White House Innovation Brainstorm for Disaster Response and Recovery

a FEMA Think Tank event August 27, 2013

The Vision
The Innovation Brainstorm for Disaster Response and Recovery was convened in partnership between the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to connect and mobilize resources from diverse backgrounds. Participants pushed the traditional bounds of emergency management and included Broadway producers, micro-financers, grass roots community organizers, engineers, scientists, government employees from all levels and first responders, amongst others. This diversity set the stage for seeking innovations through multiple lenses and experiences with the purpose of fostering actionable dialogue in a collaborative environment. The goals of the event were to lay the foundation and establish commitments from participants to integrate before, during and after a disaster.

Coordination & Connections with the Health and Energy Sectors

Richard Serino, Deputy Administrator of FEMA and Todd Park, Assistant to the President and U.S. Chief Technology Officer, welcomed the participants and shared that the day was intended to generate ideas from those closest to the disaster. The focus throughout the event would be to look at innovation and need from the eyes of the survivor.

Dr. Nicole Lurie , Assistant Secretary, HHS and Patricia Hoffman, Assistant Secretary , DOE shared the perspectives from the Health and Energy Sectors. Their remarks both spoke to the need for help from the broader community to connect people with needs with those in the community who can help. Survivors with need for electricity to support medical devices were identified as a urgent need and challenged the participants to find creative solutions to provide lifelines and technologies that can bridge the gap in current capabilities.

FEMA Innovation Team Accomplishments

Serino and FEMA Chief Innovation Officer, Desi Matel-Anderson shared the journey of the FEMA Innovation Team over the past year and the great advances that had been made building partnerships with federal colleagues, communities, industry and innovators from all sectors during the Hurricane Sandy and Oklahoma Tornado events and as a result of Think Tank conversations and field trial experimentation.

FEMA Innovation Team Accomplishments, continued.

Brainstorming Ideas standing in the shoes of the Survivor

Serino then shared that all great ideas start on the back of a napkin, and asked everyone to take a few moments, write their idea on a napkin and then share it with the group at their tableand to then develop two or three Big Ideas for each table that represent where the group wants to focus to make an impact. These ideas were presented to the larger group and then everyone voted on the ideas to indicate which concepts they applaud and would like to see further developed.

Brainstorming Innovations for Disaster Response & Recovery

Graphic recorder Stephanie Brown from the Federal Performance Improvement Council, captured all the ideas shared by the group in a mural that will serve as a collective memory of the ideas generated by the group in the spirit of designing for innovation.

Top 10 Ideas

After voting on all the ideas ten were selected for prototyping. Participants joined together around the topics they had the most interest and could potentially commit to continue working on following the Think Tank Innovation Jam event.

Rapid Prototyping
The groups further developed the ideas where some broke out in song, others wrote code, and others used scraps of paper, glue and other materials to build visual prototypes of the ideas. The groups then pitched the ideas to everyone, which included a physical demonstration of the human powered Power-Go-Round and a prototype of a real-time communication platform.

Rapid Prototyping

Graphic recording of the ten prototypes pitched by the group. By show of hands the participants indicated their enthusiasm for each of the ideas and a champion stepped forward to sign the mural to show their commitment to lead the project forward.

Success!
The event served to foster a Whole Community approach that will enable faster, more efficient engagement of transformative response and recovery solutions. Overall this approach to emergency management enhances FEMAs ability to learn, innovate and improve AND it was a lot of FUN for everyone!