On October 2-3, 2024, New Light Technologies (NLT) participated for the fourth time in the Innovation Summit for Preparedness & Resilience (InSPIRE), organized by the NAPSG Foundation. Held at Indiana University in Indianapolis, the event brought together leaders in geospatial technology, public safety, and emergency management to explore cutting-edge geospatial solutions for disaster management. NLT proudly served as a Platinum sponsor, underscoring our commitment to enhancing the safety, resilience, and well-being of communities. NLT has long been dedicated to fostering partnerships between public and private sectors and academia in the field of disaster management, advancing public safety technologies that make communities more resilient.
InSPIRE: Innovation in Preparedness and Resilience
InSPIRE 2024 showcased leading-edge geospatial solutions at the forefront of public safety and disaster management. The summit spotlighted emerging technologies focused on addressing real-world challenges faced by public agencies nationwide. Topics ranged from innovations in public safety operations, data management, and geospatial applications to leadership, communication, and equity in emergency management.
A key theme across several presentations was the need for a unified operational picture to enhance situational awareness and decision-making during emergencies. Tools like the Team Awareness Kit (TAK) enable such unification across agencies, offering capabilities like indoor tracking, drone integration, and AI applications to bolster public safety. When responsibly and efficiently adopted, technologies such as AI, remote sensing, robotics, and location-based services can significantly improve public safety, enabling disaster managers to enhance preparedness and response.
Data-Driven Disaster Management
At the core of effective emergency management tools is data, and sound data management is essential. Dewberry’s Catherine Bohn and Victoria Celiberti emphasized that any disaster management application must address the full data lifecycle—from collection and validation to responsible sharing and integration of tools into operations.
GIS technologies enable data-driven disaster management and operations. Several presentations highlighted best practices for using out-of-the-box or custom geoprocessing tools to streamline disaster preparation, response, and recovery efforts. Tools like Esri’s ModelBuilder, as demonstrated by NAPSG’s Adam Fackler, allow users to design and execute complex geospatial processes without the need for advanced programming skills.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Disaster Management
A significant focus of the summit was on promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in disaster management. Four of the nation’s leading female public safety and GIS professionals shared insights on the importance of women’s inclusion in disaster management, offering inspiration and guidance on leadership and career development for women in the field. Additional sessions demonstrated how geospatial technologies are being leveraged to promote equitable practices in emergency management, aligning with federal initiatives like the Justice40 Initiative. These presentations highlighted successes and emerging trends in equitable approaches that ensure vulnerable communities receive better support during emergencies through the use of GIS tools.
Innovation Driving the Future of Emergency Response
Lessons learned and new collaborations formed through the InSPIRE conference will help drive NLT’s continued innovation in disaster management applications. As a provider for emergency response organizations at the federal, state, and local level, we are uniquely positioned to deploy these innovations to communities nationwide. Through this, NLT will remain committed to delivering solutions that empower decision-makers, streamline response efforts, and strengthen community resilience in the face of disasters.
About NLT
New Light Technologies, Inc. (NLT) is a leading provider of integrated information technology, technical, scientific, consulting, and research services based in Washington, DC. NLT provides a broad range of integrated cloud, agile software development, cybersecurity, data science, geospatial, and workforce services and ready-to-use solutions for customers and offers distinctive capabilities in developing secure cloud-native AI/ML data analytics and decision support tools. The firm also provides unique expertise in designing, implementing, and managing enterprise solutions that enable the collection, integration, modeling and analysis, privacy protection, quality control, visualization, and public release of large-scale datasets and web-based data dissemination platforms. Contact us for more information and set up a conversation with our team members about this and other related work we do in climate-related projects at the local, national, and global levels.
