Changing Climate, Unchanging Resilience.
Zenith helps your agency rebuild trust and transparency in disaster communication and management.
Zenith
Dr. Byeong Cheol Hwang
SCAD Department of User Experience Design
Time
April 2023 — June 2024
Tools
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, Rhino 3D
Overview
Rebuilding trust and transparency in disaster communication and management
Collaborators
This project is a collaborative effort between Gabriel Lam, Leah Jones, Tra Nguyen, and Guy Cassieri.
Gabriel is responsible for industrial design, brand identity, user interface design, and project management.
Providing clarity in complexity
Zenith empowers emergency management agencies to rapidly, efficiently, and comprehensively respond to critical situations by harnessing the power of advanced data analytics and real-time information systems within their secure operational environments.
By integrating disparate data sources and providing intuitive interfaces for swift, informed decision-making, Zenith delivers cutting-edge emergency response capabilities with robust security measures, all underpinned by a commitment to public safety and operational excellence.
All hands on deck, all at a glance.
The portal provides a comprehensive overview of ongoing emergency operations, allowing agency staff to monitor real-time status updates, resource allocation, and personnel deployment across all active incidents from a single unified dashboard.
Effortless coordination across government levels.
Seamless information sharing between local, state, and federal agencies ensures that critical data flows freely where it's needed most, eliminating communication silos that have historically hampered emergency response efforts.
Multi-layered insights for informed decision-making.
Dispatch and damage preview capabilities enable operators to assess situations before committing resources, combining satellite imagery, sensor data, and field reports into a layered intelligence view that supports data-driven operational decisions.
Safeguard yourself and those you love from uncertainty.
Zenith's civilian-facing application puts critical safety information directly in the hands of those who need it most, providing real-time evacuation routes, hazard alerts, and family connectivity tools during emergencies.
When flood, turn around don't drown.
Real-time flood mapping integrated with navigation ensures civilians never unknowingly drive into dangerous water levels, leveraging NASA and NOAA data for predictive flood modeling and safe route calculation.
Reliable communication through mesh networking.
The Zenith Go device creates a resilient mesh network that maintains family connectivity even when traditional cellular and internet infrastructure fails, ensuring no one is left without communication during critical moments.
Understanding the Challenge
Our research phase involved in-depth interviews with emergency responders and disaster survivors, technical analysis of infrastructure vulnerabilities, and comprehensive user journey mapping to identify critical touchpoints where technology could save lives.
Zenith has demonstrated effectiveness through collaborations and deployment during actual emergencies. The team presented to NASA Earth Science Division's Disasters Program.
— Hurricane Response Trial, Helene & Milton 2024