CallAlert

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  GUI

There are many problems associated with 911 operating centers

One of the main problems we are targeting is that in emergency situations it might be difficult to make a phone call. Often, emergency situations require being quiet or in some situations even hiding.

There is a protocol for this though it is one I have never heard of and I’m sure many of you haven’t either. There are still problems with this, for example, it might be hard to give location or name if you are answering with a keypad, many of us are not familiar with this, and finally, it is not very convenient.

Another problem is that many operating centers suffer from underfunding, understaffing, and a lack of technology upgrades, This means that although apps such as Uber know your location, they may not. In emergency situations or in dropped calls they might not where to send emergency services. In fact, depending on what state you live in, the accuracy of the 911 dispatcher finding your location is very low, in many cases 10%.

With location-based services, why is this so difficult?

This is because the technology is mostly unchanged from the “landline days” when phones could be attached to a concrete home address because they were not mobile. 911 operating centers don’t have access to locate you based on your phone number, and many lack the technology and budget to get that ability. Now, there is a danger of not knowing the location (read stat*)

Our app solves inaccessibility to make phone calls during emergencies and the call center’s inability to track location.

Our app is a form which a user fills out. In this form, they can give their name and their emergency. By enabling location services, an accurate location can be provided which solves one of the problems listed previously. Finally, they can describe what kind of emergency service they require: Police assistance, ambulance or fire truck and the urgency.

The form is easy and quick to fill out with many answers automatically generated.

This app uses this information to call authorities. Of course, we directed it to call one of our phones, instead of 911, but by creating an automatic voice message-This solves the problem of having to remain silent in an emergency situation.

A future goal would be to move this app to be on the App store as a mobile application. We started working on this. We also would have to pay to remove the automatic message, since this is the first version of the app, we decided to keep it. Another goal could be to make it accessible in different languages and working with police stations at a state level can mean that states are more accepting of the calls and the state can help promote it as a helpful tool to citizens.

So that’s callalert, I wanted to thank WiCS and the sponsors. This was my first hackathon, and even though i just met these girls, I know it is their first hackathon as well. This experience was pretty amazing: I learned things, met amazing people, and I’m sure I want to continue attending hackathons. Thank you :)