On Sep 9 2016 the TRADR coordinator I. Kruijff-Korbayova gave an invited talk about robot-assisted disaster response in Helsinki at the Delegates Assembly & Symposium of CTIF, the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services. CTIF was founded in 1999 as an international professional firebrigade competency network for encouraging and promoting co-operation among fire fighters and other experts in fire and rescue. It has members from 36 countries around the world. Its work is organized by commissions which set up working groups on specific themes.
I. Kruijff-Korbayova is a member of the CTIF commission on Extrication and New Technology, which she has been invited to join after her invited talk at the International Conference of CTIF on December 9 2015 at the Italian Firebrigade Academy (Istituto Superiore Anticendi, ISA) in Rome (see an earlier post). The commission for Extrication and New Technology was established in 2013 to work on standards in order to be able to harmonise information and training for the rescue services.
The presentation was part of the CTIF Symposium on”Responding to the Unexpected” and featured the results of the NIFTi and TRADR projects, including the recent success of the TRADR deployment in Amatrice, Italy, destroyed by a devastating earthquake on August 24 2016. The presentation was met with great resonance from the representatives of fire and rescue services, and many expressed interest to further explore the use of robots to support disaster response. TRADR will continue to strengthen the collaboration with these organizations.
