Gone are the days when a technician, was simply a technician. It is no longer enough for humanitarian ICT responders to just have the technical skills, they need to be so much more. As first-responders, they must be able to deal with not only the physical demands of the situation, but also the emotional and psychological challenges.

Large-scale inter-agency emergency simulation exercise, OpEx Bravo was developed to meet these critical requirements.

OpEx Bravo is designed to further advance emergency response capabilities of the global ICT humanitarian community. Developed by the World Food Programme (WFP) in close cooperation with the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), this intensive course gives participants practical experience with solutions deployed by the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) in a simulated disaster environment.

OpEx Bravo consists of both technical and non-technical exercise injects designed to confront participants with incidents that can actually happen when working in an emergency. This experience teaches ICT responders how to manage and endure the unpredictable and uncertain situations often found in humanitarian emergencies.

The second session of OpEx Bravo was successfully held in March 2013. To date, 40 ICT responders from 17 different humanitarian organizations have completed the exercise.

As global lead of the ETC, WFP developed and coordinates OpEx Bravo in conjunction with ETC partners: Ericsson Response, emergency.lu, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and World Vision International (WVI). The exercise is funded by the Vodafone Foundation and hosted, through in-kind donation, by THW with financial support from the German Federal Foreign Office.

A key part of OpEx Bravo is for participants to learn from each other, leveraging past investment in the skill sets of team members. Shared experiences help to create strong bonds, as well as build an understanding of different approaches organizations take to emergency response. One of the outcomes achieved from OpEx Bravo is a sense of a common purpose, ensuring that when the next emergency strikes, the humanitarian ICT community can respond as one, operating effectively and efficiently, to save more lives.