Avalias unveils disaster-readiness software

Avalias introduced Avalanche TTX, a scenario-based collaboration software for disaster-readiness classroom exercises. The software lets incident responders across multiple agencies coordinate and participate in realistic and complex scenarios that likely arise at an incident, said Harold Wolpert, the company’s CEO.

Avalanche TTX enables organizations to run tabletop exercises designed themselves in single or multi-locations simultaneously, Wolpert said. The software was designed so agencies can customize scenarios based on their regions and the incidents they encountered driven by a master scenario event lists (MSELs) engine. The MSELs are a depository of data that can be imputed real-time into a table-top presentation. Data type includes text alerts, integrated electronic white boards, broadcast messages, video footage and voice calls, he said.

“You can present your own montage of slides or multimedia to create your own film or soundtrack,” he said. “Injecting multimedia makes it into a very realistic situation.”

The Web-enabled software is built for multi-site participation and, therefore, runs over a broadband connection. The presentation is controlled onsite via a PC or laptop, Wolpert said. In addition, offsite facilitators can control the presentation from their laptop or use an application that runs over a PDA available as an add-on that lets them text or chat with other facilitators and plan the incident behind the scenes. For example, they can introduce an electronic whiteboard onto the projections and provide data and discussion points — all of which are captured via the software’s reporting feature.

“At the end of an exercise there is the ability to run the after-action review, which is embedded in the software,” he said. “So it’s not a separate process.”

The software costs $7,995 per licensee, Wolpert said. With multiple locations, a server license is needed to activate sites. It costs $4,995.