Outstanding!  The Metropolitan Police go live on no less than six Hydra suites in their new training building.  This purpose built state of the art training centre is located at the Peel Centre and provides a 21st Century learning environment.  Lead by the OCU Commander Craig Haslem, his vision has been to build an Academy for all ranks and for both Police and Police Staff.  The Hydra team led by Anne French are co-located and are in the process of converting Hydra 6 courses to Hydra in the Cloud.  They have just successfully designed and delivered a new course at the highest level in the Met.  We in the Foundation are unbelievably proud to have worked alongside them and look forward to continuing the partnership. Adam and Steve have worked hard to ensure that this installation is absolutely perfect.

The Hydra Foundation is excited and proud of the partnership it has developed with Leeds Beckett University.  Together we have created a 21st Century Hydra Suite in their Business and Law Department.  The university teaching staff are hugely engaged in the student experience,  one that is all about learning.  Leeds now has developed a large group of Accredited Hydra Facilitators at the University.  These dynamic and talented people are now able to design and deliver highly relevant, risk-based, decision scenarios, that fully exploit the immersive Hydra methodologies.  By combining Business and Law, Leeds Beckett offer their own unique perspective and are fully engaged with the wider Hydra community, which has 80 centres delivering the methodologies.  Leeds Beckett are the only installation in the world, delivering Business and Law education to under and post graduate students, using Hydra.  It is working closely with the Hydra Foundation, on new scenarios to further its range of delivery both to university students and to the wider commercial and business communities. 

The Hydra Foundation in partnership with the National Crime Agency ran a 2 day workshop debriefing a European Cyber Crime exercise.  The debrief took place at the Europol Police HQ at the Hague.  The debrief looked at how European police investigators and prosecutors collaboratively work together in the joint investigation of Cyber criminality.  The data is currently being analysed and a full report will be forthcoming 

23rd February the Hydra Foundation working with the London Metropolitan Police delivered a Hydra workshop at the MPS Hydra centre at Earls Court.  Delegates from the National Senior Command Course, a course designed to develop the most senior police commanders in the country, attended a Critical Incident exercise alongside a 'Diamond' panel of community members.  The delegates were challenged to not only manage a range of critical incidents, but also to engage with the community and their needs.  

We were impressed with the considered and intelligent thinking demonstrated by the delegates and wish them all well in their future Senior Management careers.

On 9th and 10th of March, the Foundation ran a Hybrid 10kv and Hydra workshop for international Site Managers of this leading company.  27 Key leaders were taken through two days of critical thinking, critical decision making and strategic leadership.  The company has a strong ethics mission to protect its staff and operate responsibly. Over the two days the delegates lived through a simulated incident that tested their abilities to deal with a major incident and protect the public.

The Hydra Foundation were hugely impressed with the level of engagement, and the intelligent thinking displayed by the participants and their ethical and emotional responses.  Work is now underway to develop bespoke Hydra exercises to meet the specific needs of sites to be delivered across this impressive company's global business base.

On 7th March, The Hydra Foundation ran a debrief with the key Senior and Operational team members of Exercise Unified Response, a large scale and complex, live and command post exercise, which was held between 29 February 2016 and 3 March 2016. Please see http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/exercise-unified-response-scenario.asp

The debrief generated 30,000 words of meaningful learning, post event.  The team is presently analysing the data.  This largest exercise to be run in Europe was a complex scenario that presented a range of challenges to frontline responders from all participating agencies and specialist teams such as those that undertake Urban Search and Rescue (fire service), Hazardous Area Response Teams (ambulance service) and Disaster Victim Identification (police service).  The debrief focussed on the strategic management of the exercise and also the tactical response

This week Leeds Beckett University ran a two day Facilitators Accrediting Workshop in their brand new Hydra Suite.  The students were from Law, Journalism and the Management schools.  The course was excellent with huge engagement from all the delegates.  This was the first-run of their new Hydra Suite, which is a 21st Century installation.  Jonathan and Geoff from the Hydra Foundation ran the course. Leeds Beckett are the only university to focus Hydra on Law and Management

The First AFP SIO Course presents themselves for a Senate Committee scrutiny at Parliament House.  Delegates who had attended a two week course had to give evidence on their accountability in the investigation of Serious Crime as part of their course.  They were asked very searching questions and were able to defend their investigative decisions using their decision logs generated as part of the Hydra Exercise.  They performed brilliantly