Table 2.

Examples of Recommended Actions based on the Layered Cake FAST Model.

Cake Layer	Recommended Actions for Digital Transformation of NDM
Foundations	•Establish and ensure clear national will. •Ensure NDM top management support including the right awareness & mindset. •Review government architecture and ensure NDM plugs in to the right place in government. •Create a strategic national secretariat (single focal point - not one of the ministries). •Get NDM doctrine sorted - establish a clear business and operating model for NDM and communicate it to all involved. •Established a clear system of authority, roles and responsibilities within and around NDM. •Establish a system of standards, rule, regulations, and governance for technology use in NDM. •Unify cross-government technology-related efforts and investments, and avoid duplication of efforts (e.g. create focal dedicated technology units to serve all NDM). •Establish strategies for joint cross-government communication systems and unified disaster information broadcasting (e.g. central social media teams to push out joint messages). •Break down departmental/ministerial barriers and develop cross-government culture of information sharing, discussion, coordination, and consultation. •Get the intellectual and practical (physical and financial) foundations lined up to support NDM digital transformation.
Approach	•Identify your general focus, scope and pace. •Follow a gradual approach: start with operational levels then move up to strategic. •Start with the ‘bad’ side. Focus on minimizing harm using technology and minimizing harm from technology itself. •Apply a ‘generational approach’ to NDM digital strategy - harness the passion and intellect of the youth base and the digital generation to understand and utilize the new digital era to manage disasters now and in the future. •Establish a specialized unit for technological horizon scanning for NDM to help identify your digital transformation scope and priorities. •Identify your focus areas within NDM and look for cross-cutting areas to capitalize on technological capabilities. •Cross-check your digital transformation approach, scope and focus with the national risk register of likely scenarios. •Get an independent scientific technological review to decide what to do with technology today, what is missing, and what is coming which you might use or consider.
Strategy	•Define your NDM digital transformation strategy. •Establish ‘think tank’ teams of Subject Matter Experts within NDM and other scientists to help define your strategy. •Ensure the existence of needed policies, resources, mechanisms, evaluation methods to support your strategy. •Build NDM strategy to develop necessary culture of cooperation, coordination, and information and data sharing across NDM and overall government. •Develop your cross-departmental data management strategy - set teams to define what information is needed where, define needed systems, and decide how to best utilize new technologies. •Utilize international expertise, knowledge and experiences in the field. •Develop your learning and awareness strategy to support NDM digital transformation. •Work with local authorities to establish programs on technology advancement, risks and crises for the society and other stakeholders. •Hold major conferences with leaders in the field to better understand digital transformation. •Gather scientists and scientific research to understand both good and bad aspects of new technologies. •Build your stakeholder integration strategy. •Identify stakeholders for priority disasters. •Decide how to bring each stakeholder in different layers of responsibility and develop a structure of where stakeholders sit-in with NDM and decide how to share information. •Engage with stakeholders to see how they deal with technology and what technologies they have in place to deal with these disasters. •Understand the present technological control systems of major critical infrastructure operators and what their future plans are and make sure they are not building up single points of failure and if they didn't have them, make sure that they have redundancy and resilience built in their networks.
Technology	•Study new technologies well and consider benefits and risks. •Define a national information assurance regime to make sure what comes out of technology is true and current to prevent technologies from becoming the architect of chaos. •Establish your data and information management policies, data specifications, data standardization across NDM. •Create common unified lexicon of key technology-related terms. •Choose technologies that can cover cross-cutting areas in the disaster management cycle and NDM network. •Start using new technologies in controlled small scale then scale up to major national disasters. •Link with industry specific scenarios where technology is used and then scale up to national level disasters. •Diversify your technology supplier network to minimize risks. •Embrace new technologies and try out all new technologies and seek ways to capitalize on their benefits. •Embed digital innovations elements in training strategies to professionalize NDM. •Incorporate a culture of new technology use in all day to day activities of NDM. •Test to ensure that for any technology you use/choose, there is a way to work without it. •Provide a safe place for exercising and trying new technologies where people are less afraid of failure.