Updated: Feb 08, 2022
Published: Apr 13, 2018
Winning Apps at the FirstNet Public Safety Hackathon
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We headed down to San Francisco, California On March 23rd and 24th for the first ever FirstNet Public Safety Hackathon. For this event, we challenged developers to build mobile apps and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for first responders either from sample problem statements and use cases provided form the first responder community or using their own ingenuity and advice from onsite first responder experts. Teams competed in categories focused on law enforcement, firefighters, emergency management, and emergency medicine using technologies from FirstNet, Esri, Samsung and IBM. The community responded. Over 230 attendees came to the event and completed 28 solutions that were presented to our expert panel of judges.
Before we highlight some of the stellar applications created we would be remiss if we did not first thank our amazing co-organizers at FirstNet for their incredible support at producing this event. In addition, we’d like to thank our wonderful sponsors at Samsung, IBM, and Esri for some great technology to use at the hack and amazing onsite support to help teams succeed. Lastly, we’d like to thank Covo for being a truly amazing host and our incredible first responder subject matter experts and judges that gave up their weekends to support of their passion for improving first responder outcomes.
The first app to highlight is Hydro Pump, the winner of the best use case for firefighters. Their solution focused on helping firefighters in areas with limited water access by providing a more comprehensive map of local water sources (specifically nearby pools, which are retrofitted for use by firefighters). The team used a combination of Esri ArcGIS and IBM Watson to locate and map pool locations and overlay those with other standard water sources to provide firefighters with a complete map of nearby options to better operate when in the field. This solution was impressive both in the use of available technologies and in addressing a real world problem in an elegant way.
CitiSense, the winner of best use case for law enforcement, is another interesting solution to highlight. This solution provides a platform that analyzes anonymous tips before providing that information to human resources to further analyze and verify the data. It’s important to note that this is a common solution in other markets and not as technically difficult as many other entries, however, it’s potential impact is quite large. Feedback from our judges was that it’s important to understand that simple solutions like this could be invaluable to first responders and are needed to help bring this market into the 21st century.
Without further ado, here are our winners:
- Best Solution Overall
- 1st Place: First Assist
“First Assist is a web-based app that collects and sorts live data from people with mobility disabilities and sends reports to the fire department data center during an emergency, prioritizing the rescue procedures based on situational and health conditions.” - 2nd Best App Overall: it
“Imagine, there was a shooting, and you called 911… and so did everybody else. The line is busy, receiving multiple calls reporting the same thing. Imagine, you got injured and called 911, but what if the line is busy? Dispatch.it uses an algorithm to prioritize urgent at-risk callers and obtain crucial information for first responders. When the line is busy, 911 callers get a text link with situation information and a color-coded evacuation map based on the caller’s GPS coordinates. It qualifies callers based on injuries, into two types: those who need help or those how want to report, allowing users that need help to get immediate response and aid, and others users to get evacuations and reassurance follow-up. The app then provides first responders with concise situation information and casualty injury and location information.” - 3rd Best App Overall & Best Use of Esri: SRescue
“Every second is crucial when lives are at stake. Clocks tick as firefighters struggle to gather information and coordinate efforts. With SRescue, every man and victim’s movement and health is tracked and displayed live on a 3D map. Men are directed to victims in critical condition. SRescue is the commander’s web app for diagnosing the situation and coordinating rescue efforts in the least time possible, so these precious seconds can be redirected to saving lives.”
- 1st Place: First Assist
- Best Use Case for Law Enforcement: CitiSense
“Citizens are often hesitant to call 911 to report suspicious activity, which then flies under the radar until a crime occurs. CitiSense makes the phrase See something, say something as easy as it sounds. By providing a simple and anonymous tipline for citizens to report their concerns, these reports are crowd sourced and analyzed for tone, location, and frequency, and then sent to a real-time crime center for further analysis and coordination with police dispatch. Simultaneously, CitiSense identifies points of interest and informs law enforcement about hotspots to investigate in the vicinity of their current beat, making patrol more efficient. CitiSense reduces the bystander effect by getting citizens more involved in public safety, and enables police officers to proactively respond to the concerns of their community.” - Best Use Case for Firefighters: Hydro Find
“The app allows first responders to quickly locate the nearest water sources in an emergency including hydrants as well as non-traditional sources such as rivers and residential pools.” - Best Use Case for EMS/EMT: MEDGEL
“In an emergency, medical teams have trouble locating the patient, and recording and reporting their vital signs back to the hospital. Time is wasted for every step mentioned. We want to save time, to save more lives. MEDGEL locates the patient quickly and uses voice recognition to directly transfer audio and photo information about the patient to the hospital in real-time. We make the profiling of patientS easy, accessible, and efficient.” - Best Use of IBM & Samsung: Omni Rescue
“Omni Rescue tackles several problems first responders face today: Lack of communication between colleagues and knowledge of their whereabouts, and inability to playback important audio messages, video footage, and conversation between first responders. Our solution is a map that shows in real-time locations of EMS, firefighters and police that are coming into the impact scene, as well as the victim and suspect. We also created a communication space that is shared with the involved police, EMS, and firefighters for a transparent and communal sharing of information.”
