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On April 16, 2007 the Virginia Tech University experienced one of the worst school massacres in North American history, when Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech, killed 32 students and staff and left an additional 17 wounded. Unfortunately, much of the carnage perpetrated by Cho, could have been prevented had the university and campus security notified the student body sooner. This is because the attacks on Virginia Tech were carried out in two stages. At 9:24 am, Cho murdered two students in Virginia Tech’s residence hall and two hours and twenty minutes later Cho killed another 30 people. Consequently, after the first two murders, the university waited a full two hours before employing their Emergency Notification System in order to alert students of the shooting that had just occurred. This emergency notification was sent too late, as 20 minutes later, 30 more students were killed. Furthermore, the content of the emergency notification that was sent out to students lacked clarity and did not emphasize the urgency of the situation. Specifically the message sent out to students only stated that there had been a shooting and did not specify that those shot were murdered and that the killer had not been identified.
As a result of the incompetence of the Virginia Tech’s administration, which failed to prevent or mitigate the severity of this attack, they were forced to pay the victims’ families $3.7 million in a lawsuit settlement. Furthermore, these financial costs are only a fraction of the total amount spent by Virginia Tech on improved security and renovations, counselling services, and a public relations campaign. The total financial cost, according to the Washington Post, amounted to $42.8 million. Obviously, the financial cost cannot be compared to the human cost of this tragedy and the suffering and destruction of human life that occurred. However, it is important to factor all the costs related to this type of attack when universities implement risk management strategies in order to reduce the chances of this type of tragedy from occurring on their campuses.
Consequently, while Virginia Tech has spent millions in an attempt to provide some form of compensation for the victims and their families and improve campus security so that this type of attack does not happen again, no amount of money can be enough to compensate for the loss of life and repair Virginia Tech’s damaged public image. The loss of reputation that Virginia Tech suffered as a result of the shooting cannot be gauged through simple utilitarian calculations. Specifically, Virginia Tech is equated, in the eyes of many, with feelings of danger and fear and thus the massacre has immeasurably damaged the Virginia Tech public image. An example of how deeply the Virginia Tech reputation has been damaged is the type of content that surfaces on Google related to Virginia Tech. Specifically, when a user searches for Virginia Tech, the Wikipedia entry of the massacre is one of the first few links. This of course is just one of the thousands of articles online which give the perception that Virginia Tech is dangerous. If further research is conducted, it becomes clear that not only are these damaging articles prominently surfacing when people search for Virginia Tech online, but that hundreds of thousands of people every month are searching on Google for information related to the Virginia Tech massacre. For example, Google’s keyword tool which estimates monthly traffic volumes for a given search query shows that 135,000 people search for the term “Virginia Tech shooting” each month.
Most universities which have not had a massacre on campus of this scale and do not have this type of damaging content online nor do they have to worry about people searching for information about a terrible event in its history. Thus, Virginia Tech’s damaged reputation, the severe financial loss and most importantly the destruction of human life should be motivators to any school administrator to implement effective risk management strategies in order to prevent an attack like this from occurring on their campuses. When developing optimal risk management strategies that can reduce violent attacks on campus, it is important that universities employ the most effective security protocols and integrate cutting-edge technology into their Emergency Mass Notification Systems. Having both protocols that allow campus security staff to completely respond to emergencies and technology which allows for complex interactions between students, staff and security, can prevent another Virginia Tech-like attack from occurring.
Our company, Guardly, is deeply aware of these challenges that schools face and has developed its Safe Campus program to deliver an end-to-end solution for students and campus police to broadcast, respond and manage, and resolve emergencies quickly and efficiently on campus. Guardly is a mobile application which effectively turns your student’s smartphone into an emergency blue light phone. Using Guardly on your campus allows your students to immediately notify your campus security services and a custom group of contacts should an emergency occur. For example, in the instance of a Virginia Tech-like attack on campus, students and staff using Guardly’s GPS and location-aware technology can immediately notify campus police and a custom group of contacts with their exact location. Further, students or staff who experience an emergency can communicate with campus police and their contacts by phone call and secure instant messaging, allowing what could be dangerous situations to be easily conveyed. Using Guardly on campus can both improve the response time of first-responders and increase the quality of communication between students, staff and security personnel during these emergencies. Guardly Safe Campus can assist in mitigating the impact of an attack against human life on campus, helping to reduce both the human and financial costs which come as a result of such horrific attacks.
