>> Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our session, it's a showcase session. We will be demonstrating locally accessible cloud system for e-resilience and I hope you will enjoy and have something to learn from this session. Um, we live in the AP region which is prone to disaster. We talk about tsunami, earthquake, flood, landslide and the other part is we have many reason which is very marginalized from the islands to the mountains, where there is no connectivity. So, when we talk about e-resilience, be it COVID-19 Pandemic or disaster situation, where there's no connectivity, how would we connect with our loved ones? How would we conduct remote education if there's no network?
To find a solution to those problems today, we will be demonstrating a system that can help promote e-resilience. So we've got 3 speakers today. First we have Dr. Sakanu from ETR Japan. He will give a general introduction and specification of the system. He's also the man behind MDRU, which is an IT certified invention. So next we have um, Jeffrey, the Executive Director. And lastly we have affiliated to I triple standards. So, we have limited time so without further ado, I would like to pass on the mic to give his presentation. Thank you.
>> Thank you very much. For kind introduction. Okay, let memo share the slide.
[Pause].
>> Okay, um, my talk today, ten minutes talk is on the locally accessible cloud system. We call is LACS. First of all, let me introduce myself and some background. My name is Toshikazu Sakano. Director of advance telecommunications research institution international, ATR, based in Tyoto Japan. In 2015 I joined and have worked for the business development in the company. In 2018 I launched an RND for the company. Before joining ATR I had been working for NTT, major telecommunication carrier in Japan. I experienced around these in technical fields, super high definition imaging system, based on the research at NTT I earned Ph.D. degree from Tohoku University in 1998.
On March 11,2011 a giant earthquake hit wide area of east Japan. Triggered by this event I proposed a concept of MDRU, movable and deployable resource unit and launched an R and D project as a national project.
In the fall of 2013, Philippines was suffered by a big typhoon called Haiyan or Yolanda. This disaster made me get to know the Cebu based NPO, Jeffrey, he's a good friend of mine. Our team at NTT and CVISNET collaborated and launched an international project which was signed by DOST in Philippines, MIC in Japan and ITU in The United Nations. Under the project NTT team and CVISNET brought MDRU to san Merigion Cebu, a seriously damaged area by the typhoon to support the restoration of communication network from the disaster.
A long introduction, but let me move on to some motivation slide. This shows the background of emergence of communication outage caused by large-scale disasters. Once a large scale disasters like tsunami, flooding and typhoon cause serious damage to communication networks including cable, building, switches, routers. Pour outage forces to cease not only negative communication services like telephone and network services, but also, various services provided over the Internet. So once the communication network is disrupted, you cannot use the Internet. You can imagine that. So um, the communication outage causes serious problems in the disaster counter measure activities and people's lives. This is the motivation I launched. MDRU was mainly focused on the telephone services and the MDRU was mainly for telecommunication. But LACS many focus on the Internet based services and focus on the people of the disaster areas. So LACS concept, a portable server system which comprises of compact server, access point, battery and peripheral devices. LACS delivers cloud service any time, anywhere, even in devastated disaster situation. But the area is only limited local areas. So with this concept, I developed a prototype system comprising of small servers and access point and um, I have, um, conducted series of studies with the support from Jeffrey in different areas.
So this is an example of page, once LACS, you can see LACS at this table. This one. And once you [off mic] you bring this box to the affected areas and switch it on and you can use SMS-like services in the local areas. That's the main concept and people access this device, using their smartphones, and um... turn on the browser and you can access through the LACS space. LACS is available on the communication too, and appropriate smartphones, you can use to access the LACS services and this is it. And LACS has a software providing the basic functions for communication among people. Once the user registration is required to um, use the services, and important notice, so people want the information and the disaster -- disasters. So, the LACS can deliver the information to people. And it's for sharing the information among people, local people. And messaging is one-to-one communication or group communication. This basic functions included in the LACS system as a software, that you can use it by using your smartphones and by accessing this small box by way of Wi-Fi functionality.
