Mobile Response: Second International Workshop on Mobile Information Technology for Emergency Response

Mobile Response 2008, the Second International Workshop on Mobile Infor- tion Technology for Emergency Response, aimed at a focussed exchange on how mobile information technology can be e?ectively used to the benet of em- gency response. The gap between the great potential benet that usable mobile IT could yield in the domain of emergency response and the speci?c design challenges for such technologies in this particularly unforgiving domain was the foundation of our decision to create a venue for researchers and practitioners from di?erent disciplines. During this years workshopthe latest approachesand technical solutions in the area of mobile information technology for emergency response planning and execution were presented and demonstrated. We invited participation from research, industry and public rescue orga- zations to enable an in-depth discussion of the opportunities and drawbacks of new digital technologies for emergency response. The call for papers for the second Mobile Response workshop attracted over 25 submissions from 11 d- ferent countries, including international submissions from the USA, Brazil and Japan.AninternationalProgramCommitteewithexpertsonmobileinformation technology, emergency response and emergency response equipment selected 12 submissions for presentation during the workshop. The program was completed by two outstanding keynote presentations and one invited presentation on p- vailing topics of high interest to the scienti?c and practitioner communities.