Rapid Response: Building public safety apps in 24 hours

By Mark Reddish

If you’d seen the empty case of Red Bull, you’d believe me when I say that writing code can be extreme.  On May 2-3, I experienced my first app hackathon, an event that was hosted by AT&T and held at 1776 in Washington, D.C.  The 24 hour-long competition drew over one hundred participants, including public safety professionals who were invited by APCO to lend their considerable knowledge to help the developers understand what kinds of apps would benefit public safety.  The collaborations yielded 15 new conceptual apps for public safety.  In this post, I’d like to highlight a couple of the winning apps and describe how this event fits into the bigger picture of APCO’s work with public safety apps.

The hackathon began with a set of app Challenges that were associated with a particular subset of public safety use cases.  For example, the APCO Location Challenge asked developers to create apps that provide location information to first responders in the field or help PSAPs receive information to improve emergency response.  The winners of this challenge, who also won 2nd place overall, created an app called Beckon that leverages GPS and Bluetooth signals to guide first responders to victims and provide patient- and location-specific data as responders approach the scene.  As APCO, the Federal Communications Commission, and other stakeholders address 9-1-1 location accuracy requirements in a current regulatory proceeding, it was exciting to see an elegant model of how new technology can help emergency responders zero-in on wireless callers in need of assistance.

 

APCO Location Challenge Winner – Team Beckon


Another notable use of new technology was an app called Glass of Life.  This app used Google Glass to display schematics of hybrid automobiles for first responders using the Jaws of Life.  Speaking the vehicle make and model brings up schematics that illustrate hazards to avoid during the extrication, including high voltage lines, battery banks, and airbags.  The app also allows users to check the statuses of local hospitals.  Imagine you’re trying to coordinate receiving facilities for multiple patients.  By speaking the name of a hospital, you’re presented with a color-coded display on the Glass screen that indicates conditions such as whether the hospital is clear, out of cardiac monitors, out of ER beds, or on trauma bypass.

In addition to using cutting edge technology for their apps, the developers excelled because they took advantage of the public safety practitioners who were at the hackathon to serve as mentors.  Collectively representing decades of experience in emergency response, these public safety practitioners helped the developers understand how law enforcement, fire/rescue, and 9-1-1 centers operate.  For example, Team Beckon revised their plan after trying on a firefighter’s turnout gear and gloves, which showed them the difficulty firefighters would have with using a smartphone.  The idea for Glass of Life arose from a firefighter’s description of the scene of a high-priority auto extrication with multiple trauma patients.  Simply put, the developers who sought advice from public safety practitioners built better apps.

 

Firefighter Steve Birnbaum educates a developer:

 

The benefit of practitioner input came as no surprise, but it was a timely reminder of the importance of connecting developers with practitioners.  Just a week before the hackathon, APCO celebrated the one-year anniversary of AppComm.

 

appcomm_infographic

 

As the only website devoted to public safety apps, AppComm facilitates collaboration between developers, the general public, and public safety professionals with the goal of making apps more effective.  A recurring theme throughout our app-related panels and discussions at APCO events, comments on AppComm, and interactions during the hackathon is that developers are eager to learn about emergency response from the experts.  They want their apps to make a difference.  By taking advantage of opportunities to influence app development, public safety practitioners can ensure the creation of effective apps tailored to the community’s unique needs.

If you’re interested in public safety apps, consider joining an informal AppComm group to contribute to APCO’s efforts.  Contact [email protected].  We’re looking for a diverse set of volunteers; no particular expertise is required.  When practitioners connect with developers, great things can happen for public safety.

For more about the hackathon, including app descriptions and the full list of winners, check out AT&T’s blog.

