Washington, DC (February 19, 2013) - Tim Newberry, White Canvas Group Co-Founder and former US Navy submariner, appeared last night on Canada’s CTV News discussing the burgeoning topic of cyber-espionage.

Iadonisi, an expert in cyber strategy and unconventional warfare, explained that the attacks are no longer the result of a single dimension of either espionage, criminal pursuits or hackers, but originate from sources across the entire spectrum. He explained that many attacks not only seek to inflict real damage, but are pyschological in nature and intended to induce uncertainty and cause destabilization. When asked by McFarland how lawmakers can better protect the nation, Iadonisi said, “The nation needs to forge stronger public/private partnerhsips and leverage the expertise of both to jointly develop solutions.”

“First and foremost, we value a person’s character and help develop their talents—Chris has both. His ability to cultivate and implement fresh ideas in a challenging environment will unquestionably result in better products to our clients,” says Jon Iadonisi, WCG Co-Founder, and a former work colleague of Chris’s.

“I spoke alongside Du4 at the IO Global Conference in London this past summer, and from his presentation on digital futures, I knew we had to have him,” says Tim Newberry, WCG Co-Founder.

Chris had this to say regarding his hire:

“I’m thrilled to finally work alongside Jon and Tim under the White Canvas Group banner. I’ve watched these two exceptionally talented innovators grow their company from a couple fold-out tables in Jon’s bedroom during the worst economic times in 50 years, to the technological powerhouse that birthed GridMeNow™. I can’t wait to contribute to the next phase of WCG’s growth. The crew here is massively talented in technology development, creative design, and strategy. I’m going to learn as much as I contribute.

“As part of our merger, WCG will be integrating my work at mustbeawesome.com. Having experimented with a lot of digital influence techniques and strategies on my own, we’re going to integrate some of this mindshare into new WCG thought leadership and productize the designs that make it out of the skunkworks.”

“Du4,” as he is known on Twitter, brings over a decade’s experience in program management, communications and entertainment to his new role as Director of Operations. A graduate of both University of Southern Mississippi and Johns Hopkins University, he has written extensively about technology, policy and strategic interagency service within the U.S. government. Chris was a founding member of the U.S. Army’s IED Task Force Technology Team, which he helped grow into what is now known as the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO). He also piloted many studies into the emerging phenomena of social media as a program officer in irregular warfare and parlayed that work into larger investigations into the “art of the possible” in digital networks. His vocal and marketing work in the live music business will no doubt add a new creative aspect to WCG’s continuing success.

The article can be viewed here.

NOTE – the full video can be watched here!

Called GridMeNow, the White Canvas Group’s smartphone-based solution lets users share reports and images — automatically stamped with the time and location — that provide enhanced awareness of a given situation, which can be used to improve damage-assessment and recovery efforts, said Adam Miller, director the Huntingdon County Emergency Management Agency.

“We’re not as technologically resourced as metropolitan areas, so to gain situational awareness sometimes here is a big challenge,” Miller said during an interview with Urgent Communications. “Allowing folks to be able to snap a picture and send that to us — giving us information that is geo-coded — is just terribly useful.

“When [users] would see something, they would take a picture of it where they were, which would geo-code it on the map for us, send us the information that was relevant, and it would pop up on our screen. It really cut down on a couple of steps for us, and that’s big.

Miller said he first learned of GridMeNow about a year ago and had planned to deploy the solution in Huntingdon County this fall. However, he decided the county should use the solution on the eve of Superstorm Sandy’s landfall.

“Basically, the day before the event came … I said, ‘I believe we can use this and implement this right now,’” Miller said. “So, we pulled the trigger on it at the last minute, and I was shocked how simple it was for me to basically spin up users on it and start making reports from the field to us to start to develop a new level of situational awareness — and, boy, was it a treat.”

Establishing a trusted-source rollout of the White Canvas Group solution was “very intuitive,” Miller said. After entering a user’s phone number, e-mail and device model into the system, the GridMeNow installation instructions were delivered to the users, who began leveraging the technology quickly, he said.

“It was really easy for me … If you can operate Google Earth, you can operate this,” he said. “This is really a slick, non-hardware installation — this is all virtual. It was easy. It was instantaneous. It was nothing more than me putting in a couple of numbers, hitting ‘send’ and people get hooked up. That’s huge for us, because I don’t have the personnel and the resources to go out and build hardware solutions to solve this problem.”

Huntingdon County was not damaged by the storm as much as other parts of the northeast, but GridMeNow allowed emergency officials to assess problems quickly and is ideal for creating damage-assessment reports that are needed to receive federal aid, Miller said.

“When I want to paint a picture of the type of damage that my community has in developing a statement of impact for the federal government … there is no better way to paint a picture than to have actual imagery,” he said. Normally, it takes a long time to acquire such data, but with the GridMeNow system, the data-acquisition occurs in real time, according to Miller.

“I will be able to show the impact days before we would be able to compile that information for ourselves [using previous methods],” he said.

GridMeNow also proved to be an effective interoperability tool, as a variety of stakeholders — from the National Weather Service to state agencies — were given user access to the system, so that they could track storm damage in real time instead of having to wait hours for status updates, Miller said.

In the future, utility workers and possibly even citizens could be given access to the GridMeNow system, which would result in greater coverage of an event, he said.

“I don’t get excited about much, and I’ve worked with a lot of technology across a broad spectrum over the air. With this one here, the future is very open,” Miller said. “I can see this being an integral part of 911. One day, people will be using their cell phones and texting pictures and video of live incidents to emergency responders as they try to coordinate [resources].

“This is the easiest way to make a two-way communication, in my book. This is the best I’ve seen yet.”

With just two clicks on a Smartphone, GridMeNow enables operators to communicate, share, and use location-based visuals and reports in real-time. The simple-to-use technology seamlessly connects team members with the valuable information needed to make immediate decisions that can help save property and lives.

GridMeNow is quickly gaining popularity among private industry, state and local government and Department of Defense users. Most recently, a secure customized version of the technology was used during the Jackal Stone 2012 exercise in Croatia.

 “Our area, covering a rural population of 46,000 west of Harrisburg, PA, and spanning 889 square miles, was in the eye of the storm”, said Adam Miller, Director of the Huntingdon County Emergency Management Agency. “GridMeNow created an exceptional force multiplication that enhanced our efforts—effectively replacing boots on the ground and capturing critical images of damage and flood impacts in real time. The technology efficiently focused our communications, recovery and reporting efforts, and greatly exceeded our expectations.”