WASHINGTON, D.C.—AWARN has announced that local TV broadcasters and emergency managers from the Washington, D.C. metro region will be convening December 7-8 for the AWARN Washington, D.C. Roundtable.
The goal of the event, which is the third in a series, is to lay the groundwork for the voluntary use of NextGen TV Advanced Emergency Information (AEI) and “reboot” the historic partnership between broadcasting and public safety, AWARN said.
“We’re gratified with the range of broadcasting and emergency management organizations that have come together for these discussions. Our focus is regional, but the implications are national. The power of these meetings comes from bringing together TV broadcasters, who’s signals have tremendous reach, with local alerting authorities, who ‘push the button’ for delivering local alerts,” according to AWARN Executive Director John Lawson. “The educational sessions and off-the-record discussions create an opportunity to explore ways to work together. The pay-off is the capacity to deliver geo-targeted, rich media emergency information across multiple platforms.”
The AWARN Washington, DC Roundtable will cover an afternoon and part of a second day. It will be hosted at the new offices of the National Association of Broadcasters.
The following organizations are co-hosts for the Roundtable:
- The AWARN Alliance
- ONE Media 3.0
- National Association of Broadcasters
- Maryland, DC, and Delaware Broadcasters Association
- Fairfax County Department of Emergency Management and Security
- Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (coordinating alerting for 18 jurisdictions in the National Capital Region)
- Radio Television Digital News Association
- WHUT-TV at Howard University
- Virginia Association of Broadcasters
In addition, a number of groups and companies are sponsoring the event. These include:
- Advanced Television Systems Committee
- LG Electronics/Zenith R&D Lab
- National Association of Broadcasters
- Sinclair Broadcast Group
- The Weather Company, An IBM Business
To register, or for more information, contact John Lawson, executive director, AWARN Alliance at Jlawson@AWARN.org or (202) 302-1654.
