Senior Managers Complete Georgetown Emergency Preparedness Certificate

High-level professionals from a range of industries in Qatar were able to refine their skills in risk management and disaster recovery planning at a recent course held by Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies. The two-day intensive certificate program, titled ‘Emergency Preparedness: Developing & Evaluating Mitigation Plans’, was recently offered for the first time in Qatar and Oman.

Drawing on the strengths and expertise of faculty involved in Georgetown University’s Executive Masters of Professional Studies in Emergency and Disaster Management (EDM) degree, the short course aimed to leave participants with a greater understanding of the various approaches to planning their organizational response to hazards and disasters.

A number of the participants had not previously studied emergency and disaster management at an advanced level, but signed up for the course as they found that their daily work required a greater understanding of the subject. “I’ve been working in this field for the past three years. I thought a short course from Georgetown University would help me develop formal knowledge and a lay framework in place that I could use,” said Vipin Vijayakumar, senior risk engineer at Ashghal. “There was a lot of good information that I can take and go back to my organization and implement.”

“The instructors are very knowledgeable and very much subject matter experts,” said Khalid Ali Al-Jufairi (SFS ’09), Ph.D. candidate at the University of Paris-Sud and commercial strategy specialist at Ooredoo. “The content of the course was very relevant, as it gives you the analytical tools, procedures, and also the critical thinking that you need to bring to the table when you discuss risk assessment.”

Jaynald J. Canaria, a senior flight nurse and paramedic at Qatar Petroleum’s offshore operations, explained that he wanted to take the course because his job “requires constant planning, because hazard and risk are always there in the workplace.” “If you don’t know how to approach, how to mitigate, how to plan (especially for your response), then properties may be lost…or worse, lives may be lost,” he said.

The certificate program also served as an introduction to some of the topics which are discussed in greater depth in Georgetown’s new GCC-focused executive master’s degree. The University’s full EDM degree is tailored for the Gulf region, and seeks to provide professionals with the skills needed to effectively mitigate the impact of potential threats and manage response efforts across the region.

The first cohort of the EDM degree program will begin their studies in August 2017, and applications close on May 1. Interested students can find out more about the program on the website: https://cee.georgetown.edu/edm