 

Hackathon Sustenance:

Innovative Ideas from the Boston Emerging Technology Forum

By Mark Reddish

On December 3-4, APCO held an Emerging Technology Forum (ETF) in Boston, MA.  We were honored to have several officials join us, including FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, FirstNet Board Member Kevin McGinnis, and representatives from Boston police, fire, and EMS.  And, it being an APCO event, the audience was full of public safety professionals.  With so much expertise in one room, it was inevitable that the ETF would generate a high caliber discussion.  We sought to parlay this into a brainstorming session on creating effective apps for public safety.

On the morning of the second day, we held a couple of sessions focused on mobile apps.  The first was a demo of FireStop, an app developed by Princeton students through an entrepreneurship accelerator.  The founder and CEO, Charlie Jacobson, has been a volunteer firefighter since he was sixteen.  FireStop provides information for firefighters and incident commanders that makes fire ground operations safer and more efficient.  This team’s enthusiasm was infectious, and it was a tough act to follow.

Following the FireStop demo and an overview of AppComm, Chris Osgood and Nigel Jacobs from the Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics presented Citizens Connect, an app that helps citizens report problems to city officials.  When residents submit a report (e.g. pothole, graffiti, broken window), they receive a tracking number allowing them to track service and receive an alert when the problem is solved.  While keeping the city in shape impacts public safety, the real takeaway for our audience was the process behind Citizens Connect.  The Urban Mechanics’ model for community-oriented innovation, and the app it produced, can be replicated across the country. 

As we transitioned to the brainstorming session, Don Denning, Boston’s Public Safety CIO, tied it all together.  FireStop and Citizens Connect exemplify a new age of faster, affordable innovation that can and will eventually flow into the public safety community.  Life-changing apps can come from new sources that have yet to be fully tapped.  Our brainstorming session was geared toward illustrating the potential for public safety professionals and app developers to work together to create innovative solutions.  And that’s exactly what we saw.

Don Denning used this graphic (borrowed from Chris Osgood and Nigel Jacobs) to explain the brainstorming session’s concept to the audience.  This “innovation wheel” diagrams the process the Boston Urban Mechanics use to deliver better services to their citizens, and it also represents the development phases for apps like FireStop that target unique user needs.

For the brainstorming session, public safety experts would explain the challenges they face – identify problems – to tech savvy developers who might be able to create an app that would help.  Mr. Denning asked everyone to suspend their worries, legal apprehension, and technical doubt.  Liberated from these constraints, we stepped onto the top of the wheel and began to identify problems.

Our first prompt for the audience was “Reducing non-emergency calls to 9-1-1.“  The audience ran with it and came up with several ideas, the first of which was reframing the prompt as “Reducing the burden on 9-1-1.”  Here are a few of the ideas generated by the discussion:

  • An app called CT Police Phones provides non-emergency numbers based on a user’s GPS location.  It was developed by a dispatcher who had first-hand experience with the burden unnecessary calls place on PSAPs.  By expanding the app’s service across jurisdictions and operating platforms, maybe fewer people would place non-emergency calls to 9-1-1.
  • The public needs education on when it’s appropriate to call 9-1-1.  Maybe an education-focused app could provide a decision tree to guide potential callers.
  • An educational app could also provide 9-1-1 practice scenarios.  For children, this would be a way to teach them about how to call 9-1-1 and describe an emergency.  There are already educational apps for public safety responders, and a similar app for telecommunicators could present training simulations.
  • An app similar to public alerting systems could reduce duplicative 9-1-1 calls by showing the public what PSAPs know to help callers determine whether they have information worth sharing.

These are just a few of the interesting concepts that our public safety and technology experts bounced back and forth during the session.  We barely had time to delve into our second topic, “Crowdsourced response,” and didn’t even make it to our third.

Based on the productivity of this discussion, which occurred live with little prior preparation or notice, it’s clear that APCO members and the public safety community at large are eager to innovate.  And developers are increasingly interested in catering to this crowd.  In the past year, we’ve seen mobile app hackathons for public safety, more tech companies at APCO events, and continued user registrations and app submissions on AppComm

If you’re interested in public safety apps, consider attending APCO’s next Emerging Technology Forum in Orlando, February 26-27.  We plan to replicate this brainstorming session, albeit with different topics.  You can also register on AppComm and submit ideas privately or post them in the open Group Talk forum.  That wheel of innovation keeps turning.  I can’t wait to see what it spins out.

