The Center for Engineering and Sustainable Development Research (CESDR) of De La Salle University, in cooperation with the OML Center, organized a hands-on tutorial workshop entitled “An Introduction to Inoperability Input-Output Modeling (IIM) as a Tool for Disaster Risk Management” on September 25, 2013 at Trader’s Hotel, Manila. IIM is a risk modeling technique developed at the University of Virginia in the US in 2001, and has been successfully used to determine the socio-economic impacts of notable recent disasters such as the 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Fukushima earthquake. Its potential as a risk management technique in the Philippines is clear, but to date there is limited local expertise or interest in the use of IIM.

The workshop was conceived to train participants in the actual implementation of basic IIM calculations, using a combination of lectures and computational exercises. It was conducted by DLSU-based IIM researchers, Dr. Raymond R. Tan, Dr. Kathleen B. Aviso and Dr. Michael Angelo B. Promentilla along with a team of research assistants, and was planned with the support of key US-based collaborators, Krista Danielle Yu and Dr. Joost R. Santos of George Washington University. A diverse group of fifteen participants from government agencies, NGOs and academia attended the workshop.

This training was offered free of charge, as part of an IIM project co-funded by OML Center research grant and an internal university grant at DLSU. For more information about IIM or this project, you may contact the Project Leader, Dr. Raymond Tan: raymond.tan@dlsu.edu.ph.