You can learn more about the other apps created below (descriptions provided by teams & teams without descriptions not included):
|
App Name |
Description |
| First Drone AI Responder | Using drones to identify victims for firefighters in a disaster situation. |
| MEDGEL | In an emergency, medical teams have trouble locating the patient, and recording and reporting their vital signs back to the hospital. Time is wasted for every step mentioned. We want to save time, to save more lives. MEDGEL locates the patient quickly and uses voice recognition to directly transfer audio and photo information about the patient to the hospital in real-time. We make the profiling of patientS easy, accessible, and efficient |
| Libra | The app improves efficacy at critical times, such as after a disaster or terrorist attack. to enhance collaboration and data transmission. It uses Watson AI to detect keywords from an incoming phone call and sends it live to the appropriate governmental service. Such as sending fire related issues to firefighters, and health conditions to medical services. Second, it updates a live heat map that’s available to all departments showing risky areas and available resource scope. The map also provides smart distribution of resources and integration between all parties involved. |
| RespondFirst | RespondFirst is an intuitive app suite that activates trained civilians/off-duty professionals in the vicinity to help at the scene. The app sends notifications, providing directions, and establishing a secure connection to relay real-time information from the first responders to the help on the way. |
| HelpOut | When a 911 event happens HelpOut App sends a notification to everyone who is registered. They can respond to 911 to help the first responders if they are in the area. |
| AR Rescue | Help saving lives in disaster rescue operations by using drones to scan the area, IBM Watson to find survivors and dangers, and augmented reality allows the rescue team to quickly get to the victims while avoiding disaster’s dangers. |
| First assist | First Assist is a web-based app that collects and sorts live data from people with mobility disabilities and sends reports to the fire department data center during an emergency, prioritizing the rescue procedures based on situational and health conditions. |
| Hydro Find | The app allows first responders to quickly locate the nearest water sources in an emergency including hydrants as well as non-traditional sources such as rivers and residential pools. |
| BlueBadge | First responders are among us. In a distress situation, by-standers can dramatically improve the response time and quality in the first minutes and even after professional personnel arrives. BlueBadge is a mobile app that provides two-way communication to first responders and by-standers in a distress situation. Also includes general alert messages, flag dange,r and face recognition to help with locating missing persons. |
| MedVault | MedVault is a mobile app that allows EMS first responders to access medical information directly from the patient’s phone. In a medical emergency, every second counts. Victims in a medical emergency are often in shock and are not able to provide first responders with crucial information. MedVault allows first responders and doctors to access patient medical information in a matter of seconds so that medical personnel can focus on treating the patient. |
| ShooterScout | On February 14, 19 year old, Nikolas Cruz, gunned down 17 unsuspecting students and staff in Parkland, Florida. The authorities were notified a few minutes after the first shot, but it was too late. Sadly, this isn’t an isolated case. According to CNN, there are six school shootings per month in the U.S. The average active shooter incident lasts for 12 minutes, but according to the Guardian it typically takes three to five minutes for the first person to call 911 after the first shot. With every second a matter of life and death for educators and young students, a three to five minute timeframe just for the police to be notified is absurd! What if the authorities could be notified in a matter of seconds, not minutes? Introducing ShooterScout, an artificially intelligent shooter tracking system that listens for gunshots, uses machine learning for accurate detection, and immediately reports the shooter’s location to the authorities, all in a matter of seconds. ShooterScout saves time, so authorities can save lives. |
| FireAway | FireAway is a computer vision platform that uses live streaming from drones and analizes image data (using IBM Watson) to provide optimal strategies to firefighters through smart Samsung wearables. This helps firefighters strategize their location and action plan based on data and artificial intelligence. The wearables ensure that firefighters receive information in parallel and are hands-free. |
| Omni Rescue | Omni Rescue tackles several problems first responders face today: Lack of communication between colleagues and knowledge of their whereabouts, and inability to playback important audio messages, video footage, and conversation between first responders. Our solution is a map that shows in real-time locations of EMS, firefighters and police that are coming into the impact scene, as well as the victim and suspect. We also created a communication space that is shared with the involved police, EMS, and firefighters for a transparent and communal sharing of information.” |
| Vital | – Allow firefighters to select the task from options in the list – Allow firefighters to start or stop a particular task and move on to another task – Reduces time to allocate/update new task for a firefighter with in place task selection option – Provides real time location and task of a firefighter to incident commander and other personnelFuture scope: – Create a mesh network using mobile hotspot instead of internet – Allow incident commander to broadcast VoIP to all firefighters |
