This month TIDES will be participiating in Exercise 24 Europe (X24 EUR)a virtual disaster relief exercise scheduled for 29 March to 1 April.  X24 EUR will demonstrate uses of social media, crowdsourcing, and collaboration tools in an innovative cloud computing environment.  The scenario is a complex simulated seismic event that generates a tsunami in the Adriatic with corresponding damage to  to essential resources and critical infrastructure in the Balkans.

The X-24 series of robust, virtual, online experiments builds on an outstanding lineage.  It draws from the exceptional success of the GOLDEN PHOENIX collaborative events held in the San Diego area through 2008.  They showed the power not only of collaboration, both real and virtual, but also of broad inclusion.  During the last GOLDEN PHOENIX over 140 separate organizations participated--public-private, whole-of-government, trans-national. X-24 "Southern California" in 2010 involved over 12,500 participants from 79 countries and 90 USG, non-USG, public and private entities. This is not just a technical or academic exercise.  The powerful role of social media and "outside the wire" comms is being demonstrated daily, from Haiti, to the Gulf  Coast, to Afghanistan to the Maghreb. X-24 Europe offers and opportuunity to build additional  relationships through open, collaborative operations. TIDES has been working with EUCOM during the planning of the exercise.  We will be operating an observation center at National Defense University, and looking for ways to leverage the STAR-TIDES network during the course of X24 EUR. Check out EUCOM's Prezi for X24 EUR. 

For more info on X24 EUR: http://x24.eushare.org

To Register: http://x24.eushare.org/registration