Data Jamming for Public Safety

Dateline October 2013

Public safety is clearly immersed in a new era of communications technology.  FirstNet continues to make progress, including the related planning efforts at the state and local levels.  The APCO 2013 exhibit floor featured more broadband and advanced communications tools, gear (some wearable), networks, and devices than ever before.  At APCO 2013 and other APCO events, we’re seeing growing interest and popularity in new topics like social media, data analytics, and cyber security.  And as well-evidenced by now with APCO’s Application Community (“AppComm”) website, there is strong interest and significant activity surrounding innovation in really effective and novel mobile apps for public safety and emergency response purposes.

Additionally, federal, state, and local governments are unleashing all kinds of publicly available data, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has been undertaking a series of “Data Jams” and “Datapaloozas,” led by U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, with some focused on public safety.  Essentially, these events bring together three distinct groups of people: data experts/statisticians (the nation’s top experts who are knowledgeable about the dataset that are available), “techies,” (talented innovator/entrepreneur types who create all kinds of new mobile apps and similar tools), and practitioners from the sector (in this case public safety) who become the focus of the event.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in such an event, called the “White House Law Enforcement Officer Safety Datajam,” held on September 26th in the beautiful Truman Room of the White House Conference Center. 

Better yet, I was joined by APCO President Gigi Smith, who, like many of her colleagues at APCO, brings a very impressive and high degree of public safety practitioner experience.  President Smith was especially suited for this Datajam, as her “regular job” is as Police Operations Manager for the Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center in Salt Lake City, UT.

The way these Datajams work is that the four-hour event begins with brief tutorials from the data and subject matter experts.  In this case, for the data portion we heard from Mr. Park himself, and other esteemed representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Transportation.  A “Law Enforcement Officer Safety 101” followed with an impressive line-up: Mr. Bart Johnson, Executive Director, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Mr. Mike Brown, Director, Office of Impaired Driving and Occupant Protection, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and Mr. Craig Floyd, Chairman and CEO, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

These gentlemen helped to paint a picture of the perils faced by officers and the major causes of law enforcement fatalities including vehicle/traffic-related and felonious and violent assaults.  The goal of the Data Jam was to figure out ways to use available datasets to create new communications tools to help improve officer safety.

Following the tutorials, we were broken down into separate groups, ensuring that each had a data expert, techie, and public safety practitioner.  Each group came up with concepts, presented their ideas to the full audience, and then everyone voted for their favorites.

It was remarkable how many excellent ideas came out of this brief but intense event.  President Smith’s group, for example, focused on creating an app to reduce vehicle-related deaths.  My group looked to create a situational awareness app that turns officer intuition into actionable information.  Another team thought of an idea to encourage police vest use by implanting sensors that would detect whether or not the officer is wearing a vest.

The next steps are for one or more of these ideas to be developed into a workable prototype for display and recognition at a future “Safety Datapalooza.”  

As illustrated by this Officer Safety Data Jam and similar events and efforts, the public safety community is truly on the cusp of benefiting from new innovations that can help save lives, lead to more efficient operations, and improve emergency response.

Happy Anniversary

Today marks the one-year anniversary of enactment of landmark legislation that created FirstNet and will lead to the deployment of an advanced, nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network.  From the printed words of the law, we are witnessing tangible evidence of what public safety successfully fought for, including a dedicated FirstNet board, armed with spectrum and funding resources and a commitment to achieving success.  Additionally, the board has created an esteemed body of state and local public safety and government professionals composing FirstNet’s public safety advisory committee (PSAC).  NTIA launched the state and local implementation grant program so critical to the consultation process with the FirstNet board. 