| AllClear | AllClear offers a new standard in emergency information gathering procedures by providing real-time “quick” reports directly to first responders from teachers, students, and civilians caught in an active school shooting scenario. |
| Lifeline | Lifeline enables victims caught in a high-risk criminal scenario to send real-time data via audio clips to police officers, keeping authorities updated with accurate information while keeping victims safe without the risk of being discovered by the criminal. |
| dispatch.it | Imagine, there was a shooting, and you called 911… and so did everybody else. The line is busy, receiving multiple calls reporting the same thing. Imagine, you got injured and called 911, but what if the line is busy? Dispatch.it uses an algorithm to prioritize urgent at-risk callers and obtain crucial information for first responders. When the line is busy, 911 callers get a text link with situation information and a color-coded evacuation map based on the caller’s GPS coordinates. It qualifies callers based on injuries, into two types: those who need help or those how want to report, allowing users that need help to get immediate response and aid, and others users to get evacuations and reassurance follow-up. The app then provides first responders with concise situation information and casualty injury and location information |
| CitiSense | Citizens are often hesitant to call 911 to report suspicious activity, which then flies under the radar until a crime occurs. CitiSense makes the phrase See something, say something as easy as it sounds. By providing a simple and anonymous tipline for citizens to report their concerns, these reports are crowd sourced and analyzed for tone, location, and frequency, and then sent to a real-time crime center for further analysis and coordination with police dispatch. Simultaneously, CitiSense identifies points of interest and informs law enforcement about hotspots to investigate in the vicinity of their current beat, making patrol more efficient. CitiSense reduces the bystander effect by getting citizens more involved in public safety, and enables police officers to proactively respond to the concerns of their community.” |
| IncidentAlert | We allow first responders to subscribe to a channel that notifies them when an incident that they can take part of, such as a broken window incident will only notify the police in that county. The first responder can choose to respond or not. If they opt-in, they will get immediate directions to the incident and all first responders on the channel will be notify of their response. |
| FirstAlert | Any public emergency results in a lot of call traffic to emergency responders out of which huge chunk do not have any new information to report. Through this app we aim to reduce redundant call traffic to the 911 dispatcher by making everyone aware of existing incidents in their locality. The app updates the public with the status of reported incidents (being resolved or not), and ensures important info (severity/location etc.) directly reaches first responders to avoid the long chain of information passing. |
| HawkEye | We protect the protectors! HawkEye is an AI/ML based app that leverages FirstNet to support Incident commanders and battalion chiefs. By equipping firefighters with body camera, location, and IoT powered sensors, we have created a consolidated data platform. Using this information, first responders can coordinate, track relief efforts and protect other firefighters who are at the forefront risking their lives. In that critical timeframe, HawkEye would help them make more informed decisions. |
| AI Bayesian Context Engine for 911 Operators | Cost of emergency response is going up as volume of non-traditional request (e911, SMS, etc.) are on the rise. AI Bayesian Context Engine automatically triages incoming text based 911 requests, gathers context from social media, and coaches operators to prioritize first responder deployments, lowering the cost per call and speeding response times, saving lives and money in the process. |
| Situation | In an emergency scenario, there are several considerations that first responders face that can influence the outcome of the situation: how quickly they can be notified of the situation, the critical information that is available, and the communication capabilities once on-site. This military standard 810G certified android device and app provides remote communication support and feedback; reliable visual and audio documentation in the field; increases safety and training methods; and, offers an ability to access information hands-free while carrying out essential tasks. |
| SRescue | Every second is crucial when lives are at stake. Clocks tick as firefighters struggle to gather information and coordinate efforts. With SRescue, every man and victim’s movement and health are tracked and displayed live on a 3D map. Men are directed to victims in critical condition. SRescue is the commander’s web app for diagnosing the situation and coordinating rescue efforts in the least time possible, so these precious seconds can be redirected to saving lives. |
| Command Chat | A voice-to-text communications application that provides a secure back-channel for detailed and logged communications between officers and the incident commander. |
| Tweetpatcher | Provides comprehensive information for law enforcement personnel to investigate the incident with the most up to date information, aggregated information from sources before arriving at the premise. Information are collected from public accounts like social media and can later be extend to private information like video cameras and sensors. Information about the incident can be easily documented and collected for post incident investigation. |
| Smart Exit | AI app for fastest/safest EXIT OUT from a building in a fire and safest WAY IN for first responders. |
