.337
[SPEAKER_03]: We had the fleet full.

34:54.159 --> 34:56.001
[SPEAKER_03]: I used to call them the Pineapple Express, right?

34:56.021 --> 34:57.722
[SPEAKER_03]: We had the big, big rain event there, right?

34:57.863 --> 35:01.606
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, came down and over 500 properties impacted and stuff.

35:02.047 --> 35:08.713
[SPEAKER_03]: The Chief Administrative Officer called me up within 48 hours of that happening and said, we want to get the recovery planning going.

35:09.734 --> 35:11.035
[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought awesome.

35:11.415 --> 35:12.175
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not available.

35:12.255 --> 35:16.416
[SPEAKER_03]: I was previously committed for three days, but I went in that weekend.

35:16.476 --> 35:22.478
[SPEAKER_03]: And then within a week I was facilitating the process and we had their initial recovery plan for them, right?

35:23.438 --> 35:31.261
[SPEAKER_03]: And the metric of success that I always use for that is the number of public complaints in the public media.

35:31.521 --> 35:31.701
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

35:32.281 --> 35:36.123
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, you know, so same thing with 2023 here, the West Cologne of Fires.

35:36.343 --> 35:37.163
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

35:37.723 --> 35:39.224
[SPEAKER_03]: The house is burnt up on a Thursday night.

35:39.424 --> 35:43.385
[SPEAKER_03]: I was here Friday afternoon Monday at noon.

35:43.405 --> 35:44.986
[SPEAKER_03]: They had their initial recovery plan.

35:45.346 --> 35:47.467
[SPEAKER_03]: They had to be management planning and teams in place.

35:47.947 --> 35:50.008
[SPEAKER_03]: They had the ranchary planning teams in place.

35:50.668 --> 35:53.169
[SPEAKER_03]: And we had two recovery managers on contract, right?

35:53.249 --> 35:53.509
[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome.

35:53.709 --> 35:53.910
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

35:53.990 --> 35:55.590
[SPEAKER_03]: That to me is a textbook approach.

35:56.010 --> 35:59.332
[SPEAKER_03]: And the takeaway for anybody listening is Start your recovery planning right away.

35:59.352 --> 35:59.452
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

36:00.272 --> 36:15.122
[SPEAKER_03]: I also made a point of paying attention to all the media and there's some local sources here that are pretty active and currently updated and I didn't hear a lot of bad stuff and I watched the provincial and the federal and national media and I didn't hear a lot of bad stuff from people.

36:15.142 --> 36:20.505
[SPEAKER_03]: There wasn't a lot of really angry people who were mad at the local governments or the provincial government, right?

36:20.926 --> 36:22.407
[SPEAKER_03]: They were upset, yeah.

36:23.247 --> 36:49.989
[SPEAKER_01]: but not mad right and to me that's a huge win because when people get mad that brings on a whole world and workload and and I think that's you know going back to some of these these these tools and these technologies that were utilizing it's assisting law enforcement who are just simply trying to lock down a you know or conduct the access control you know for evacuated zones like as we are transitioning to the recovery phase right and you got all these

36:53.090 --> 37:04.536
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, for them to be able to have the continuity to be able to share what happened when and where or be able to play that back even prior to going into our recovery, um, you know, safety is everything, right?

37:04.856 --> 37:19.464
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where, you know, I think the old, the old cowboy ways and the old days of doing things versus like where they are today with current liabilities and, and, well, and I mean, we just got a lot of advanced features on the average home to, you know, like lithium batteries, all sorts of stuff, right?

37:22.477 --> 37:25.499
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds to me like, you know, the function is still working very well.

37:26.000 --> 37:29.983
[SPEAKER_01]: The function of recovery, planning, and all the other stuff, it's all set there.

37:30.223 --> 37:45.374
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing is, it's just the tools to enhance their capability of flow efficiently, is really kind of where we go back to the technologies in this system, utilizing artificial intelligence, where it's necessary, utilizing these sensors, you know, to be able to bring that data in real time.

37:45.835 --> 37:49.938
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, to the hands of people who are going into a recovery role, you know, I think could help.