What will this next year bring? 

  • The wisdom of the state and local implementation grant program will become evident as it progresses. 
  • The PSAC will become a highly valuable resource to FirstNet. 
  • FirstNet will add to its staff and expand its outreach to all stakeholders. 
  • The national network architecture Congress tasked FirstNet with developing will begin to take shape.

What else should we be expecting? 

  • Potential technological advancements in network equipment, services, devices, apps, and antennas. 
  • Progress at international standards-setting bodies for public safety specific features. 
  • Cyber security awareness.  

Much of the first year necessarily involved downtime.  The FirstNet board wasn’t announced (pursuant to the legislation) until August 20th.  The first order of business had to include a number of organizational matters.  Further, the state and local implementation grant program criteria depended on the timing of FirstNet’s organization.  Yet we have witnessed appreciable progress.  With the state and local consultation process in progress, and the PSAC in place to further assist with advising the FirstNet Board regarding the public safety perspective, all signs point to much more progress to come.

The Spectrum Alphabet

For folks unfamiliar with the concept of “radiofrequency spectrum,” it wasn’t easy to comprehend what the heck the “D block” was and why it was so important for public safety.  Think of spectrum like highways – some are wider than others, some are better paved, some have more traffic, some are more direct, etc.  But instead of carrying vehicles, spectrum carries our voice and data communications over the air.  Historically, the FCC has collected certain frequency spectrum bands into “blocks” and labeled them after alphabetic letters for convenience of reference.  So the “D block” was a particular group of airwaves – a certain highway – that happened to be conveniently unoccupied and ran right next to an existing set of frequencies that public safety already possessed.  That’s why the D block presented public safety with a perfect opportunity to have the spectrum resources necessary for a successful communications network.

The public safety community was victorious in lobbying for legislation, enacted earlier this year, that provided this D block to public safety, created the First Responder Network Authority (“FirstNet”), and set the course for the deployment of an advanced, wireless public safety broadband network.  In fact, pursuant to this legislation, the D block has now become assigned to FirstNet and no longer needs to be labeled after a letter of the alphabet. 

But we’re not yet done with spectrum blocks.  The legislation that created FirstNet also provided a significant sum of funding, up to $7 billion, to implement the network.  This funding is to come from future auctions of spectrum that will be used for commercial wireless services.  In fact, the legislation made it clear that the proceeds from these auctions are to go directly toward fulfilling the $7 billion slated for the nationwide public safety broadband network.  In other words, Congress required that the revenues from these auctions serve the wireless broadband needs of public safety.

One of the first spectrum blocks to go up for auction will be the “H” block.  No need to go into the details of the H block, but suffice to say that, consistent with the legislation, reports indicate that the Federal Communications Commission will be proposing an auction of the H block to occur in 2013.  We care about the proceeds of this auction because the more that is received – which depends upon how valuable potential bidders view the H block – the better for public safety.  By maximizing the revenue from the H block auction, and the auction of other spectrum that the legislation specifies to fund the public safety network, the public safety community is best assured that the full amount of the $7 billion will be available to fund the FirstNet nationwide network. 

Sandy

Unfortunately, Sandy, the Hurricane turned Superstorm, has become yet another large-scale disaster, with ongoing effects for the foreseeable future.

During my tenure at the FCC, I had the opportunity to serve a role in the federal National Response Framework (specifically, Emergency Support Function #2 – Communications).  Throughout my career, including my current position with APCO, I have also had the privilege to work with police, fire, and EMS professionals, PSAP directors and staff, and state and local emergency operations center personnel.  I cannot overstate my respect for these dedicated public safety professionals at all levels of government.  They deserve enormous credit for helping to save lives and improve conditions for those affected by the storm.

