Captain Ashraf Halawa is the Head of the oil and gas training program and vice dean for foreign affairs at the Arab Academy for science. technology and Maritime Transport based in Alexandra. The academy is one of the leading training organisations in the Middle East and have been using the Pisys Major Emergency Management training simulator in an on-site suite since 2017. He describes how his approach to MEM training was affected by the COVID pandemic.
‘During COVID it was difficult to hold MEM training courses where students had to share the same room – normally we use a pre-configured training suite which works well but of course students were unable to travel to the site and when they arrived it was difficult to hold courses due to restrictions on proximity etc.
When we contacted Pisys who supplied our on-site system we were delighted to hear that they had invested heavily in porting their system to the cloud – the system is available via the internet and so our instructors were able to recreate the exact scenarios which we required to ensure effective training. Meanwhile our students were able to join training sessions remotely, without having to travel or put themselves at any risk. The on-line simulator has the key features of the on-site suite including real time voice communications, PA, radio and telephone – just as one would expect in the real world environment. The students interact with realistic models and scenarios representing their working situation and the setup and execution was very quick and easy, with 24/7 support from Pisys.
I consider Pisys to be pioneers in this new method of delivering MEM courses online. we have always been very happy with their licensing model and Pisys continue to innovate with new features and models. They are a great company who stood with us during the pandemic, we consider them to be a good model for business and friendship’