37:51.159 --> 38:03.666
[SPEAKER_03]: Streamline that would you know so here's the real current state of affairs for the most part right recovery planning starts later than it should It takes longer than it should and it costs a whole lot more than it should.

38:03.686 --> 38:05.668
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, okay now

38:06.752 --> 38:31.073
[SPEAKER_03]: what I know about recovery planning and what I know about some of the enabling technologies is if an event happened on a Thursday night and I was engaged I could start a lot of the recovery planning right up front and I could probably deliver 80 or 90 percent of that initial recovery plan before even talking to anybody to get clarity and context and input right I just know that because I've kind of dabbled a bit some of that myself.

38:31.874 --> 38:44.564
[SPEAKER_03]: So when we start talking about things like disaster fields ability to integrate data from disparate sources, like weather networks, whatever, whatever that's what it's called.

38:45.165 --> 38:47.006
[SPEAKER_03]: Having that kind of information right up front,

38:47.807 --> 38:56.029
[SPEAKER_03]: a for situational awareness, but to start becoming useful and productive around recovery planning, that's cool because we don't really have that right now.

38:56.069 --> 38:57.950
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't have full scope and scale.

38:57.990 --> 39:06.832
[SPEAKER_03]: Like these last two that I did, we still didn't have a complete inventory after a month of how many people had insurance and how many didn't have insurance.

39:06.852 --> 39:07.613
[SPEAKER_01]: I understood, yep.

39:07.813 --> 39:09.753
[SPEAKER_03]: That's sort of think simple stuff, right?

39:09.953 --> 39:12.974
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to ask is your, you know, obviously, you came from, you know,

39:17.012 --> 39:30.942
[SPEAKER_01]: and all the other stuff when you're just probably, you know, what behind the years still, but if you're like today, if you were to tell, you know, a 20 year old kid that's getting into the space supported by, you know, with family members and that sort of stuff.

39:31.462 --> 39:32.843
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, the changing environments.

39:33.744 --> 39:38.988
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were to tell, you know, a 20 year old kid getting into the space and say, here, here's a path of purpose.

39:39.668 --> 39:41.209
[SPEAKER_01]: What would that be?

39:41.429 --> 39:43.391
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what would that look like to you in that conversation?

39:43.749 --> 39:47.252
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I actually have that conversation every so often.

39:47.473 --> 39:52.157
[SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of friends are coming to me and they've got a son or a daughter who are thinking about going to university and they want to get into it.

39:52.177 --> 39:53.479
[SPEAKER_03]: So what do they need to do to get in, right?

39:53.499 --> 40:03.628
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's some simple stuff, you know, get a good first aid ticket and those simple kinds of things, you know, I also tell them that it's a growth industry.

40:04.711 --> 40:14.655
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, we tend to look at things in the context of a wildfire event or a flood event or a landslide event or an extreme weather event or something like that.

40:15.416 --> 40:17.777
[SPEAKER_03]: But this whole climate change thing is going on.

40:19.277 --> 40:20.238
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really significant.

40:21.569 --> 40:27.255
[SPEAKER_03]: depending on whether you believe some of the data and science that's out there, it's coming out as faster than originally thought.

40:27.896 --> 40:36.245
[SPEAKER_03]: And boy, we sure see it like, I remember years ago talking to a wildfire behavior specialist friend of mine and I said to him,

40:37.978 --> 40:46.921
[SPEAKER_03]: I always figured that we're about 10 years behind California when I was watching the types of weather or fire behavior that they were getting down there and the catastrophic offense and stuff like that.

40:47.401 --> 40:52.203
[SPEAKER_03]: And he said then some of the science that he'd been looking at said in fact, we were about 11 years behind.

40:52.603 --> 40:53.944
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was pretty accurate, right?

40:54.404 --> 40:56.845
[SPEAKER_03]: So when I look at what's going on in California, like January?

40:56.865 --> 40:57.185
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

40:57.685 --> 41:01.987
[SPEAKER_03]: The firefighters never used to deal with large grasslands or bushfires back in January.

41:02.327 --> 41:04.268
[SPEAKER_03]: They'd have the San Ana winds in the late fall.

41:04.609 --> 41:04.809
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

41:04.949 --> 41:08.110
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's usually was their big season, but things would wrap up for a few months, right?

