From May 4th to 7th, approximately twenty participants (GoGIN team and ICC, CRESMAO, CRESMAC and ARSTM representatives) have been introduced and trained on the first version of the YARIS platform. The session was conducted by Fernando Alves from the Zertive-XSealence-SplendidAdvice consortium.
The YARIS platform is designed to be the information sharing tool amongst the 27 maritime centres part of the Yaoundé Architecture. Conceived as a maritime situational awareness (MSA) tool, it allows both to know what is going on at sea and to coordinate crisis situation operations.
The definition of its specifications is the result of a joint elaboration between the GoGIN team and a group of representatives from the maritime centres. After the contract award by the Zertive-XSealence-SplendidAdvice consortium, dialogue was further strengthened to ensure that the development of the tool best responds to the identified needs.
Twenty participants selected amongst the GoGIN team and the regional centres (ICC, CRESMAO, CRESMAC and ARSTM) have been able to test the first version. The IT development team elaborated the training material and held distance training sessions during 4 days (May 4th to 7th), where mornings were dedicated to the presentation and demonstrations of YARIS and afternoons to learning by doing on a training version of YARIS.
YARIS ensures a targeted and secure exchange of information, where centres can choose what information to share, with whom and under what level of confidentiality. This flexibility of configuration is completely secure.
Maritime situational awareness is reached thanks to a combination of operational software applications: mapping to visualise the information, instant messaging, log. These applications are used to manage operational situations (for example an oil tanker running aground, a pirate attack), which can be further monitored during a crisis management operation.
External data can be imported to enrich the existing data (layers, AIS or radar data, etc.), but must first be agreed upon with the suppliers. YARIS has benefited from the support of ExactEarth and GeoGarage, who have supplied AIS data and nautical charts to test the system.
Finally, a news and information portal completes YARIS on which each centre manages its own information flow and shares it in a targeted manner with other entities.
Currently being finalised, the delivery of the final version of YARIS is planned end of July. A training program is being developed combining distance learning and classroom courses, complying with the national regulations to combat the COVID 19 pandemic. The staff trained in May will benefit from knowledge enhancement on the final version of YARIS in October. Between July and end of September they will then train the teams of each of the maritime operational centres on the current version of YARIS.
YARIS will equally be used during exercises that will progressively resume as country specific travel restrictions are lifted.
In parallel, the governance of YARIS is currently being considered by the members of the Yaoundé Architecture. For the sake of facilitate regional cooperation and effective collaboration between administrations, the GoGIN team will give its full support to the considerations so that the tool can be fully deployed and used on time.