Itrend - Chilean Institute for Disaster Resilience

José Torero, Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Biomatics Engineering, University College of London (UCL)

«A communication problem»

"Understanding the problem allows us to use the right tools. We have plenty of tools and data, we have all the information in the world. We just have to find those missing pieces of the puzzle so we can use that information correctly. I have given you an example of a piece of the puzzle that is missing, but it is critical to identify and fill in those gaps so that we can give value with all this data available in multiple sectors of science and technology. Today, globally, the problem of forest fires is being treated in a sectorized manner and with an unbalanced investment. It is not a Chilean problem, it is a global problem. In all parts of the world we are having fundamentally the same problem and we cannot fully respond to the challenge that climate change brings us. With that I wanted to end, and with a simple message: I believe that in the end, this is a fundamental problem of communication".

Ellen Rathje, Senior Researcher Design Safe

"Sharing is caring»

"I hope we can move on from the old paradigm, which was like this: you generate data, you analyze it, you publish a paper or report and the data sits on a desk or these days, in a mailbox, and that's it. But it's not well organized and it's hard to use it later. Now there should be two parts: you should publish the data and the paper. And then, if you think about what that enables, maybe a lot of people are doing the same thing. But there is a gap, there is a space where there is no data... and you decide to generate new data. I'm going to analyze that aggregated data (new data plus existing data), I'm going to publish it alongside my latest paper. And it's through this mechanism that we can really grow our research, grow the network of connections and make our most significant discoveries."

Revisa el primer Chile Resiliente

Parallel agenda

In addition to the participation in Resilient Chile, other activities were added to the agenda of the exhibitors in our country. José Torero and Ellen Rathje began their visit to the capital by meeting on Tuesday morning with the entire Itrend team, who presented some of the projects on which the institute is currently working. During the afternoon, they were invited to a working meeting with a team from the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, and ANID, in which Ellen presented the experience with DesignSafe, and discussed the need for such platforms, access to open data and the challenges presented by the processing of information. Once the Resilient Chile seminar was concluded, during the afternoon of the 25th, both speakers were invited to visit the facilities of the National Electric Coordinator, where they shared experiences on fire management with the corporation.

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José Torero, Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Biomatics Engineering, University College of London (UCL)

Ellen Rathje, Senior Researcher Design Safe

Revisa el primer Chile Resiliente

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