It seems with each new unfortunate event such as Sandy, there are unique takeaways and lessons learned, which we build upon to try to better prepare for the next time.  The following is what strikes me at the moment:

  1. Where back-up generators (including those intended to supplement batteries) and other key network elements exist at communications facilities, those placed at ground level, underground, or in basements are vulnerable to failure from storm surge, as in the case of Sandy.
  2. Placing cell sites on rooftop locations helps to increase coverage and capacity, but also raises issues about the ability to safely and legally store fuel to power back-up generators.
  3. The general public is increasingly finding it important to have access to cell phone charging stations when power outages are widespread and lengthy.  The same may be applicable to first responders.
  4. Mobile “apps” are playing a much larger role in response and recovery (see #3).  For example, Google put out crisis response map overlays showing locations of emergency shelters, evacuation zones and other very useful information.  Also, the Red Cross has developed apps for various disasters (hurricane, earthquake, wildfire), shelter locations, and first aid instructions.

Finally, I’d like to briefly address how Sandy’s impact relates to FirstNet.  To start with, there is no reason to draw conclusions concerning FirstNet based on the performance of commercial wireless networks.  I am expressing no opinion on the subject of how commercial networks fared.  But let’s be sure to understand that the whole point of the public safety broadband legislation was to provide public safety with its own network resources, not a network that, as some incorrectly believe, would simply “ride” on commercial networks.

This is why a united public safety community rallied for, and Congress provided, spectrum and funding specifically for the public safety broadband network.  The need to leverage existing commercial, private, and public infrastructure is essential to reduce costs and hasten availability.  That is not inconsistent with FirstNet’s other statutory requirement to “ensure the safety, security, and resiliency of the network.”  (Section 6206(b)(2)(A))  Nor is it inconsistent with FirstNet’s charge, as part of its required consultation with state, tribal, and local jurisdictions, to address the “adequacy of hardening, security, reliability, and resiliency requirements.”  (Section 6206(c)(2)(A))  Indeed, the funding provided for this network is intended to provide that additional level of hardening and coverage that is necessary for public safety communications.

At the same time, even the most hardened facilities are vulnerable to extreme physical forces, whether natural or man-made.  That is why we must also continue to focus on the need for deployable infrastructure, as noted in FirstNet Board Member Craig Farrill’s Conceptual Network Architecture Presentation.

Final point (for now): Sandy highlights one of the principal purposes for the FirstNet network – to ensure a nationwide level of interoperability, so that every responding federal, state, and local public safety agency can seamlessly communicate with each other.

Time to Innovate

Public safety communications technology is advancing in ways that will completely transform emergency response.  The decades-old networks first responders and PSAPs now use – land mobile radio, 9-1-1, and emergency alert systems – are catching up to the modern, IP-based technologies that we as consumers enjoy every day.  The consumer marketplace is flooded with smart devices offering internet access, texting, multimedia messaging, photos, videos, social media, and on.  And it seems every few months there are new “must have” products, features, and services.

Translated to the public safety world, we will witness the deployment of an advanced, interoperable, wireless public safety broadband network, along with Next Generation 9-1-1 networks and Next Generation Alerting systems that can be woven together through an IP-based backbone.  These new communications platforms are in varying states of deployment but are in progress and continually gaining momentum.

So by advancing public safety to the level and pace of technology occurring at the consumer level, we are poised to see a rush of new ingenuity directed at public safety users.  Our community now appears as a new “enterprise” market to tech companies, big and small.  And I suspect that in many ways innovations made in the name of public safety will also have crossover appeal to the general consumer marketplace.  But the innovation I’m talking about certainly does not have to come from the private sector alone (although the door is open to such companies).  Indeed, we are already seeing a number of emerging applications that are conceived by public safety practitioners, the value of which FirstNet Chairman Sam Ginn recognized and encouraged at FirstNet’s initial meeting.  With just the one following example, the potential for practitioner-driven ingenuity is quite evident.

