Innovation for Public Safety: Unblur’s Pilot Program to bring technology to Emergency Services

During an emergency, First Responders are saturated with unfiltered information rapidly coming from multiple sources. Decision making, team coordination, and crew safety become harder. With this premise at the core, Unblur has launched a project to help Incident Commanders make faster, safer decisions on the field, with a simple intelligent tool.

Being part of the Pilot Program means front-line commanders will incorporate the latest technology available into their work-frame.

Complex circumstances

It’s no news that technology has great potential to support Public Safety, but bringing innovation into emergency situations can be challenging.

Data saturation: During an incident there’s a huge amount of information coming from multiple sources, causing field commanders to be saturated. Unifying and categorizing critical data is key to facilitating the decision-making process while ensuring crew safety.

Coordination effectiveness: Solutions have to be designed for complex and dynamic environments, collecting and showing valuable information in the simplest way possible. Currently, information is shared via paper-based tools, radio communications, and tech is divided into silos that don’t allow easy info sharing.

Tech ineffectiveness: A tool designed with First Responders as end-users must contemplate the field reality. Technology is constantly shifting, letting an abundance of tools obsolete.

Expensive to readapt, incomprehensible devices end up in storage, increasing frustration, and unable to provide the necessary aid. The alternatives should be able to evolve and adapt to the needs Incident Commanders may have in the future.

Open source, agile, -easy-to-understand- end user-focused technology, is without a doubt the path to innovation as we understand it.

Co-creation is in our DNA

The Pilot Program aims to promote the digital transformation within emergency scenarios, by simplifying technology. This initiative not only gives First Responders the chance to access the latest tools, but it allows them to directly influence why and how it should work, ensuring usability and real value for Emergency Services all around Europe.

Every Fire Service participating in the Pilot Program will have access to IRIS Core, our incident management software.

IRIS is already being used across the UK and Spain, in real-life emergency situations, however, this project’s culture revolves around continuous evolution, and this is where the co-creational role of First Responders comes into place.

Field Officers will work closely with Unblur’s Product team, testing new features and prototypes in controlled simulated scenarios, participating in feedback sessions that will allow us to transform first-hand experience into new functionalities, to validate and integrate into our software.

Ultimately the Pilot Program also looks to serve as a networking platform so that Public Safety bodies around the world can share experiences and knowledge.

Focusing on the problem: 3 main areas

Enhance the data available and how we interact with it

IRIS integrates, produces, and lays out all the relevant data needed to improve decision-making and team coordination, to increase situation awareness on every stage of an incident. From the moment an emergency is reported to the post-incident evaluation of the response, First Responders will interact with effective tools under continuous improvement, that adapt to the real needs on the field, such as:

• Integrate building safety data.
• 3D Models & 3D visual tools for incident management.
• Indoor tracking integration.
• Automatic incident briefs with text 2 voice.
• Automatize reporting.
• Customization tools to create your own forms, symbols, etc.
• Thermal imagery & data integration.
• Integrations with SOPs (Standard Operational Protocols).

Advance usability to make IRIS more seamless

Once all these cutting edge features are available, what do I do with them?Usability is as important for Unblur as the development of technology itself. Understandable, easy to use features, can change the outcome of an emergency situation, and the way Emergency Services relate to technology altogether. Being able to transmit instruction through voice commands, for example, permits Incident Commanders to save time and dedicate their attention to more pressing scenarios.

• Augmented Reality interface (with HD4000 from Zebra).
• Voice Commands to operate IRIS with voice.

Machine-learning:

IRIS is an intelligent command center capable of speeding decision-making by suggesting recommendations based on processed real field information. Its algorithms process and categorizes officers’ expertise and different incident outcomes to produce new possible protocols to support officers’ tasks during an emergency.

Pilot Program

IRIS Core & Tactics

Standard Subscription to IRIS Core and IRIS Tactics also means having access to services of maintenance, support, updates, and hosting. Training of users Integration with Control Room software and Risk Management systems if available.

Technology Know-how

Gain empirical knowledge on how tech benefits your service. Access technology experts to understand how technology can be easily implemented in the Service operations.

Influence future technology

Directly influence the features of future releases to adapt them to the Service needs. Constant revisions.

Procurement Advantages

In addition to a very discounted subscription to IRIS Core for the duration of the program, Emergency Services participating in this Pilot Program will have a reduced procurement cost once the technology is available.