On 14 March 2025, Dr Enrico Gavagnin, from the Venice City Council and Scientific Coordinator of the EXTRACT Project, participated in the GovTech Forum, an event dedicated to exploring how technology and innovation can enhance governance, policy-making, and public service efficiency. Invited as a keynote speaker, Dr Gavagnin presented “Technology to manage disasters,” an engaging presentation on how technology can help in disaster management.
The GovTech Forum, hosted this year in Milan, provided an opportunity to showcase how the EXTRACT Project is addressing the challenges faced by the city of Venice and how big data and technology are being integrated to find solutions. Dr Gavagnin took the opportunity to highlight the distinction between a hazard and a disaster, demonstrating how technology can minimize the impact and effects of disasters: “While hazards are unavoidable, disasters can, to a large extent, be anticipated and mitigated”, states the Venice City Councillor.
This important insight points to how the EXTRACT Project is integrating the vast amount of data available from the city of Venice (Venice Smart Control Room, urban sensors, IoT, 5G, Copernicus/Galileo satellites) to develop a Personalized Evacuation Route (PER), a system that is designed to guide citizens through a safe route in real-time within an urban environment. The PER use case highlights the value of technology and its crucial role in addressing challenges with high geographical and social complexity.
Dr Gavagnin also discussed the Disaster Management Cycle, which divides disaster management into four phases: Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. He explained how “each phase plays a crucial role in minimizing risk and improving resilience, and technology is an indispensable ally in all four phases.” The EXTRACT Project leverages technology to optimize and accelerate decision-making strategies in disaster management by providing the tools to collect, process, fuse, and semantically annotate the vast amounts of extreme data available.
Overall, the presentation conveyed that, while disasters can be complex, technology plays a vital role in mitigating their consequences, always with the understanding that “technology is not a silver bullet, but it is a powerful tool that, when combined with planning, collaboration, and innovation, can make a profound difference.”