41:08.751 --> 41:11.252
[SPEAKER_03]: And then they'd have a bit of a wet season not much, but a little bit of one.

41:11.672 --> 41:12.913
[SPEAKER_03]: But now it's a year-round thing.

41:12.933 --> 41:13.893
[SPEAKER_03]: And we saw L.A.

41:13.933 --> 41:14.474
[SPEAKER_03]: in January.

41:14.834 --> 41:15.014
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

41:15.054 --> 41:18.316
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's a that's a global casthouse or catastrophe, right?

41:18.376 --> 41:25.840
[SPEAKER_03]: So to go back to your question, what I would tell the kids is, if you want to do anything to

41:26.880 --> 41:32.303
[SPEAKER_03]: save the planet if that's your mission or help other people or just feel like you're really contributing.

41:33.424 --> 41:37.826
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the sector to come into this disaster management in any form.

41:38.106 --> 41:47.372
[SPEAKER_03]: Fight fires during a fire department, you know, law enforcement, even the military with their domestic operations, there's just so many ways you can come in and you can contribute to kind of to the greater good.

41:47.532 --> 41:55.937
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you know, and adding to that is one thing that I tell a lot of the young guys that are getting out of high school and getting to college or university

41:57.037 --> 42:15.610
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the right space for you only because if you come from a gaming a lot of them come from a gaming background A lot of them is like, you know, we're moving into a world where digital twinning and gamification is the next evolutionary kind of step In emergency management right where obviously Vexels bring in that to the table.

42:16.111 --> 42:22.235
[SPEAKER_01]: You know in a massive way to be able to get these these it like young individuals, you know, truly

42:22.635 --> 42:29.358
[SPEAKER_01]: truly engage and inspired by being able to protect their own community, protect their own country, their provinces, their states.

42:30.759 --> 42:42.245
[SPEAKER_01]: We can see that in the indigenous space, right, is being able to give these kids a purpose to be able to do that knowledge transfer with their elders and understand how their lands flow and how everything works, but be able to do that in a digital

42:43.265 --> 42:46.329
[SPEAKER_01]: way where they can pass that knowledge down over and over again.

42:46.349 --> 42:47.350
[SPEAKER_01]: That's cool.

42:47.931 --> 42:53.136
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in the simulated environment, the data that's collected in real time to be able to use that.

42:53.677 --> 42:59.624
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell a lot of these young guys that like there's a place for you, you know, either you want to be in a computer programming.

43:00.004 --> 43:20.441
[SPEAKER_01]: you want to be in, you know, working in the artificial intelligence side, you want to fly drones, you know, you know, all the stuff, you know, it is becoming more of an engineering position when you start getting large drones that are coming in and they're looking at doing hotspot management and that sort of stuff like this is going from the horse and plow to the tractor sort of thing.

43:20.481 --> 43:25.145
[SPEAKER_01]: And now to the tractor to the farmer sits in his, you know, in his barn behind a computer,

43:25.545 --> 43:27.427
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, as tractor does loops in the field, right?

43:27.447 --> 43:36.094
[SPEAKER_01]: So the world's changing and I just tell I tell a lot of these young individuals change with it, you know, change lean into your strengths and change with it.

43:36.175 --> 43:41.800
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't don't necessarily have to jump back to what your grandfather did 30 or 45 years ago.

43:41.820 --> 43:43.281
[SPEAKER_03]: For somebody to hand it to you, right?

43:43.341 --> 43:43.721
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

43:43.741 --> 43:44.422
[SPEAKER_03]: Go find it.

43:44.462 --> 43:47.785
[SPEAKER_03]: Go find passion and leverage your passion out into some of it for sure.

43:48.220 --> 43:52.684
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it's, it's a really interesting time to be in this space in a management.

43:53.044 --> 43:53.925
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's exciting.

43:54.165 --> 43:57.788
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the technologies, you know, the innovation is just incredible.

43:57.848 --> 43:58.909
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I mean, at every level.

43:59.109 --> 43:59.269
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man.

43:59.709 --> 44:01.351
[SPEAKER_01]: It never, it never gets dull.

44:01.791 --> 44:07.135
[SPEAKER_01]: Read the news, you know, the new articles for the new device and the new sensors, the new things that are coming out.

