The Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology directorate has rolled out an information sharing tool for first responders around the world.DHS said Monday the Next-Generation Incident Command System works as a mobile, web-based communication platform for first responders to request and receive remote assistance from personnel.
DHS and the U.S. Coast Guard‘s Research and Development Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory jointly funded the development of NICS from its start in 2010.
“Through strong partnerships within the state of California, responder organizations across the United States and the state of Victoria in Australia, NICS software is deployed as an operational tool in many first responder communities,†said Dan Cotter, director of the DHS S&T first responders group.
DHS transitioned NICS to nonprofit Worldwide Incident Command Services in April 2015.
The department handles the NICS open source code and plans to transition the platform through the U.S. government’s account on the open source code repository site GitHub and to host NICS within the DHS Homeland Security Information Network in Fall 2016.
