This Is Only a Drill: In California, Testing Technology in a Disaster Response - New York Times

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“My view is that the value of Strong Angel is 70 percent in the social networks that will be created,” said the organizer, Eric Rasmussen, a Navy surgeon and veteran of relief efforts on several continents. “What we do is try to bring people with disparate backgrounds together and ensure that they are forced to enter into a conversation.”

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Moreover, the achievement demonstrated that industry rivals like Microsoft and Google could cooperatively generate useful technologies. Small teams of programmers from the two companies sat before laptops at adjacent tables to make sure that the Microsoft software connection system would transfer information to Google Earth, Google’s visual mapping tool.

Source: This Is Only a Drill: In California, Testing Technology in a Disaster Response - New York Times