New Light Technologies (NLT) is beginning beta testing on it’s newest project: Project: Ptolemy. It provides an open-source and customizable disaster management platform that delivers real-time data regarding worldwide disasters for responders, planners, and victims.
The platform hosts a variety of features including automated data collection, customizable data assessments, detailed data reporting which includes international data, visualization, and the ability to share socially with your community and stakeholders in realtime. Project: Ptolemy seeks to empower those who work in disaster management by providing detailed planning tools, community engagement, and disaster modeling across various industries including national agencies, local government, nonprofits, and community members.
“As our climate continues to change, disasters are becoming more and more frequent,” explains Brad Bottoms, NLT’s Project Lead Geospatial Analyst, and Project Lead of Project: Ptolemy. “In the past 30 years, over 4 trillion dollars in economic damage has been done and millions of lives have been lost. That total number is staggering, but even more concerning is the average global loss has quadrupled since the 1980s. When this number is calculated again in 10 years, the number will be drastically larger if actions aren’t taken.”
Project: Ptolemy tries to fill a needed role by providing the estimated effects of damages as soon as a disaster happens, in addition to letting users plan for an event with sample scenarios. It provides citizens with a way to monitor a disaster on their own, receiving disaster alerts and damage estimates on their own homes and neighborhoods. Project: Ptolemy does not seek to tell people how to respond to an event or to tell them a certain outcome is sure to be, but instead provides vital information at critical times of an event allowing decision-makers and homeowners to make more informed decisions.