By Kelly Hill

Amid a rapidly evolving technology landscape, how do public safety agencies find out about the latest and greatest options, and best practices on how to implement them? How do tech companies which want to serve the first responder market learn what their customers really need and how to make it real? And how do those two sides find each other during a global pandemic?

Three Department of Commerce agencies seek to answer those questions this way: With a free, online platform that seeks to build a “strategic nationwide network of organizations working to address disaster response and resiliency (R2) challenges with transformative technologies.” The US$2 million project, announced earlier this month, is funded through Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Public Safety Communications Research division, with programmatic support from the FirstNet Authority, and a US$1 million match commitment from the public-private partnership’s chosen partners: RapidSOS, ResponderCorp, the Orleans Parish Communication District in Louisiana, and the Western Fire Chiefs Association. The state of New Hampshire is a strategic partner as well.

The Accelerate R2 Networks platform, according to the federal agencies, “will be nation-wide in scope, with regional innovation clusters supported by government partners and local agencies to test and pilot resources needed to adopt new technology.”

Division chief for PSCR, Dereck Orr said that his division joined in because some of that new technology will focus on public safety communications, either as part of disaster response or recovery. The idea behind the R2 Networks challenge, he went on, is to “create a place where innovators can learn about public safety needs. So often, they just don’t realize or recognize the unique circumstances that public safety operates in, and so that makes it really difficult to deliver a product that would meet their strict standards. … The tech that public safety uses can mean the difference between life and death.”

He describes the R2 platform as a series of regional portals where public safety agencies and tech innovators can “meet” and access local information and materials: Public safety can check out what types of new technology are locally or regionally available, and tech companies can learn which nearby organizations are open to trying out new tech for potential pilot programs and providing feedback. Eventually, that may lead to in-person communication and meetings, but R2 is meant to be online support the first steps for public safety tech collaborations — a particularly timely resource right now, with conferences and travel restricted due to coronavirus.

PSCR is also putting forward its own efforts to highlight the intersection of tech and public safety — including its first-ever virtual PSCR stakeholder meeting, going on this week. Typically, the in-person meeting brings together hundreds of people and features dozens of demonstrations and sessions the most recent research in public safety communications and use of mobile broadband. PSCR has taken that event virtual, with panels, more than 50 tech demos and more than 70 sessions and research updates.

PSCR has a lot to showcase. The division received US$300 million, out of the same auction proceeds that funded the US$6 billion FirstNet-AT&T public-private partnership, to pursue and fund research projects that will open up new frontiers in public safety communications and bring new concepts closer to reality over. Someday, the FirstNet network may enable solutions based on PSCR-funded research.

There’s a catch, though: PSCR has to spend those research funds by 2022, and so it chose six areas on which to focus its investments: Enhanced user interfaces and user experiences designed for public safety; analytics; location-based services; mission-critical voice; security; and resilient systems. Some of the funds go to internal NIST projects, with about 100 scientists there devoting their work to furthering public safety comms-related work. PSCR is also funding external research and putting together a series of challenges with prize money, with over US$50 million grants made so far. PSCR plans at least half a dozen new challenges to go forward next year.

“It’s such a large and important mission, and we knew we’d be better off with recruiting as many experts and technologies as possible,” Orr said. In particular, he said, challenge participants “are most likely people and organizations that we would have never interacted with through a more traditional funding mechanism, so it’s been very beneficial.”

PSCR recently concluded its “Tech to Protect” challenge, which included public safety hackathons in 10 cities across the US and awarded US$800,000 worth of prizes in May. The challenge was unique in that it wasn’t a single-day hackathon, but was designed as a series of events, online and in-person, to bring application development along over a period of time. Tech to Protect focused on near-term innovation, although PSCR usually funds research to lay the groundwork for public safety advances that will come in the next five to 10 years. The winners, announced in May, received US$30,000 each in “seed” round prizes. In November, they can come back to PSCR for up to US$70,000 each in additional funds, depending on how much progress they’ve made on a growth strategy get their solutions closer to market and in the hands of first responders.

One of the apps included the use of a virtual assistant, directed by voice commands, to access lan-enforcement databases. Another team enabled a patient tagging system to include voice input, rather than relying on tablets or smartphones, which can be unresponsive to gloved hands.

“I have no doubt some of the solutions developed by Tech to Protect will find a home in the FirstNet App Catalog and more importantly, become the “go to” app that first responders rely on to perform their critical tasks,” retired firefighter Ray Lehr, one of the subject matter experts who participated, told PSCR. “I honestly believe a couple [of solutions]have the potential to become a product the EMS agencies around the country will be excited to use.”

Looking for more insights on technology development and use in public safety? Keep an eye out for RCR’s upcoming editorial feature report, to be published later this week, and join us for the accompanying webinar on Wednesday.      https://www.rcrwireless.com