The National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction on Thursday last week renewed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the US Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The memorandum was signed by center director Hongey Chen (陳宏宇) and PDC executive director Ray Shirkhodai.
The Honolulu-based agency, operated by the University of Hawaii, has assisted other nations in enhancing early warning and emergency response capabilities by using disaster risk science, geospatial information systems and decision-support tools, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) said in a statement yesterday.
Photo courtesy of the National Science and Technology Council
“The PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform has become a critical support system for international humanitarian assistance and response decisionmaking,” the council said, adding that it can provide real-time and artificial intelligence-enhanced disaster information and smart alerts.
It was the fourth MOU signed by the two agencies since they established a formal partnership in 2008, the council added.
The MOU would focus on deepening the partnership between the two agencies in early warning for compound disasters, risk and vulnerability assessment, technology and decisionmaking support, and capacity building for disaster prevention and preparedness, the council said.
Chen said the agreement would help strengthen Taiwan’s cross-border disaster mitigation capabilities in the face of challenges posed by climate change, adding that Taiwan would also be able to share information with its global partners through the MOU.
Shirkhodai said that the two agencies have highly complementary strengths, adding that the partnership would combine collected information for compound disasters, and extensive experience of monitoring and responding to natural disasters.
Separately, communications app Line said that it is collaborating with the Ministry of Digital Affairs to combat fraud committed through impersonating public figures.
The messaging app is the most popular in Taiwan, with 22 million active users.
To develop the scam alert system, the ministry first provided a list of protected public figures, the company said.
People would see a pop-up alert when unfamiliar accounts with the same names as those of public figures attempt to initiate a chat, add them as a friend or include them in a group chat, and that users can block and report these suspicious accounts, it said.
If users choose “Yes, I know,” another pop-alert would appear to ask if they actually know this person, the company said, adding that the function is available for mobile phone users who have updated to Line version 26.7.
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