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Keeping your data safe online is a very important safety topic and vital to protecting your personal safety. You should be aware if your data is being made public online and understand the consequences that could result from this exposure.
Recently there has been a big scare in regards to online privacy. A smartphone application called “Girls Around Me” pulled publicly available information from the social networking applications Foursquare and Facebook to create a virtual stalking app. This app allows men to access publicly available check-in information from female Foursquare users and combine this data with personal and publicly available information from Facebook, such as profile pictures and relationship statuses. The reason this application so blatantly breaches privacy is that the women whose check-ins and profiles are displayed did not consent to make this information available through the app. Consequently, in the wrong hands of someone looking to inflict harm, this application could be dangerous; this grievous breach of privacy could lead to sexual assaults and threaten the personal security of women app users.
To prevent this threat to the personal safety of both women and men, changes with the way people interact with technology need to occur. These changes must take place on both an institutional and personal level. On an institutional level, social networks need to prevent these types of applications from accessing personal location data for the wrong reasons. Additionally social media companies need to make the privacy settings on their applications more transparent and easier to understand. Likewise, on a personal level women (and men) need to better understand the information they make publicly available on social networks. In the case of Girls Around Me, Foursquare banned the application from using its API to access its users check-in information. However, women who use social networking websites and mobile technology cannot just rely on technology companies to protect their personal safety by preventing these malicious applications from being developed. With thousands of applications submitted to the various app stores on a daily basis, women who fear being stalked should strongly consider educating themselves about the private data they may be publicly sharing through social networks and social media. Specifically, women need to understand the privacy settings on the various applications they use and know exactly what type of information they feel comfortable sharing, in order to improve their personal security.
Despite the dangers of applications, such as Girls Around Me, which use location-based technology and social media for malicious purposes; the vast majority of apps use these types of breakthrough technologies in order to improve the human condition. An example of an application that uses social media and breakthrough technologies to improve people’s personal security, is Guardly. Guardly is a location-based personal-safety application that allows users to instantly notify a custom group of contacts, with their exact location, should they find themselves in an emergency. Unlike these malicious applications, such as Girls Around Me, which deceitfully exploits the privacy of its users, Guardly’s users must authorize and download the application in order for it to get access to their information. Furthermore Guardly accesses this location-based information only during an emergency, when the ability to know a user’s location could be life-saving. Thus, unlike, Girls Around Me, which puts women in danger, Guardly keeps both men and women safe.
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Guardly works with many non-profit organizations that seek to increase the awareness of domestic violence. Washington D.C. based Becky’s Fund is a Guardly partner that understand the potential of technology to aid in the fight against violence and abuse. The Fund’s founder Becky Lee, recently blogged for The Huffington Post on “The Role of Mobile Apps in the Fight Against Intimate Partner Violence.” It’s an excellent piece and we’ve reprinted it in its entirety.
Becky Lee
As new technologies transform and revolutionize how we process and retrieve information, experts in the field of intimate partner violence (IPV) explore the use of technology as a means for improving survivor protection and for the advancement of IPV education. Becky’s Fund is a national non-profit organization, based in D.C., seeking to increase public awareness about IPV. Because one out of every four women will experience violence from an intimate partner in her lifetime, Becky’s Fund understands the importance of developing safe and effective methods for using various forms of technology in the fight against IPV. For instance, new smartphone apps like Guardly use the latest technologies and offer premium safety to users. Although technologies certainly come with dangers and limitations, they can also be used to empower survivors of IPV and to educate students vulnerable to dating violence about this prevalent and critical issue.
Dating violence on college campuses continues to reach staggering levels. One in three college students admits to either experiencing or perpetrating dating violence in their relationship, and at least one fifth of undergraduates in the United States report being physically abused by their partner. This statistic does not include incidences of psychological abuse between college dating partners which, according to several studies, accounts for the majority of IPV cases involving young people. Most post-secondary institutions fail to address dating violence and for those that do, research done on the effectiveness of college IPV prevention programs found that existing approaches have a limited impact on youth.
Information about IPV must be made available to young people in forms they can easily access. With books becoming antiquated relics of the past, many of today’s youth rely on their smartphones and new forms of media such as infographics, twitter streams and blogs to acquire new sources of information to meet their everyday needs. For this reason, we need to use technological resources to educate young people about IPV, especially as dating violence continues to be a big problem among college students.
