BEACON — Common Operating Picture

What it is

BEACON is an open-source common operating picture for emergency managers. It gathers live public data — fire detections, floods and river gauges, weather and air quality, storm products, official alerts, population and infrastructure — onto one map with a source-cited situation report, and ties it to responder logistics: resources, tasks, shelters and evacuation routes. Every figure is computed deterministically and traced to its source; the AI only narrates, and a human confirms every public action. It runs fully offline with zero keys, and live on free public sources.

Contest status

Challenge

IEEE Response Quest 2026, a competition of the IEEE

Entry

“BEACON” · Phase-2 concept accepted (jury 4.48 / 5)

Phase 3 — product

Submitted. The submission window closed on Friday 9 October 2026.

Evaluation and winners

November to December 2026, per the official timeline. Awaiting evaluation.

Access for judges and reviewers

1. The live deployment at this address is switched off between review sessions and is brought online on request by the entrant, usually within the same day.
2. To review it, contact the entrant through the Response Quest portal or the e-mail address given in the entry. The deployment is then started and sign-in accounts for the operator roles are provided. The public picture needs no account.
3. No access is needed to evaluate: the repository reproduces the complete product on your own machine with one command and zero keys — docker compose -f infra/docker-compose.yml up -d --build