Back in September, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Department of Transportation hosted a “Safety Datapalooza.”  The event provided a forum for those who have used freely available government data, available at http://safety.data.gov, to showcase their products, services and apps that advance public safety in creative and powerful ways.

One particularly interesting demonstration was provided by San Ramon Valley Fire Department Chief Richard Price, whose district offers PulsePoint, a location-aware mobile app that empowers everyday citizens to provide life-saving assistance to victims of sudden cardiac arrest.  In the event someone experiences sudden cardiac arrest, the public safety agency that receives the 9-1-1 call can notify nearby PulsePoint users that CPR is needed.  The application works to improve cardiac arrest survival rates by crowdsourcing emergency medical services.

So that brings me to APCO International – the world’s oldest and largest organization of public safety communications professionals.  Its members include state and local employees of law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical service departments, as well as 9-1-1 public safety answering points (PSAPs) and emergency operations centers (EOCs).  Indeed, APCO members represent the actual users of the advanced networks to come – the police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians who will use the wireless broadband network to protect life and property, the 9-1-1 call takers and dispatchers who will use Next Generation 9-1-1 technology to communicate in advanced ways with the public and first responders, and the EOCs who will use Next Generation Alerting systems to keep the public informed with targeted, data-rich information. 

With APCO’s organizational structure, resources and reach, and the thousands of public safety communications professionals working in San Ramon Valley and elsewhere, we are well-positioned to work with the tech community, academic institutions, FirstNet, and others to develop the future “PulsePoints” that will assuredly save more lives.  Already developed something?  Let us know about it, we’d be interested to learn more.

A Great Start

In another milestone on our way to achieving an advanced, nationwide interoperable, wireless public safety broadband network, the newly constituted FirstNet Board held its inaugural meeting last week in Washington, DC.  To see the four public safety representatives assembled with the rest of the highly qualified board members, further joined by the U.S. Acting Secretary of Commerce Dr. Rebecca Blank, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, was truly a remarkable image. 

The level of attention garnered by this meeting underscored the importance of this nationwide undertaking, and provided a tangible example of public safety’s hard fought campaign for the FirstNet legislation.

Led by the highly experienced wireless communications professional that is Chairman Sam Ginn, the Board quickly adopted by-laws and a number of resolutions to get itself organized.  All of these documents are available here. 

I thought that the Board members hit all of the right themes.  They expressed well-deserved gratitude for the work the public safety community has already achieved in identifying network requirements, including the work of the talented and resourceful Public Safety Communications Research program and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council.  They also noted with appreciation the work of the Interoperability Board previously convened at the FCC pursuant to the legislation.

Chairman Ginn and other board members also stressed the importance of the consultation process with state and local entities.  To that end, a number of resolutions were directed at facilitating this effort, including creation of a State, Regional, Local, and Tribal Consultation Committee.

Later, board member Craig Farrill provided an excellent conceptual presentation of the national network architecture, which the legislation charges FirstNet with creating.  Chairman Ginn stated that he intends to move quickly to obtain public feedback on these initial concepts.

Finally, Chairman Ginn concluded with a very interesting perspective about one way that the network can deliver what public safety wants.  He provided his own conceptual presentation on “apps” development – stressing how beneficial it would be for public safety communications practitioners to drive app development themselves.

With each of these groundbreaking steps – enactment of the legislation, announcement of the FirstNet board members, and FirstNet’s initial meeting – we move closer and closer to fulfilling the goal of an advanced, interoperable public safety broadband network. 

Many have ideas for how the legislation should be implemented and how the network should be deployed, some of which have already been shared.  With its first meeting already held, we can now all work alongside FirstNet.  Making full use of its transparency, we have the opportunity to provide substantive comments in order to help inform the Board’s many upcoming decisions.  I look forward with great interest to seeing the Board’s next steps unfold.

