Is IPAWS an International Program

Is IPAWS an international program? Well, Grandpa Ham thinks so. Grandpa Ham is Gary Ham, although he seems to like to call himself Grandpa. (I guess I'll feel the same when my kids start re-producing. Hint. Hint.). Gary has been a vocal voice for Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), the open standard for notifications to be used for, among other things, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). IPAWS is a federal program in the United States. Gary, though, thinks the program can be used internationally, as he told a multi-national conference in Canada recently.

In his presentation to the World Conference on Disaster Management in Toronto, Gary said that testing and planning has been done with IPAWS concepts involving both Canadian and U.S. organizations. Makes sense. Because of the nature of the program, there's no need for IPAWS to be a U.S. only program.

Grandpa Ham says the key is there's an "open playing field" for developers of commercial software who have alerting authority customers to build applications to fit into the IPAWS framework. He said IPAWS provides authentication and other facets, but doesn't try to control the user interface. He said as long as standards are met, any type of software might be connected to IPAWS.

You can download Gary's presentation to the conference at his web site at http://grandpaham.com/



All the best,

Rick