Self-organizing technology for disaster response and recovery

Abstract

People facing emergencies, such as disasters, may not receive external assistance in a timely manner, instead having to rely on themselves for critical or extended periods. A system including emergency response containers providing both for organizational structure, including a method of assigning roles to available individuals, and task domain knowledge for organizational elements, namely the people facing and experiencing the emergency, allows for organic emergency response and eases transition to and effectiveness of external professional emergency response providers. In some embodiments the system is modular and adjustable for different situations.

1 .- 16 . (canceled) 
     
     
         17 . A system for use in responding to emergencies, comprising:
 a plurality of packages of information, each package of information including information defining a different role in a hierarchical organization, each role relating to tasks to be performed by an individual in responding to an emergency, at least some of the tasks including a task of recruitment of others to perform subsidiary roles in the hierarchical organization by way of distributing packages of information to others so as to form the hierarchical organization, the plurality of packages of information including an incident commander package of information, the incident commander package including a plurality of tokens allowing for access to the information of the packages of information;   a server configured to transmit the plurality of packages of information to at least one electronic communication device.   
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 17 , wherein the at least one electronic communications device comprises an electronic communications device of an incident commander. 
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 18 , further comprising the electronics communications device of the incident commander, and wherein the incident commander package includes program instructions to configure the electronics communications device of the incident commander to provide for transfer of the packages of information to other electronic communication devices, along with tokens allowing for access to the information of the packages of information. 
     
     
         20 . The system of  19 , wherein the tokens include program instructions for configuring the electronic communications devices to transmit information of a role defined by information of a one of the packages received by the electronic communication devices, and information relating to users of the electronic communication devices; and
 wherein the server is further configured to receive the information transmitted by the electronic communication devices and to generate information of an organizational chart of the hierarchical organization, includes roles filled in the hierarchical organization and information relating to the users, and   wherein the server is further configured to transmit the information of the organizational chart to the electronic communication devices.   
     
     
         21 . The system of  19 , wherein the tokens include program instructions for configuring the electronic communications devices to transmit information of a role defined by information of a one of the packages received by the electronic communication devices, and information relating to users of the electronic communication devices; and
 wherein the server is further configured to receive the information transmitted by the electronic communication devices and to generate information of an organizational chart of the hierarchical organization, includes roles filled in the hierarchical organization and information relating to the users, and   wherein the server is further configured to distribute the information of the organizational chart.