Public Safety Community Experimenting with Apps, APCO Hears
Apps will dominate public safety endeavors like FirstNet and will be significant for first responders, said speakers at the second day of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials Broadband Summit. The meeting focused on many apps that are out there and how to figure out what features and tools will help public safety best. FirstNet will play a role, and APCO, the federal government, and others are already engaging with these issues, speakers said.
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Last month, APCO unveiled a collection of public safety apps on its website in a section called AppComm, intended to be a clearinghouse where people can rate and comment on what is initially a listing of 60 apps (http://bit.ly/15KmLMU). Jeff Cohen, APCO chief counsel, said much information about these public safety apps is anecdotal but APCO hopes to change that with its online offering. The public safety community is “starting to digest” these different apps, and it’s important to figure out what features are best, he said. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers released its own catalog of state mobile apps this week (CD May 14 p13). “It is critical that FirstNet and all the applications associated with it maintain a continuity of operations,” said APCO International Communications Center and 911 Services Director Jay English.
"FirstNet, from an applications perspective, is not looking to reinvent the wheel,” said New York City Police Deputy Chief Charles Dowd, a board member overseeing the proposed $7 billion public safety broadband network Tuesday. The FirstNet board is looking “very, very closely” at developing apps and what is out there now, he said. FirstNet consultant Peter Suh emphasized that younger people are “used to this medium” of social media and expect engagement on that level, he said. Public safety officials and the public at large may benefit from apps delivered to this end, especially with more vetting of such apps: “The discovery of those apps is rather random by the first responders.” FirstNet needs to look at how these tools pull from multiple data sources and examine what apps are already out there, Suh said.
The federal government welcomes such innovation and wants to be a “data sherpa” as people look for their “apps and tools,” said Brian Forde, a senior adviser to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer. He cited President Barack Obama’s recent order on open data and described the benefits of opening government data for GPS purposes. The government wants to apply that principle to data related to health, energy and public safety, he said, noting the data-focused events federal officials host.
One public safety app now is Streetwise CADlink, “an international communications network for fire departments,” said Phil Kouwe, president of Hangar 14 Solutions. It’s a cloud-based response information system and has scalability and interoperability, he said. The American Red Cross has also developed an app: “We wanted to create these complete solutions in the palm of your hand,” said the Red Cross’s Matt Goldfeder, senior director-health and safety product management, on the organization’s creation of a preparedness app in the last year. “We prioritized the content.” He described people’s fondness for using these apps during Superstorm Sandy and the reviews that have begun to come in of the app online. The app should make the preparation “logical, simple, achievable for folks,” he said.