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GEM, HannoverRe and SwissRe workshop on GEM risk model development

A 2-day workshop on the GEM model development was held from September 12-13 at the GEM office in Pavia, Italy. GEM partners, Hannover Re and Swiss Re participated in the workshop to discuss how OpenQuake earthquake models could be converted into the OASIS Loss Modeling Framework model, comparing the technical requirements and differences in approach between OpenQuake and OASIS. 

The discussions also touched on the aspects of product completeness, marketing, pricing, licensing, customer support and documentation for commercializing a model. The group also identified the next steps to address technical and licensing issues later this year.

COMET-GEM workshop in Leeds

Geoscientists from the Centre for Observation and Modeling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET), a consortium of earth science researchers from top UK universities, held a workshop with GEM staff at the University of Leeds, UK. The workshop participants presented recent geoscience, hazard and risk research from around the globe, and then focused on defining a path forward involving COMET-GEM collaborative research and modeling projects for the next few years.

USAID and GEM to work on Training and Communication for Earthquake Risk Assessment (TREQ) Project

USAID and GEM will work together soon to develop capacity for urban earthquake risk assessment in Latin America, to enhance the understanding of earthquake risk, and to bridge the gap between risk assessment and disaster risk reduction.

TREQ is a 2-year project supported by the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance - USAID. The project is set to kick-off in October.

Other notable participation of GEM in yearly meetings, workshops and conferences held from June-July on earthquake hazard, engineering, information technology and risk insurance are listed below:

• Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics-SECED (London, UK) - attended by Vitor Silva, Risk Team Coordinator, is the main forum in the UK for students, academics and practitioners with an interest in earthquakes, blast and other types of dynamic effects. Vitor co-chaired the session on fragility, vulnerability and infrastructure resilience.

• RedHat OpenShift Commons Gathering (Milan, Italy) - attended by Daniele Vigano, GEM IT Manager and Systems Engineer, brings together experts from all over the world to discuss container technologies, best practices for cloud native application developers and the open source software projects that underpin the OpenShift/Kuberenetes ecosystem.

• Swiss Impact Investment Association (SIIA) 4th Annual Impact Summit (Zug, Switzerland) - attended by John Schneider, GEM Secretary General, is a forum for brainstorming with impact investment community, entrepreneurs and technical experts/innovators regarding ways to encourage investment in businesses that are aimed at providing solutions to climate change and other global issues. GEM participated in this event to explore strategic partnerships and to better understand investment attitudes in order to position GEM at the forefront of 21st century paradigm shift: from ‘risk and return’  to ‘risk, return and impact’.