Swedish Tour of iVAC Centers in the U.S.
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Send to friendU.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
During the week of November 15, 2010, a contingent of Swedish government representatives and researchers toured the iVAC Centers in the United States. The Swedish contingent represented the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), Lindholmen Science Park, the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), and Linköping University. The inspiration for this visit arose from meetings throughout 2010 with DHS’ Visualization and Analytics program and the MSB. DHS and MSB are working toward more formal collaborations to advance the safety and well-being of citizens and infrastructures within each country.
The objective of these visits was to provide the Swedish representatives with more thorough knowledge of the ongoing research within the National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC), the Precision Information Environments (PIE) program, and the VACCINE and CCICADA Centers of Excellence. The group had a busy week traveling from Washington State to New Jersey to Washington, DC, to introduce themselves and be introduced to the researchers and activities of each Center.
Following the briefings and demonstrations provided by NVAC, PIE, CCICADA and VACCINE, the contingent met with officials from DHS in Washington, DC to discuss next steps. All parties agreed to establish a signed Technical Annex under the current MSB-DHS agreement to support joint work in the areas of visualization and analytics; anomaly detection and data fusion, including work with mobile applications, cognitive sciences, mixed presence interfaces and social networking. To further collaboration around these areas of interest, Sweden will host a joint US-SE Workshop in Spring 2011 that will focus on efforts addressing challenges from flooding and pandemics. The intended outcome of this workshop will further define research collaborations addressing flooding and/or pandemics in the United States and Sweden, using visualization and analytics tools and techniques.