It’s rare for today’s youth not to have access to an iPhone, Android or Blackberry device. Becky’s Fund, along with several other organizations, sees the benefits of making use of expanding technologies to reach young people today. The Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence has already developed a phone app meant to educate teens about healthy relationships, and organizations like SAFE Ireland, a group protecting women and children in the UK, have developed apps offering information for survivors and for their support networks.
Becky’s Fund understands and recognizes the dangers associated with using technology when trying to leave an abuser. There have been a number of privacy concerns raised about certain online websites and applications. For example, cookies and images from certain websites will remain on computers for extended periods of time, which can make traces of your internet browsing history available to hackers. Mobile phones can be used by abusers to harass their partners and can allow them to easily monitor the location of a partner. While there can be potential dangers associated with technology, there are also a number of benefits. Making use of these tools is vital in order to reach large audiences, particularly technology-savvy college students and other young people in desperate need of IPV education and resources. Still, it is important to know how to make use of these quickly expanding technologies in safe ways. For this reason, organizations like the Safety Net Project of the National Network to End Domestic Violence offer a number of technology safety tips for survivors and for organizations providing IPV related services. It is vital to remember that IPV smart phone apps are not life-saving tools, but rather educational resources for individuals facing dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations.
Guardly is a mobile app for smartphones that can help students and others faced with dating violence, abusive relationships or a simple desire to feel safe when walking alone at night. Guardly empowers its users by providing one-touch access to their safety network. Simply launching Guardly on a smartphone will instantly identify a user’s location and alert family, friends, campus security (at schools that have joined its Safe Campus Program) and 9-1-1 that they are having an emergency. Beyond simple notifications, Guardly instantly connects users to their contacts through conference call, instant messaging and real-time location tracking. Built-in security features include the ability to snap and share pictures of an assailant and sounding a loud whistle. Privacy is extremely important to Guardly and its mobile app will only track location data during an emergency incident. Because of the widespread reach of dating violence at post-secondary institutions, students should have tools at their disposal to easily access security services on their campus. Guardly’s service is available on iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices (coming soon to Android) and provides students with the necessary tools to more adequately protect themselves.
In a study conducted in collaboration with the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV), researchers identified technological resources as possibly vital additions to domestic violence services and recommended further research in this area. Researchers evaluated the WSCADV’s “Technology Safety Project” with favorable results, and suggested that when accompanied with education about technology safety, technology services for IPV can be both safe and valuable.
Today’s youth depend on technology for information. Reaching them requires using tools like smartphones and social media sites. However, because of the dangers associated with using certain technologies, students and other users, need to understand how to use these resources safely. Becky’s Fund understands the importance of having easily accessible resources for all and hopes that with the safe use of these new technologies, we can prevent future incidents of intimate partner violence from occurring.
Authored by Becky Lee, Executive Director of Becky’s Fund and Valerie Martin, Research and Development Intern for Becky’s Fund.
Follow her on twitter at www.twitter.com/enddv and on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BeckysFund#!/BeckysFund
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As the world surveys the damage dealt by the recent earthquake and Hurricane Irene, the Guardly Team is doing our best to learn from this experience to further enhance the mobile safety options available to people during an emergency.
When disaster strikes, one of the first things we do is reach for the phone: whether it’s to make a call for help, or alert loved ones of impending danger, phones have become an essential part of our emergency toolkits.
However, during a natural disaster, our heavy reliance on phones can lead to a shutdown of the vital networks that sustain them.
Case in point being the August 23 earthquake. Immediately following the tremors, several mobile phone providers reported heavy call volume, which led to network congestion, call spikes and service disruptions for up to an hour. Cellular relay stations have a limit on the number of calls they can simultaneously handle. Furthermore, calls of emergency response personnel are given priority on the network. This can result in one’s call getting cut off, or not going through at all.
Aside from voice calling, cell phone users have other lines of communication available to them in the course of an emergency. Short Message Service (SMS) texts require a fraction of the bandwidth of a call and can be typed anywhere at anytime. Emails are another alternative, as long as a wireless connection is available.
Guardly’s mobile personal safety app brings all of these avenues together: with just one-tap on their phone, users can call, text and email contacts in their personal safety network, as well as dial 911. And if users experience a service disruption, Guardly will continue to search for a network and automatically resend all alerts once a connection has been established.