44:07.496 --> 44:16.403
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think a good, healthy harness to approach to how we deliver those technologies to the front lines, to be able to build a sustainable and repeatable system.

44:17.304 --> 44:24.296
[SPEAKER_01]: that can be dependent on and we can train on it and we can utilize it to its full advantage is really going to be paramount, you know, to the success of this.

44:24.816 --> 44:26.078
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and research it.

44:27.961 --> 44:30.964
[SPEAKER_03]: The bottom line here is really about a system.

44:31.004 --> 44:36.770
[SPEAKER_03]: You're describing a system that integrates data from disparate sources, from different sources, right?

44:38.172 --> 44:39.794
[SPEAKER_03]: And we kind of have a bunch of those.

44:39.834 --> 44:46.641
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they're all plugging through APIs and all this sort of stuff, but there isn't the complete packets.

44:46.681 --> 44:50.124
[SPEAKER_03]: There isn't that one glue system that holds it all together yet.

44:50.184 --> 44:50.365
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

44:50.765 --> 44:52.446
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we look for a no-go name cool.

44:52.486 --> 44:53.327
[SPEAKER_03]: That's got a solution.

44:54.367 --> 44:55.108
[SPEAKER_01]: We're working on it.

44:55.148 --> 44:55.828
[SPEAKER_01]: We're working on it.

44:55.888 --> 45:09.796
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean aircraft is going up in the sensors are scanning and you know the technologies pretty incredible, you know, with everything that we're choosing to install into our operating system.

45:10.456 --> 45:19.742
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it really is going to be a really fun path, I believe, into seeing how that true global multi-user coordination system can help break down these walls and these barriers.

45:20.482 --> 45:26.865
[SPEAKER_01]: And just truly allow people to just have a lot a lot more peace of mind, a lot more, you know.

45:27.325 --> 45:34.687
[SPEAKER_03]: I just want to put a little kind of a fear of the technology got into a couple of folks who were in business right now and think they've got the solution.

45:35.428 --> 45:39.609
[SPEAKER_03]: I just want to remind them about Kodak and how Kodak invented the digital camera.

45:39.889 --> 45:40.069
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

45:40.570 --> 45:41.630
[SPEAKER_03]: And look where they are today.

45:41.810 --> 45:42.710
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Kodak.

45:42.730 --> 45:45.051
[SPEAKER_03]: Because they did not embrace the change of the future.

45:45.071 --> 45:45.131
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.

45:47.861 --> 46:01.330
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's this thing you got to evolve with the times and you got to evolve with the, you know, who we have to be able to to operate in those times, right, you don't apply some strategic foresight and see what's coming at you three, five, ten years old right and and be ready for that.

46:09.475 --> 46:10.996
[SPEAKER_01]: you know you down the U.S.

46:11.036 --> 46:11.576
[SPEAKER_01]: they're no better.

46:11.616 --> 46:13.517
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean they're they're you're started January.

46:13.577 --> 46:15.998
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's going to end at the end of December.

46:16.018 --> 46:18.559
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's going to be it's going to be a long year for everybody.

46:18.880 --> 46:19.480
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, um,

46:20.390 --> 46:25.291
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we look forward to the continued conversations that we're having with all the subject matter experts in the technology space.

46:25.631 --> 46:28.391
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm excited about this actually continuing to learn.

46:29.072 --> 46:32.772
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the amazing people that we have at the table right now all the way across the board.

46:32.792 --> 46:35.513
[SPEAKER_01]: We either their SMEs or their developers or whatever.

46:35.613 --> 46:38.833
[SPEAKER_01]: They just all bring such a wealth of interesting cats for sure.

46:39.013 --> 46:42.674
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's they all have their own version of their hundred pound brain, right?

46:42.774 --> 46:44.254
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

46:44.394 --> 46:45.754
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be an incredible thing to see.

46:45.774 --> 46:48.355
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know how this thing evolves this year into the next year.

46:49.256 --> 46:54.303
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, how all these different companies are going to evolve themselves, you know, with their own specific technology offerings.

46:55.064 --> 47:03.517
[SPEAKER_01]: And we really just look forward to getting them all on the table and see which ones shake out and which ones, you know, obviously are carried on for the longer term, right?

