Public-private partnership emergency.lu was formed with the aim of providing communication services in remote areas hit by humanitarian crises. An initiative between the Luxembourg government, SES, Hitec Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Air Ambulance, the platform was first deployed in January 2012 to provide assistance during the civil war in South Sudan.
Ten years later, it is now being deployed to help the humanitarian crisis that has swept through Ukraine following the invasion and targeting of civilians by Russian military forces.
“First, we proposed solutions for the humanitarian community in the crisis areas, so that the relief teams could communicate,” said Gilles Hoffmann, coordinator of the platform at the ministry of foreign affairs, who was speaking at the tenth anniversary celebrations at Luxembourg’s pavilion at Expo2021 in Dubai. “Without a network, without bandwidth, there is no work. Now, and more and more, we are also helping directly the populations affected by these crises. In Ukraine, we cannot yet intervene, because the humanitarian corridors are not open. But the platform is being deployed in Poland and we have trained teams on site, ready to respond as soon as possible.”
Gilles Hoffmann explains to Grand Duke Henri how emergency.lu has developed over the past decade. Photo: SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
The celebrations were attended by Grand Duke Henri during his three-day visit to the World Expo in Dubai. The anniversary coincides with the annual plenary of the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC), a global network of organisations that provide shared communications services in humanitarian emergencies. This is being led by the World Food Programme, at whose request emergency.lu was deployed to help with the Ukraine crisis.
First, we do not intervene if an international body does not ask us to. Second, we never want to compete with local operators
“We have two imperatives. First, we do not intervene if an international body does not ask us to. Second, we never want to compete with local operators,” Hoffmann explained.
That is not to say there is not competition from elsewhere. In Ukraine, Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation has also been deployed. “We do not see this as competition, rather as a complement. The satellites of Starlink and SES do not operate on the same orbits,” Hoffmann said.
During the grand duke’s visit, Hoffmann was able to explain how emergency.lu had developed over the past ten years. “At first, everyone was wondering what these Luxembourgers were doing with their telecommunications solution… Anyone can have an antenna, capacity on a satellite, that’s true. But we have developed real expertise, real know-how... We are also training people, and it has become an important part of our business,” he said.
Indeed, emergency.lu will continue to develop and broaden its capabilities, for example through the analysis of drone images by artificial intelligence.
Since 2012 the platform has been deployed in more than 20 different locations around the world. As well as responding to the Ukraine crisis, it is also currently operating in Tonga following the volcanic eruption that disrupted underwater fibre-optic links.
Marc Bichler, then director for development cooperation at the foreign ministry, explained emergency.lu’s mission at a TEDx talk in 2012.