STAR-TIDES Transportable Infrastructures for Development and Emergency Support (TIDES) Overview

The TIDES project (formerly called Expedient Infrastructure for Transient Populations – EITP) will identify, test, refine, and document sets of rapidly deployable, cheap, and environmentally friendly infrastructures (basic shelter, water, power, hygiene, communications, etc.). These sustainable infrastructures should be deployable quickly to meet human needs where available services are inadequate, such as in refugee camps or for disaster victims. It is a voluntary effort, with non-government, government, and diverse other participants, and in no way is an endorsement of any particular solution by the government. TIDES also will develop assembly instructions and operational procedures for these infrastructures. The goal is to share information to help organizations and individuals apply solutions effectively in real-world conditions. Collaborative, cross-domain methods and new technologies, along with whole systems thinking and engineering are encouraged.

A powerpoint presentation explaining EITP and much of TIDES is available.

Educational Focus

The project seeks to educate and train those who could use TIDES-like solutions for economic development and emergency response activities such as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and refugee support. It also aims to inform interested members of the general public. TIDES is pursuing partnerships with educational institutions at the graduate, undergraduate and high school levels to encourage student involvement.

Activities of the Volunteer TIDES Teams

The TIDES project is building long-term, multi-sector, collaborative relationships among citizens, businesses, academia and government. The project welcomes broad participation, questions, and comments by interested parties. Several teams are forming, made up of individuals who want to make sustained contributions. The TIDES Teams will:

1. Coordinate efforts to understand the needs of stressed populations in various situations
2. Propose and communicate potential solution sets and approaches to meet these needs.
3. Improve solutions sets and approaches through continuous process improvement techniques, demonstrations, field evaluations, experiments, and workshops.
4. Develop educational tools (online and paper field manuals, training materials, draft policies and procedures) and a mentoring network, using open source development methods.

Updated information is available at http://www.appropedia.org/STAR-TIDES (the capitals are important)

 Points of Contact

The initial points of contact for TIDES are:

1. Lin Wells, wellsL3@ndu.edu, (202) 436-6354
2. Lynn Crabb, American Red Cross
3. Jim Craft, United Status Marine Corps
4. Vinay Gupta, Hexayurt Project, hexayurt@gmail.com, (775) 743-1851
5. Tim Lo, lot@ndu.edu, (202) 685-3046

Near-term Plans

The first demonstrations are planned in the Washington, DC area in October 2007, beginning at the National Defense University (NDU) and later at the Marine Corps facility at Henderson Hall. Some of the solution sets will then be moved to a remote site to study service life issues. Additionally, some solution sets may be made available over the next several months to other demonstrations and related events (including real-world contingencies where applicable) to gain more experience and garner feedback.

The demonstrations in October 2007 will likely consist of:

1. 9-10 shelters, preferably of different types, including: the "hexayurts" demonstrated last year at Strong Angel 3, the "ShelterBox" developed by Rotary Clubs in UK and Florida, “Uni-Fold” prefabricated accordion shelters, “Yurt Domes,” and other approaches,
2. Simple water pasteurization systems,
3. Cooking systems, such as high efficiency wood gasification stoves and solar cookers
4. Solar panels charging AA batteries for distribution to the settlement members to run, say, LED lighting and the gasification stoves. Other renewables may be included, such as wind and micro-hydro,
5. Lighting, heating and cooling approaches,
6. Sanitation systems, and
7. Rudimentary Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and identity/ privilege management approaches suitable for austere environments.

Drawing on these demonstrations and team interactions, the project will develop:

1. Guiding principles and strategies for infrastructures for refugee and other stressed populations (to be compared with existing guidance from established agencies),
2. An integrated and continuously improving set of best practices for such communities,
3. Targeted training resources in various formats,
4. A sustainable, collaborating community of practice,
5. Best practices for moving information about field performance rapidly back to design teams and forward again as improved solutions.

TIDES already has acquired much of the equipment for Phase I. Next steps are to:

1. Solidify the core teams and encourage more volunteers.
2. Complete the TIDES project charter.
3. Identify education and training opportunities and enlist partners.
4. Develop draft multi-format documentation of potential solution sets and operating procedures (a wiki is available to support collaborative editing and lessons learned at: http://www.infosharehub.org/w157/index.php/Expedient_Infrastructures_for_Transient_Populations).
5. Develop the test plans.
6. Acquire final equipment items
7. Conduct the demonstration
8. Document the group's efforts to facilitate training, extend the user base, and help other groups learn to operate in open source-style collaborative networks with diverse participants from a mixed team of institutions, individuals, companies and projects.
9. Develop the policies, procedures, and logistic support chains to apply TIDES-like solutions to real world needs. Materials to help other groups learn

http://reachback.org/tides/users.php?mode=new

You can also add links to your images from gigs, or email administrator and Ill put them in a gallery for you.

We will also have a document feature shortly, where all related docs can be stored and shared. This Reachback Geeklog - and other portals use PHP and MYsql - and are open source.

There is also a Drupal Portal for TIDES related issues and projects @ civmil.

http://civmil.org

http://www.reachback.org/tides/101007

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http://www.reachback.org/tides/101107