Time to Roll Up Our Sleeves

Coming off a spectacular annual conference that included a Cabinet member, Acting Secretary of Commerce Dr. Rebecca Blank, announcing at our opening general session the public safety, state and local government, and private sector appointments to the FirstNet board, we all now need to get to work.

Let me emphasize the talent of this board. Although the legislation required only three, the Secretary’s appointments include four highly experienced and respected public safety professionals spanning law enforcement, emergency medical service, and firefighting.  They are joined by three individuals with collective experience in state and local issues, information technology management, and rural deployment.  Then we have an outstanding line-up of absolute experts in wireless communications, each bringing substantial experience in designing, building, and financing commercial wireless networks.  

The appointments drew bipartisan and bicameral praise from Capitol Hill, and were widely welcomed by national public safety and state and local governmental organizations. APCO was among them. (See our multiple tweets of the related statements.)

So now FirstNet is here, and that is great news. But while they organize themselves, state and local officials need to get active.

During our annual conference, another statutory deadline was met, and we learned about the criteria for the very important state and local planning grant opportunity.  The state and local planning grant process will serve as a significant vehicle for state and local input into the design and implementation of the nationwide network.  The majority of the work that must be done can be started right away.  (In fact, we have been saying this for months already.)  FirstNet will need to weigh in with its specific requirements before the grant program can begin.  But the more quickly states and localities become engaged, the more effectively FirstNet can accomplish its statutory responsibilities. 

Some states and localities already have some experience in planning LTE-based public safety broadband networks, dating prior to enactment of the public safety legislation and the establishment of FirstNet, and thus prior to the launch of the state and local planning process.  Consistent with APCO’s positions, the Federal Communications Commission has provided a conditional path forward for some of these projects to continue (later amended).  Personally, I see value in some of these serving as pilots for FirstNet and the nationwide network to come.  How far these progress will ultimately be up to FirstNet.  I hope that at a minimum, any such pilot deployments can help reveal the vital cyber security protections the nationwide network must incorporate.  I would also like to see the pilots demonstrate complete interoperability with each other.  By “complete” interoperability, I mean that a mobile device from one jurisdiction operates in any other jurisdiction, period.  After all, our main goal for the nationwide network is to finally achieve the long-overdue national priority of seamless interoperability for all of public safety across the country.

These early goers have had a variety of successes as well as bumps in the road, and we can benefit from the lessons learned from these efforts.  I would encourage state and local public safety professionals to reach out to them.  Also, get involved with identifying your single state point of contact required by the legislation to consult with FirstNet.  Finally, as APCO suggested, start designing your governance structures to ensure participation by localities, tribes, broadband experts, information technology experts, etc.

APCO’s Government Relations Office can help point you to resources and answer questions.  Also, this blog can serve as a great place to interact with each other, share ideas, best practices, etc. 

NTIA has done, and continues to do, an admirable job in getting us started in totally uncharted waters.  FirstNet is about to organize soon, and acquire the FCC license.  See a better way?  Let’s hear from you.  But I for one just skip over those occasional trade press quotes that offer nothing more than a complaint.

Let’s get started – this is not a FirstNet effort alone.  Success will require all stakeholders to work together.  Failure simply isn’t an option.

A terrific line-up for conference

While I’ve been a guest at APCO’s Annual Conferences in the past, this is the first year I’m on the “inside” and it’s been a terrific experience thus far.  I’m especially excited with the sessions that our Government Relations team has set up.  Not only do we have a number of highly esteemed government officials with speaking roles, but all of our panelists are quality professionals that will contribute to very informative sessions.  And our conference comes at a perfect time, because this is a transformational moment for public safety communications – with the advent of the public safety broadband network (PSBN), under the guidance of the First Responder Network Authority, “FirstNet,” as our nationwide governance body, as well as exciting developments in Next Generation 9-1-1 services.  All the while we’re keeping our eye on the current public safety communications systems that first responders will continue to rely upon for years to come.

