Evacuating people from an area threatened or struck by a natural or manmade disaster is extraordinarily hard. The challenge is compounded when the number of people to be evacuated is large, the environment densely urban, and communication and transportation infrastructure damaged or inoperable. Hurricanes like Sandy or Katrina, earthquakes, tsunamis, terrorist attacks, war—when natural or manmade disasters occur the U.S. military plays a vital role in helping people reach safety.

On 9/11 hundreds of thousands of people trapped south of the Twin Towers had to be evacuated on foot over bridges and by boat with support from the National Guard and Coast Guard. This revealed the extraordinary challenges of coordinating and executing massive evacuations.

Despite routine planning and exercises to prepare for evacuations, significant challenges remain to support planning, coordination, and decision-making by first-responders and crisis managers.

MD5, in collaboration with the New York National Guard, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Columbia University, NYU and Galvanize, will host Escape from New York: A Massive Evacuation Hackathon, at Galvanize in New York, NY from February 22-24, 2019. This hackathon will focus on:

• Alert – How can we contact evacuees to provide them with relevant and compelling information to get them to safety? How can we best support those who refuse to evacuate?

• Track – Real-time, end-to-end tracking of evacuees is critical to managing collection and transportation efforts. During a crisis, not everyone arriving at a collection point will have photo identification. What tools can we use to confirm their identity and track their status throughout the evacuation process?

• Evacuate – Determining where and how to collect, stage, and transport evacuees is challenging under dynamic conditions where critical infrastructure may be pushed beyond capacity or damaged. How can we leverage things like geography information system and other data sources (e.g., drones, social media) and analytics to determine optimal assembly, relocation, and evacuation routes and modes that best manage risk?

Top teams can each win up to a $15,000 contract award to further develop their concept in collaboration with MD5!

Agenda

Friday Feb 22 -

4:00 PM Registration opens

6:00 PM Dinner

6:30 PM Challenge brief, orientation

7:30 PM Team formation

9:00 PM Hacking begins

11:00 PM Facility closes

Saturday Feb 23

8:00 AM

• Facility opens, breakfast
• Hacking Continues
• Mentoring by challenge and technical experts

12:00 PM

• Lunch
• Hacking Continues
• Mentoring by challenge and technical experts

6:00 PM

• Dinner
• Hacking Continues

11:00 PM Facility Closes

Sunday Feb 24

8:00 AM

• Facility opens, breakfast
• Hacking continues
• Mentoring by pitch, presentation, and business experts

10:30 AM

• Concepts submitted
• Judging Begins

12:00 PM Lunch, Top 5 teams announced

1:00 PM Top 5 teams present

2:00 PM Final judging

2:30 PM Award ceremony

3:00 PM Hackathon concludes

About MD5

MD5 is the Department of Defense's National Security Technology Accelerator. Our mission is to provide a platform to cultivate the people and ideas necessary to build technology-based ventures that align national economic, security and social objectives for the good of the nation.

To learn more about MD5, visit www.MD5.net or send us an email at info@md5.net