This is an example of out look of prototype of the LACS system and main computer, very small server, access point and battery and HUB, all things are packed and connected. In the server, the software for providing SMS functionality is included. Very simple configuration, but I believe this is good, too, to help people under the disaster-affected areas. So um we have conducted a series of studies. And I see the users of LACS space system in 3 categories. One is user national local government, for hospitals, people who support the people under the disasters. These kind of organizations will be use the LACS for communicating each other when they um they act as a group. And next one is people in disaster affected areas. So if you bring this box to evacuation center, people can communicate to each other. And people in developing areas, developing means not broad one, ready areas. So in the world, there are many places that is not connected to the broadband over the Internet. In that situation, LACS system is very useful to compensate to the narrow-band environment. So that... so this slide is a kind of study I conducted in Japan at residential area. Residential areas, with over 1,500 households, and there was a big summer festival there. And we brought the LACS system and how people use the LACS and most people evaluated our system very useful under the disasters, not only disasters, but also, this kind of event. It is very interesting, people said like that.
The other one a study we conducted in the Philippines, in Cebu, with the support of Cordova municipality, we conducted a series of study of LACS concept. Detail will be presented by Jefferson after this meeting. And let me show 3-minute video before ending my presentation.
Okay, can I do that? Stop sharing. Okay.
>> Thank you very much. Okay, last one slide. Conclusion, I introduced LACS base system and for use on the e-education in the COVID pandemic also in Philippine. Okay, this is end of my talk. Thank you.
>> Thank you, because we are running of out of time I would like to request Jeffrey to quickly do the presentation.
>> Can you hear me?
>> Yes.
>> Okay, so let me just share my presentation.
Is it okay?
>> Yes, Jeff, it's okay.
>> Okay. Good morning to everybody. Um... good morning from Philippines, I'm Jeffrey, the Executive Director of CViS net foundation. I'll go to the cloud system project complementation in Cebu Philippines. It's the prompt of the government, it's also one of the primary Internet service providers in providing Internet um, via the lab. So CViS net has been recognized and one of the fellows of APR idea. So for the background, Dr. Sakanu mentioned about the locally accessible cloud system project. Also the father of the movable and deployable source unit that we started back in 2015 and recognized by The United Nations, international telecommunications.
So aside from being a um, disaster response or communication tool we noticed that LACS can also be used in a nondisaster -- for a normal day-to-day operation.
>> Jeff, could you share your screen in the full screen version? Because it's not moving.
>> Sorry, can you see it?
>> We can see it, but it's not, you know, full screen.
>> This one.
>> Now we can see. Please move along. Okay.
>> I just use this one maybe it was something.
>> Okay.
>> Okay, so... LACS can be used as an education application where teachers and students can share education materials in a very particular area. Um, LACS can also be used for e governance, application for residents, and LACS for a day-to-day operations, can also be used for e health. The pilot location of LACS here many the Philippines, if you notice on this side, it's in the center. Martan island is where Magellan was killed here and this is the pilot area, Cordova. And we tested it to an island about 6 kilometers away from the mainland. So, we have 4 activity here conducted in the Philippines. It started during the pre-pandemic era at Cordova, we tested together with Dr. Sakano and team from ATR. We were able to test the Bulletin Board service, repositories, the file repositories and we work it out together with communities and local officials. That's the first step. And these are some of the pictures that we conducted. Here in the pictures you notice that some of the participants are using their cell phones or smartphones to download the application coming from the LACS server. The second activity conducted in 2019. Again, it's pre-pandemic. The main focus for this one, Dr. Sacano and our team decided that we should extend the use cases to include education on LACS. So LACS was demonstrated using its equipment for e education and also use for, again, for emergency situations. This was conducted in 2019 and some of the images that we had were the step two. Then we have the step 3. This is already the pandemic era, started on December '20 and ended February 2021. This time it's normal, online and face-to-face activity. So we conducted several online meetings with Dr. Sacano and also a new partner with us, who developed the software. Then we integrated an online and offline learning management system to LACS in which students can just stay in their houses in the island and download the applications to the LACS server.
