Hackathons and challenges drum up creative solutions for responders

 

Connecting state and local government leaders

Crowdsourcing is delivering creative technology solutions to the responder community thanks to challenges from IBM, AT&T FirstNet and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

*** IBM's Call for Code 2019 Global Challenge sought solutions to help mitigate the impacts of natural disasters and enable first responders to better support survivors.

The winning project, Prometeo, was submitted by a Spanish team that included a nurse, a firefighter and software developers. The team created a combination hardware-software solution. The smartphone-sized wearable device that straps to responders' arms carries sensors that measure environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and smoke concentration and send the data to IBM's Cloud IoT platform. The data is then passed to a Watson-based machine learning model, which analyses the information and translates it into color-coded status alerts that fire command centers can use to  monitor the health of each deployed firefighter in real-time.

More than 180,000 individuals from 165 nations participated this year's challenge, according to IBM.  Participants included independent and enterprise developers, data scientists, activists and students who used  data from The Weather Company and IBM Cloud, Watson and IBM Blockchain to create more than 5,000 applications to help prepare for and mitigate the impact of natural disasters.

Second place was awarded to Sparrow, an open source conversational AI platform that helps users address their physical and psychological well-being during and after natural disasters by matching them with automated support and live experts.  Third place awarded to Rove, an SMS chatbot that uses natural language understanding to give users health information during a natural disaster.

Last year's winning solution, Project Owl, recently completed a field tests in areas of Puerto Rico that are still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Maria.

*** At the fourth annual AT&T FirstNet Public Safety Hackathon, participants were challenged to develop mobile apps to improve communications in the first responder community.

One group of students addressed speeding response to opioid overdoses with an app that quickly connects community members with nearby suppliers of Narcan, a drug that counteracts overdoses. The app potentially could summon help faster than calling 911 and waiting for an ambulance.

“Basically all you would have to do is push a button on a screen if you or someone you know is overdosing. It immediately contacts surrounding community members and first responders who will receive the location of where the report was sent,” one of the students told the South Bend Tribune.  

The app won first place in “Best App for the Opioid Crisis” and second place in the “Best App from a Student Team” categories, earning the students $7,000 in prize money.

*** The National Institute of Standards and Technology's Tech to Protect Challenge has finished its first set of regional coding contests designed to create technologies of the future for public safety communications.  Teams in four cities -- Washington D.C., Chicago, Denver and College Station, Texas  -- spent three days coding to solve public safety challenges from a diverse set of 10 contest technical areas. See the list of winners here

The program is offering more than $2 million in prizes to improve centralized mobile dashboards, GIS mapping of LTE coverage areas, augmented reality applications, enhanced digital security and tracking of responder and patient health. The federally funded program is led by the NIST's Public Safety Communications Research Division.

The next set of events will be held Nov. 1-3 in six major cities.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.