Public safety and security

Tom Carchrae is the senior engineer working on Actenum's core platform work. He has been leading the development of a new way of applying Actenum's decision and optimization technologies that I find fascinating. It was inspired by the many newspaper stories about ambulances that have taken too long to arrive at the scene of emergency incidents, sometimes with tragic results.

Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world (243,042 kilometres/151,019 miles) and insufficient means to guard it all. Maintaining a presence in the Arctic, and providing security along the coast, is a challenge (some would call it a nightmare): tasks include providing surveillance, relief for vessels in distress, security management for events (such as the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver), responding to natural disasters, and search and rescue.