Typically, the Government Relations sessions attract what we call the “Beltway” crowd, meaning those that interact with the Federal government, whether at the FCC, Capitol Hill, the Administration, or other federal agencies.  But the sessions this year should be of general interest to all of APCO’s members and supporters.  Here’s a breakdown, and hopefully you’ll see what I mean:

Sunday

Session:  Partnership Opportunities with Commercial Wireless Service Providers

We will have a variety of large and small commercial wireless service providers on hand to discuss the partnership opportunities they envision with FirstNet to help implement an advanced wireless broadband network for first responders.  The legislation that created FirstNet emphasizes the need to rely upon the infrastructure and expertise commercial carriers already have with advanced wireless networks.  Their partnerships will be key to the success of the PSBN.

Monday

Session:  Opening General Session

Besides the usual fanfare and keynote speaker typical of the opening general session, we have another very special speaker – the U.S. Acting Secretary of Commerce, Dr. Rebecca Blank.  Be sure to stay tuned.  Note that this day, August 20, is the statutory deadline for the Secretary to appoint the members of the FirstNet Board.  APCO will be streaming the opening general session live.

Session:  FCC Panel

Led by APCO’s long-time outside counsel Bob Gurss, the FCC panel is always informative as we hear from FCC staff on current regulatory topics impacting public safety communications.  This year, we will first welcome opening remarks from David Turestsky, the newly appointed Bureau Chief.

Session:  Cybersecurity and the Modern Public Safety Broadband LTE Network

Attention everyone – as we move to all the wonders and benefits of advanced communications for first responders and PSAPs, we need to be aware of the risks of cyber threats to these networks.  This panel will consist of excellent speakers that will help educate the audience on the types of threats we should expect, and how best to contain them.  Among the panelists will be Rear Admiral Ronald Hewitt, Director & Deputy Manager, National Communications System, Department of Homeland Security.

Session:  Talking Advanced Wireless and Social Media Technologies with Minneapolis’s Newest First Responders

We’re trying something new this year at conference.  We can’t help but think how our “newer” first responders – ok, the younger ones – are also known as “digital natives,” meaning they grew up with digital technology, including smart phones, tablets, and social media.  Yet they employ typical land mobile radios in their jobs to keep the public and themselves safe.  With this informal gathering, we are looking to begin what should be an interesting and fun dialogue to hear the perspective of these first responder, digital natives about advanced communications and public safety.

Tuesday

Session:  Distinguished Achievers Breakfast

Always a wonderful opportunity to honor deserving public safety communications officials, this year’s event will highlight another special guest, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who will offer remarks about public safety communications.

Session:  A Nationwide 700 MHz Public Safety Broadband Network

APCO’s Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) staff will be hosting a great discussion about the network, with speakers from the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program from Boulder, CO, who are absolute technical experts, yet, have a talent for explaining things in more layman’s terms. 

Session:  Status Update on H.R. 3630: What’s Happened to Date and What to Expect Next

H.R. 3630 is the name of the bill that became the public safety “D Block” legislation enacted this year.  For this session, we have a special federal government official, Larry Strickling, who is the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).  NTIA is responsible for, among many other important communications-related tasks, the grant program to enable state and local planning for the nationwide public safety broadband network.

Wednesday

Session:  Text-to-9-1-1: Challenges and Opportunities

In another session led by Bob Gurss, the FCC’s 9-1-1 subject matter expert, Patrick Donovan, will be on hand for a lively discussion about the opportunities and challenges with texting to 9-1-1.

Session:  Closing Luncheon

Along with our keynote speaker, the closing luncheon will kick off with remarks from Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.  Senator Klobuchar is one of the four co-chairs of the Congressional Next Generation 9-1-1 Caucus.

Well, there you have it.  Hope to see you at the conference, and be sure to say hello to the Government Relations team, whether me (Jeff Cohen), or Roger Wespe.  We always welcome opportunities to interact with APCO’s membership and supporters.