ARLINGTON, Va.—Last week, France played host to the third meeting of Project MESA, an international public-safety partnership working to bring together organizations from public protection, disaster response and civil defense sectors.
According to Project MESA members, the terrorist attacks in the United States only emphasized the necessity of the organization, which was initiated by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to address public-safety needs throughout the world. In fact, criminal activities that are increasingly aided by advanced communications technologies have been cited as one of the organization’s driving factors.
“Although we were horrified by the recent terrorist acts in the USA, the USA is ‘not terrorized,'” said Dan Bart, senior vice president of standards and special projects at TIA. “The work of MESA needs to be accelerated to bring forward the specifications and standards that can serve the needs of the public-safety communities around the world.”
The third meeting included participants from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations and although travel restrictions kept many U.S. participants from physically attending, they did participate via the Internet.
