FourthWave News

From Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly (October 30, 2006, p. 6)

SentryPoints Participates in Homeland Security Exercise

Emergency responders in the area had a chance to become a little more familiar with SentryPoints software at a recent homeland security exercise.

SentryPoints is a Fort Wayne-based company that supplies state and local governments with software and other products for homeland security and emergency management command and control.

It participated in a table-top exercise, during which communities were able to review procedures for responding to unusual and large-scale emergencies, including deliberate and accidental events.

The exercise included police, fire fighters, health departments, schools, emergency management agencies and elected officials from throughout the state’s 11-county Homeland Security District 3.

More than 200 participants discussed how their strategic communications and operations plans would work in several emergency scenarios.

Interactive presentations that set the stage for the discussion used the map function of SentryPoints software to help establish a common operating picture during the exercise.

The software also provided quick and easy access to hazardous material guides and other important reference material for emergency responders.

Had the exercise involved more crisis management simulation, the software could have identified on its maps recommended containment areas and traffic diversion options, with the impact various responses would have on evacuation and other public safety concerns.

Northeast Indiana’s homeland security district will hold another exercise during the winter, and SentryPoints plans to make its software available for the sessions.

SentryPoints has a software development arm, Four D Development, and one of its software developers, Chris Houser, made a technical presentation at the annual Trolltech Developer Days in San Jose, Calif.

The presentation focused on SentryPoints software and the use of Qt and AJAX tools in its development.  Trolltech’s Qt product is essentially a library, which provides a framework for building software.  AJAX is a technique used to build dynamic Web applications.