Local tech startup to revolutionise US 911 services

The local tech startup that has revolutionised access to emergency services in South Africa, is set to modernise 911 for law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services in the United States. This follows a recent partnership with multinational telecommunications company AT&T.

Steven Raucher, RapidDeploy CEO and co-founder, says “As a South African born company, we could not be more thrilled that our homegrown, non-traditional approach to emergency services is taking off in such a competitive overseas market. Most importantly, we are realising our vision of democratising emergency services by making systems available to all communities, irrespective of scale”.

How it started...

Born out of the emergency first responder community in Cape Town, RapidDeploy has captured the world’s attention with its vision to reduce response times in an emergency and improve responder safety and situational awareness.

They are deployed to over 35 agencies around the world, with the solution deployed as far afield as Fiji. To date, they have processed tens of thousands of emergency calls, reducing emergency response times and saving lives in the process.

RapidDeploy has achieved this by moving emergency service solutions to the cloud. Through the cloud-based technology platform, emergency first responders can obtain relevant and accurate information in real time in a critical situation. This reduces response times dramatically, in scenarios where every second is a matter of life or death.

“Our platform is cloud-based, highly-available and requires zero upfront capital investment, making it the perfect choice for the 911 of the future,” says Raucher.

The partnership

RapidDeploy’s teaming up with AT&T brings the ability scale with the US 911 community. Together, they will empower emergency response teams with rich data, multimedia and geospatial driven solutions. The RapidDeploy platform runs in a web browser and over Android and iOS mobile devices.

Alex Parker, senior vice president for state and local government and education at AT&T’s public sector business, said, “Adding RapidDeploy’s Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) technology to our portfolio will help the company bridge the flow of data among the general public, first responders and emergency dispatchers.”

With a standards-based architecture and its native cloud-based system, the CAD platform is affordable, highly scalable and easy to deploy. AT&T was a natural partner to springboard RapidDeploy’s services in the US, given their proven track record as America’s trusted 911 solutions provider.

RapidDeploy’s technology addresses another key challenge for public safety projects, that of integrating with myriad third-party systems.

Raucher adds, “With every feature request, the cloud-based system gets better for everyone. And operating a single codebase also ensures that our clients are always running the latest version with all features enabled. “

Michael Langeveld, Public Safety and National Security Lead says, "Congratulations to RapidDeploy - your deal with AT&T proves South Africa can create world-class technology solutions relevant to any context and scenario. Microsoft Public Safety Team are thrilled to have such incredible ambassadors for both Microsoft Azure Cloud and the South African tech startup industry.”

“At RapidDeploy, we are using our technical skills to create something meaningful, something that makes a difference and that resonates with the talented engineers who come to work here from corporate industries,” says RapidDeploy CTO and co-founder, Brett Meyerowitz.