Visit the Guardly website to find out more. Guardly is available on iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 smartphones. Guardly for Android is in development and will be announced shortly. Stay safe!
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“A child goes missing every 40 seconds in America.” That’s the first line that appears on a poster from the Federal Bureau of Investigation promoting their new mobile application: the Child ID app.
Available solely on the iPhone, the Child ID app acts as a storehouse where parents can save their children’s vital information, such as photographs, weight, height and identifying marks. When their child goes missing, parents can show nearby police or security officers their child’s data in order to assist the search process. The app also includes a section with helpful links and safety tips, and buttons that dial 911 or the NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children).
Since it’s recent August 5th launch, Child ID has received consistent criticism from its users regarding a few noticeable faults. The complaints focus on features that either lack some evidently necessary component, or perform superfluous functions.
The most common concern among users has been the app’s lack of password protection. This could potentially turn the app into an instrument of harm, should it fall into the wrong hands. Armed with a child’s detailed digital description, a predator would make easy work of tracking down his prey.
Another defect lies in the app’s emergency email function. The FBI website states that by “using a special tab on the app, you can also quickly and easily e-mail the information to authorities with a few clicks.” However, no email addresses are provided. Searching for law enforcement email addresses online is not something a parent has time for when their child has just gone missing.
Child ID’s helpful links and safety tips sections aren’t much help either, consisting of general, commonsense guidelines such as, “Do not leave your young children home alone,” and “Make sure that your child knows his/her full name.” While the inclusion of a help section is always welcome, in this case it does little to enhance the app’s value.
Though the FBI is to be commended for developing an app that strives to improve child safety, parents should know that there are superior alternatives available.
Guardly, a mobile personal safety app, allows parents and their children to stay connected at the first sign of an emergency. With just one touch, Guardly both alerts contacts in your personal safety network, and dials 911. Once connected, you can collaborate with friends and family, while Guardly’s real-time location tracking keeps your loved ones aware of your whereabouts, even if you’re on the move.
Visit the Guardly website to find out more. The Guardly app is available on iPhone through the Apple App Store, and is coming soon to Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 platforms. Stay safe!
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It’s 10:13 pm and I finally managed to finish editing my video project. As I leave the deserted multimedia lab, I contemplate how I’m going to get home. Do I walk to the outskirts of campus and catch the local bus, or do I face the cold and trek through the neighbourhood next to mine? I decide walking home would be best since the buses don’t run as often after 7 pm, plus I could use some fresh air after being cooped up in the lab all day. Before leaving the building, I lower the volume on my iPod and send a quick text to my sister letting her know I’ll be home soon so we can Skype.
What I just did before leaving wasn’t because I care about my hearing, or feel the need to remind my sister of our date, it was for my safety. Being a young female student at university, I’m conscious of the dangers of walking alone at night so I take care in ensuring I’m aware of my surroundings. Even though there are university security officers and emergency poles located throughout the campus, I still try to do my part for staying safe at school.
We too often read about young women being assaulted while trying to cross a school campus. These are unfortunate incidents and they happen to occur at random. It is important for students to be proactive about their safety at college.
Earlier this month, a young student was attacked while walking through the Louisiana State University (LSU) Parade Grounds at night. The female student managed to fight off her attacker, but police officials were unable to locate the suspect. Similar incidents, which have raised school safety concerns, also occurred near the UC Berkeley and Georgia State University campuses.
Students should know that they have options for managing their safety. A new iPhone application, Guardly, is one of them. Guardly is an emergency services application that alerts and connects your personal safety network via voice conference, sms, email and web. With the touch of a button, you can notify authorities of your situation and receive a faster response.
The use of this application isn’t limited to students walking alone at night though, it extends to other emergencies that can affect personal and public safety. With severe weather patterns and low temperatures, accidents such as this can easily occur.
Queen’s University in Canada and the University of Iowa in the US both had incidents occur in their residence halls, resulting in these areas becoming a concern for campus safety. A recent shooting at San Jose University show that gun violence on campus isn’t always random.
The Guardly app can also help friends and emergency responders arrive at the scene of common campus traffic accidents faster, which may help reduce the seriousness of victims’ injuries. American Ivy League school Stanford recently experienced a similar accident leaving a female pedestrian injured.
