ICAN SOLVE Event Innovates on Emergency Preparedness

Three Corvallis-area teams were awarded cash grants and funding for project proposals developed at the first-ever ICAN SOLVE event, hosted on May 18 by the Imagine Corvallis Action Network (ICAN).

The ICAN SOLVE event brought together local problem solvers to focus on generating and refining solutions to challenges facing the local community in a collaborative environment. The chosen topic for the May 18 event was community emergency preparedness. More than 45 attendees split up into teams and proposed innovative solutions and new approaches to addressing this community challenge.

A panel of preparedness experts from the Corvallis Fire Department, Benton County Sheriff’s Office, and Samaritan Health Services ultimately selected three teams to receive cash prizes and grant funding to further develop their ideas.

• 1st Place – Reunification – $500 cash prize, up to $500 toward their project: A “safe-watch,” which would provide GPS coordinates, potentially cost less than $30, and would only need to be charged monthly. The safe-watch is intended to be an affordable solution to help parents locate their children quickly during or after an accident or disaster. The team also proposed an educational event series for students and parents on emergency preparedness.
   
• 2nd Place – Interactive READY Festival – $300 cash prize, up to $300 toward their project: An interactive emergency preparedness festival that would start off as a thoughtfully designed traveling exhibit in order to make preparedness easy, interesting, and fun.
   
• 3rd place – HazAdapt – $200 cash prize, up to $200 toward their project: An interactive web-based communication platform for emergency managers to relay pre-crisis information to all users. The team is now working on this through the OSU Advantage Accelerator program.

“This event was a truly worthwhile and rewarding experience,” said Joe Hutchinson, Directory of Safety, Security, and Emergency Management for Samaritan Health Services (and one of the subject matter experts on the panel that awarded the grants).

SOLVE, which stands for Solution-Oriented Learning and Visioning Event, uses an engaging, collaborative format that was originally developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and reimagined for Corvallis. ICAN SOLVE events are high-energy forums that invite participants to form and reshape ideas, evaluate and assist on designs, and collaborate and experiment, all while making new friends and professional contacts.

The ICAN network is made up of the groups, individuals, organizations and institutions working together to make the 2040 vision a reality. The advisory board encourages the community to propose initiatives to help support the development of a robust Community Action Plan. For more information, please visit www.imaginecorvallis.org/ican-solve.