How can I do this?

If you have read over this website and find the concept compelling, you may now be wondering how you can replicate something like this in your own community.

You are a technical volunteer

If you volunteer to support community safety communications (e.g. ARES, RACES, CERT), and you want to be the means of increasing the base of expertise within your service group, the best fit for you is most likely to get involved with the technical volunteers behind SCEWN at the special interest group SVWUX. There, you will find a technically creative crowd interested in vetting new ideas or promoting obscure ones. Join the SVWUX mailing list and/or attend monthly meetings to make new friends and collaborators and build on each others' interest and talent.

You are a non-technical volunteer

If you are non-technical but involved as a volunteer for public safety (CERT, Red Cross, etc.), you can help by bringing this website to the attention of group leaders or technical specialists. Not everybody knows about this yet.

You have technical interest

If you are not a volunteer but have a technical interest in what SCEWN is doing, SVWUX is just as applicable to you (see above). SVWUX is aimed at experimenters of all kinds, not just volunteers. But volunteering is contagious, so you will find most participants are involved in community service in some form and you may find yourself doing so yourself before you know it.

If you are a non-technical member of the community

If you are interested in promoting this concept, but are not involved in a community service organization, you are unlikely to have any impact on your community. Consider becoming more civically involved so you can shape your community for the better. A good place to start making the right connections is to volunteer for your city CERT program and then to go from there.

If you are a professional

If you are professionally involved in emergency or disaster response either as a responder, emergency manager, or information technologist, and would like to explore how to connect your organization to SCEWN, we would like to hear from you. Point of contact: Andrew at 650 605 3311.

SCEWN is currently focused on serving the San Francisco Bay region. We started in Santa Clara County, but are already in the process of expanding beyond that (our name will probably change.)

If you are from another region but would like to collaborate in some form, we strive to support the broader community to the extent resources allow. You may also want to look at other collaboration taking place through the Carnegie Mellon University Disaster Management Initiative, of which SCEWN is an affiliate.