I've spent years in emergency management, working with complex tabletop exercises (TTXs) designed to test response capabilities and identify gaps in emergency plans. I've seen exercises that took months to design and required teams of subject matter experts to execute.

So imagine my surprise when my 9-year-old son created a TTX in just 20 minutes.

Using Preppr.ai, our AI-powered emergency planning platform, he designed a tabletop exercise based on something he understood well: Monopoly. The familiar board game became his framework for exploring how communities respond when resources are limited and decisions have consequences. Check it out here.

His exercise wasn't perfect. It wasn't comprehensive. But it worked. And that revelation has profound implications for how we approach community resilience and why I am tackling swarm intelligent design functionality in Preppr.

The Preparedness Gap: A Tale of Two Worlds

The emergency management field has long struggled with a fundamental disconnect:

On one side, we have professional emergency managers with sophisticated tools, formal training, and complex exercises that simulate community-wide disasters. These professionals operate within structured frameworks like HSEEP (Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program) and manage multi-agency responses.

On the other side, we have everyday households—families who might (at best) have a basic emergency kit and a vague evacuation plan. Many have no preparedness measures at all.

This divide represents a vulnerability in our social fabric. When disasters strike, community resilience depends on preparedness at all levels. A well-prepared emergency management agency can't compensate for thousands of unprepared households.

Rethinking Emergency Preparedness: Accessibility is Key

My son's Monopoly-based exercise highlighted something crucial: emergency preparedness doesn't have to be complicated to be effective.

The exercise he created was simple. It leveraged a familiar game board to represent a community. It incorporated basic emergency management concepts like resource allocation, decision-making under pressure, and consequence management. And most importantly, it got us talking about disaster scenarios in a way that was engaging and approachable.

This experience reinforced my belief that emergency preparedness shouldn't be locked away with the experts. It needs to be accessible to everyone, from seasoned professionals to families around the kitchen table.

The Power of Swarm Intelligence in Emergency Planning

What makes this approach particularly powerful is combined with the concept of swarm intelligence—where collective wisdom emerges from diverse participants working independently within a shared framework.

When emergency exercises are created by various community members, from professionals to schoolchildren, something remarkable happens:

1. Knowledge Flows in Multiple Directions: Professional emergency managers can learn from the fresh perspectives and unconventional scenarios proposed by non-experts.

2. Hidden Vulnerabilities Emerge: People with different life experiences often identify risks that professionals might overlook.

3. Engagement Increases: When people participate in creating preparedness materials, they're more likely to implement recommended actions.

4. Resilience Builds Organically: As more community members engage with emergency planning, overall community preparedness improves.

Our experiments with Preppr.ai have shown that simple exercises designed across a self-organizing swarm could provide genuine value to non-experts while offering fresh perspectives to experienced emergency managers.

A 9-Year-Old's Tabletop Exercise: Breaking It Down

Let's look at what made my son's exercise effective, despite its simplicity:

1. Familiar Context: By using Monopoly as a framework, he created an immediately recognizable environment where the stakes and relationships were clear.

2. Clear Objectives: The exercise had defined goals that participants could understand.

3. Resource Constraints: Players had to make decisions with limited resources, simulating real disaster conditions.

4. Escalating Challenges: The scenario introduced complications that required adaptation.

5. Collaborative Problem-Solving: Success required working together to address the emergency.

While professional exercises might involve more complex questions, injects and formal evaluation processes, these core elements were present in my son's creation.

The exercise isn't designed to replace professional TTXs for emergency management agencies. Rather, it exists on a spectrum of preparedness activities that can reach audiences who would never participate in formal exercises.

How Preppr.ai Made It Possible

My son's experience with Preppr.ai demonstrates just how accessible emergency planning can become with the right tools. Here's how he did it:

1. Simple Interface: He started by selecting the "Create Exercise" option and choosing "Family" as the user type

2. Context Setting: When prompted for a content and capabilities framework, he typed "Monopoly board game" and the Preppr immediately understood the reference.

3. Theat Selection: When asked for the threat type, he typed "what do you think?" and Preppr offered economic troubles and competition between capitalist entities. (I got a chuckle out of this and explained what it meant).

4. Guided Development: Preppr.ai asked simple questions about the scenario, modules, questions and injects, which he answered in his own words.

5. Automated Framework: The platform automatically structured his inputs into a proper tabletop exercise format, complete with the HSEEP Sitman export.

The entire process took less than 20 minutes, and the result was a playable scenario that sparked meaningful conversation around our dining table.

Building Community Resilience From the Ground Up

This experience has reinforced our vision at Preppr.ai: democratizing emergency preparedness to build resilience from the ground up.

When households conduct simple tabletop exercises around the dinner table, they're not just preparing themselves—they're strengthening the entire community. When small businesses run basic emergency scenarios with their staff, they're building economic resilience that benefits everyone.

Preppr.ai makes this possible by:

• Reducing the technical knowledge needed to design effective exercises

• Scaling the creation process so exercises can be customized for different contexts

• Facilitating knowledge sharing across traditional boundaries

• Making preparedness engaging and accessible

Your Turn: Kitchen Table Emergency Planning

You don't need to be an emergency management professional to benefit from tabletop exercises. Here's how you can get started with Preppr.ai:

1. Start With What You Know: Use a familiar context as your framework—your neighborhood, workplace, or even a board game like my son did.

2. Keep It Simple: Focus on one type of emergency that's relevant to your area.

3. Ask Preppr Questions: What would you do first? Who would you contact? What resources would you need?

4. Introduce Complications: After discussing initial responses, add a twist. "What if the power was out?" or "What if roads were blocked?"

These simple exercises can spark important conversations, identify vulnerabilities, and build confidence in emergency situations.

Who Can Benefit from Preppr.ai?

Our platform is designed to serve multiple user groups, each with their own preparedness needs:

• Families: Create kitchen-table exercises that engage children and build household resilience

• Schools: Develop age-appropriate scenarios that teach students important emergency concepts

• Small Businesses: Design exercises tailored to specific workplace environments and risks

• Community Organizations: Create neighborhood-level exercises that build local connections

• Professional Emergency Managers: Generate diverse scenarios efficiently and tap into community insights

Each of these groups brings unique perspectives that collectively strengthen our approach to emergency preparedness.

The Future of Community Resilience

As we face increasing challenges from climate change, pandemics, and other threats, community resilience has never been more important. Building that resilience requires participation at all levels—from federal agencies to individual households.

By making emergency preparedness accessible through Preppr.ai and simplified exercises, we can bridge the gap between professional emergency management and everyday preparedness.

My son's Monopoly-based tabletop exercise might seem like a small thing. But it represents a powerful shift in how we approach community resilience—a shift toward inclusivity, accessibility, and collective wisdom.

When a 9-year-old can meaningfully participate in emergency preparedness, we've taken an important step toward safer, more resilient communities.

And that's a game where everybody wins.

About Preppr.ai

Preppr.ai is an AI-powered platform designed to democratize emergency preparedness. Our mission is to make tabletop exercises and emergency planning accessible to everyone, from professional emergency managers to families around the kitchen table.

Ready to try creating your own tabletop exercise? Get started with Preppr.ai today and see how easy emergency planning can be. What creative contexts might you use for your first exercise?