Emerging technology can be used for training humanitarian staff to respond effectively to the increasingly complex needs that arise following disasters, particularly when responding to security incidents and executing emergency plans. Creating realistic exercises during the training is crucial to ensure that participants respond effectively in similar real-life scenarios.

This article by Atish Gonsalves (2015) explores how mobile devices can play an important role in crisis situations involving role-playing. Although they don’t match the immersive feeling a participant gets when entering a real-world simulation, mobile devices are well suited to orchestrate a flow of events through a ‘mixed-reality’ environment, allowing the learners to move between virtual tasks assigned on the device and the physical environment. To this end, an application framework, authoring tool and mobile application are currently under development by Mobilize.life with an aim to go live in early 2016.

Mobilize.life is now known as Gamoteca, and is available online.