47:03.900 --> 47:11.922
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, myself personally, I'm excited about this because I just love learning new stuff and every time I talk to somebody I learn something new every day, right?

47:12.162 --> 47:12.362
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

47:12.682 --> 47:23.345
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, and I can just see the potential for the types of people that will be coming on to this podcast and what they can bring to the conversation for greedy me who wants to learn new stuff.

47:23.785 --> 47:26.365
[SPEAKER_03]: But also for the greater good of everybody, right?

47:26.425 --> 47:29.926
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're going to learn new stuff and you're going to take that back to your development teams.

47:34.647 --> 47:36.468
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm just not seeing a downside to this at all.

47:36.808 --> 47:43.551
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, you know, we got some interesting shows coming up here in the next little while.

47:44.432 --> 47:52.395
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, the next one here will be, you know, we'll be interviewing some really unique individuals from the indigenous space.

47:52.975 --> 47:56.717
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in the emergency management sector of indigenous communities.

47:57.557 --> 48:01.979
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we're going to see, you know, a pretty healthy conversation there.

48:03.824 --> 48:09.600
[SPEAKER_01]: pretty well to see the depths of that side of the fence, you know, and how we're trying to build collaboration between.

48:10.353 --> 48:19.275
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, all the different entities, you know, whether they're private and public sectors or businesses to the stakeholders, to the government agencies and the Indigenous communities, right?

48:19.295 --> 48:24.236
[SPEAKER_01]: Like when we talk about silos, we got some big walls around some of these things that have some hope and help.

48:25.276 --> 48:31.757
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's a little bit of a red flag here that I just want to kind of mention right up front.

48:32.657 --> 48:34.858
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is some people

48:36.017 --> 48:38.818
[SPEAKER_03]: They'll have a bit of a narrow focus of myopic focus.

48:38.838 --> 48:41.160
[SPEAKER_03]: And they'll think, technology is going to solve the problems.

48:41.180 --> 48:42.440
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go all in on AI, right?

48:42.981 --> 48:54.206
[SPEAKER_03]: At the end of the day, what really works while in this emergency management world and what is going to have to continue to work well is that human element that is based on experience and trust-based relationships with others.

48:54.366 --> 48:56.988
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think the one key word is decentralized.

48:57.288 --> 48:59.789
[SPEAKER_01]: So we need to operate in decentralized fashion.

49:00.309 --> 49:02.550
[SPEAKER_01]: The more we try to control from a single point

49:05.692 --> 49:10.316
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, it's never worked out in history and it's a cool community.

49:11.276 --> 49:22.344
[SPEAKER_01]: And so a decentralized approach to just enabling everybody to operate effectively is going to be paramount to make sure that we actually make improvements.

49:22.545 --> 49:25.507
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just barely survive every year, not barely hold on.

49:25.967 --> 49:29.330
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, with a couple big black eyes, like this is about improvement.

49:29.390 --> 49:30.991
[SPEAKER_01]: This is about learning from our past.

49:31.657 --> 49:36.779
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, collaborating more effectively with everybody who's involved and everybody who's affected by disasters.

49:36.959 --> 49:38.920
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, we talk a lot about wildfires.

49:39.420 --> 49:48.244
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about, you know, South America, Europe, Australia, the West, you know, you got earthquakes, you got, uh, well, our zones, conflict zones, all these other things.

49:48.284 --> 49:55.227
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, this is just about talking about technologies in its true form and what their use case is.

49:55.967 --> 49:58.169
[SPEAKER_03]: And to your point, they're augmenting.

49:58.369 --> 49:59.169
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.

49:59.189 --> 49:59.890
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.

49:59.930 --> 50:01.491
[SPEAKER_01]: They're integrating into no real system.

50:01.531 --> 50:12.237
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're, um, I look forward to, you know, continue this, this conversation and, you know, from there, we'll, uh, we will my friend, we will hopefully keep change in the minds of the old school.

50:12.557 --> 50:13.918
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, here we go.

50:13.998 --> 50:18.721
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I'm going to continue to do that even though I'm sort of one of the old school guys here are here.

50:18.741 --> 50:19.502
[SPEAKER_01]: Both sides of it.