So these are the partners and the stakeholders. On this one, and most of our activities were conducted online. But our team were able to be [off mic] and connected trainings in Cordova. On step 4 activities, this time it's the together with the state university on another region in the Philippines. So it's to find out where LACS can use its full advantage to resolving a system problems. The experiment consists of using the emergency application, and LACS bulletin board, messaging and also. So, these are the activities that we conducted. And lastly on step 4 last year the Philippines was hit by [off mic] but it also opened another, um, door for LACS to evolve. So, the new features, if you notice on the right side, during the typoon most of the people who have smartphones, they cannot charge their smartphones because there was no electricity. Especially in the areas in Cebu. So Dr. Sacano and the team, we decided to make LACS as a charging stations for equipment, for smartphones. And here on the left side you notice that the state university use the LACS, a system for their um response management. So it was used by the state university. So that ends my presentation for the locally accessible cloud system project implementation in the Philippines. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you, thank you, Jeff. Because we are running out of time I would like to request a few minutes give a future perspective and case use scenario.
>> I won't take much time. So I'll just talk about how this started for us in Nepal, it's a landlock country in Nepal. We met Jeff and we talked about how we can do a collaboration and this kind of project together. So we had a big earthquake in Nepal in 2015 and we did a research after the earthquake. We used to connect Internet to the villages and we did research with doctor, well-known person in this governance field and what we found was that the Internet was not effective during the earthquake and the main reason was people were not used to it, especially in rural parts of the country. When disaster comes we act on instincts, not on some system. So that made us think how could we make this Internet affective during disasters as well.
In 2019 -- 2018 we successfully did a field test with entity communications and government of Nepal. And in 2019 the reason that Internet was not effective was it was not being used on a day-to-day basis. So as a back up, LACS did it. But we tested it for remote education in 2019. The report has been published on study group report as well. So if um, you know, if we integrate these kind of system in education and if the community also learns from that, then when the disaster, they can use this kind of devices. So this showcase here is for um, is for appeal to do a pilot test in Nepal as well, for LACS, as well as to find out with um, all of you, how we can you know, as a committee, move forward and become resilient, especially in disaster. But again, keeping things into basic, it's very much important that we implement it through the core aspect of society, like education. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you, we've just got 3 minutes. So we can take a couple of questions before we wrap up. Anybody want to ask some questions?
>> Thank you very much and I have observed and have listened to your lectures and the innovation. I have only one question. Um, anyway, is it very effective for management during the disaster to connect each other. But how do you connect with the broad band? You understand what I mean? How do you connect with the broad band? That's my question. But really it's very effective. I'm from Bangladesh. Thank you so much.
>> Okay, thank you very much. Very good point. And let me show one slide. Okay. Just a second. So, how to connect to the broad band. Of course, um, LACS itself is for standard system, but um, once you can connect to the broad band, that will be very effective. Um, in the realization of the things.
So LACS is -- you can say this is local area network and companies are connected to the Internet through the local area network, that's configuration is almost the same. So you can connect to the broad band in the broad band connectivity will. And um, for example, this video shows the LACS and the standard system you can use it for standard as a stand alone system. But once you got connectivity to the Internet with broad band, there is the same Claude system over the Internet and um, digital servers synchronize each other, with this configuration. The usage will be broaden even in usual situation, not disaster situation.
For example, this is an example for e-education and teachers in a remote site and um educational content, can upload the content to server on the Internet cloud. Once you upload the content to the Internet cloud, this is automatically copied to the LACS system local server, automatically. And students and people can access to the education content by accessing local server. You don't have to pay for that.
[Pause]
>> That will be the um broad band conductivity. Thank you.
>> I think our time is over, so thank you very much. We cannot take more questions. If you have any questions we could meet outside in the lobby later and get the answers. Thank you for being the wonderful audience, the online members. Thank you so much.
>> Thank you, there was a question online, perhaps you can answer --
>> From Kelly?
>> You can um, contact that person after the session?
>> We'll try to contact, yes.