Riots, school shootings, the pandemic and other emergency situations are harsh reminders of our antiquated 9-1-1 response systems. Over 80% of calls come from cell phones and locating callers has become more challenging.

The simple act of texting 9-1-1 (or using social media to contact 9-1-1) is still not available nationwide and 9-1-1 systems don?t allow for the use of multi-media like photos and videos and lack supplemental information that would help dispatchers and first responders in the field.

A 9-1-1 transformation is underway (voice-centric to data-centric). One company is working to ensure the technology we use 24/7 can help us in emergency situations.

RapidDeploy, a cloud-based emergency response technology company, has developed the Unified Critical Response (UCR) System where the largest tech and public safety companies are integrating video sharing, texting, smart phone device location, real-time weather feeds and more into the cloud-based 9-1-1 platform. Source: rapiddeploy.com