To learn more about how Guardly can help you, visit the Guardly product overview page to find out more about the app. The Guardly app will be available in April 2011 through the Apple App Store, and on Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone platforms within the next few months. Stay safe!
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Do you enjoy helping others? Could you handle an emergency? Would you like to provide extra assistance to those in need? If so, there’s an iPhone app designed to get you involved. In the San Francisco suburb of San Ramon, California, a new iPhone app titled Fire Department is preparing for its launch. The purpose of the application is to allow iPhone users to have access to emergency activity in the community so that help may be provided.
As noted in recent Forbes and TechCrunch articles, this technology empowers the community to help save lives. Notifications are sent to iPhone users with the app, providing details on the emergency and locations of the nearest Automated External Defibrillator (AEDs). This innovative application highlights how smartphones are going above and beyond the basics of calling and texting, to make a difference between life and death.
There couldn’t have been a better time for this app to launch as over the last year the Ontario Legislature has been reviewing Bill 41, the Defibrillator Access Act, 2010. This legislation would mandate AEDs to be installed in all public buildings. Bill 41 is currently in its third reading, and should it be enacted, it would be the first of its kind in Canada. Since 2001, all fifty states in America had enacted defibrillator laws or adopted regulations. The American Heart Association notes that at least 20,000 lives could be saved annually by using AEDs during sudden cardiac arrest. By encouraging the use of AEDs and making them accessible, as many as 50,000 deaths from cardiac arrest could be prevented each year (National Conference of State Legislatures).
Guardly is a strong advocate of personal safety, and with the hopes of Bill 41 being passed in Ontario our application could go beyond alerting your personal safety network to providing immediate assistance that may directly save lives. When handling a cardiac arrest emergency, timing is critical and being aware of the locations of AEDs is crucial. In recent news, a Macleans study indicated that the odds of surviving a cardiac arrest when receiving electrical shocks are higher for individuals who are in a public venue compared to those who are at home. It found that 34% of cardiac arrest victims who received electrical shocks from a defibrillator in public venues survived, versus only 11.6 per cent of those shocked at home.
Guardly understands the importance of AEDs and we hope to partner with companies that can provide that data to incorporate a similar feature to that of Fire Department in our own safety application in the future. For now, Guardly will compliment such apps as Fire Department by allowing users to instantly alert, connect, and then collaborate with their personal safety network when having an emergency. Our mission is to help save lives by reducing the amount of time it takes for responders to react in an emergency. For more information on how the Guardly app works visit the overview section on our company website. Stay safe!
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Source: VentureBeat (written by Matt Marshall).
There’s a lot of buzz about the innovation renaissance in New York. But the action in Toronto, just 340 miles to the north — and I do mean north — often goes unnoticed.
A week ago, on the tail of a snowstorm, VentureBeat landed in Toronto and held our first-ever meetup there — part of our prowl for the best companies in the world. Here’s how these events work: We partner with savvy investors to provide feedback, and invite them to DEMO, the product-launch conference I executive produce, if they’re a good fit.
We found the city humming. Some 277 people turned out to our evening meetup (photo top left), organized on just two weeks’ notice. With the mobile revolution in full force, Toronto benefits from the local talent. RIM, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, is located in Waterloo, about an hour away but part of the local ecosystem. Employees are starting to leave RIM to start cool companies. Rogers, a major wireless communications company, is investing in startups through its venture arm, which was our local partner for screening hot startups. And local universities pump out a qualified workforce – a diverse group of systems designers and hardware, software, electrical and computer science engineers.
That diversity is a perfect recipe for a firm like Xtreme Labs, a Toronto-based mobile developer shop that has exploded to 95 developers, from just 15 only a year and a half ago — and with plans to hire another 50 developers. Farhan Thawar, VP of engineering at Xtreme, tells me he’s sucking up talent from anywhere he can find it — hiring Americans for the first time in his decade-long experience in hiring, pulling them in from places like California and New York — a reverse brain-drain that has long flowed in the opposite direction. Xtreme made its name by developing deep expertise in building native apps for the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and now Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7.
Xtreme has kicked off its own incubator arm, and is supporting startups such as Guard.ly, a super simple app that offers personal security in cloud by letting your friends know where you are at all times, and Pophire, which helps companies leverage the social networks of their employees to get referrals for prospective employees.
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