IoT Civic Hackathon — Part II: Kickoff Ceremony

On Friday night, the kickoff ceremony for the AT&T IoT Civic Hackathon featured a number of first responders and folks from over 50 public safety partners including police, fire, medical, and city government communities.

Here are some highlights from the ceremony:

Developers completed the Developer Oath of Office pledging to use their skills and talent to build ideas to help public safety and first responders. We also got a nifty sticker badge.

Angie Smith-Jones, Deputy Mayor of the City of Indianapolis, talked about how the developer is a key enabler to developing effective solutions using technology to better the lives of citizens as well as first responders.

Ernest Malone, Chief of the Indianapolis Fire Department, shared how public safety personnel strive to be professional and courteous when the public is in need, even when conditions are complex and hazardous.

Ed Davis, Former Commissioner of Boston Police Department, shared that in today’s technology era, infrastructure cannot fail when lives are at risk.

Scott Fadness, Mayor of the City of Fishers, Indiana, highlighted that while new flashy solutions are great, it is also really important to reduce the complexity of all the things first responders need to handle physically and mentally during an incident.

Tom Arkins, Chief of Informatics Indiana EMS, highlighted that we live in a world of data that can help us make better informed decisions about how patients are treated.

Congresswoman Susan Brooks, U.S. House of Representatives, shared a mind-opening perspective that communication is critical when so many different agencies respond to an incident together and that are sometimes unable to communicate with each other.

Doug Carter, Superintendent of Indiana State Police, gave a startling insight that prescriptive drug abuse and distracted driving are leading causes of deaths. He encouraged developers to imagine a world where these are preventable.

Darshan Shah, Chief Data Office, State of Indiana, share that the State of Indiana has a number of available datasets for developers to use.

Note: in the first part of this series, I shared some of the emergency equipment on display in the Emergency Equipment rodeo that inspired hackers to build solutions that matter and could make a different in the world of first responders.