Decisions For Heroes Blog

The O’Reilly Radar is the equivilent to the New York Times of technology. A highly respected technology news web site that has featured Decisions For Heroes on their homepage for the weekend. This is awesome, here are some quotes from their “Master Of Disaster” Jesse Robbins who is a volunteer Firefighter/EMT & Emergency Manager, and led a task force deployed in Operation Hurricane Katrina. Jesse writes about Infrastructure, Emergency Management, and technology that helps people be safe, happy, and free.

One of the most interesting DisasterTech projects I’ve been following is “Decisions for Heroes” led by developer and Irish Coast Guard volunteer Robin Blandford.

Decisions is like Basecamp for volunteer Search & Rescue teams. The focus is on providing “just enough” process to compliment the real-world workflow of a rescue team, without unnecessary complexity.

This is the winning approach for building systems that “serve those that serve others”, and is echoed by InSTEDD’s design philosophy and the Sahana disaster management system.

Over time this kind of data could be analyzed in aggregate across multiple teams and regions and create an incredibly powerful resource for Emergency Managers.

The system tracks certification expiration dates and prompts team members & leaders to plan classes and remain current. This is a huge issue for volunteers who have to manage professional-level training requirements with the demands of a regular career.

This is an innovative project with tremendous potential, and hopefully an early signal of coming changes in Emergency Management.

You can read the full article here!

More on our parent site, ByteSurgery.com

I’m running out the door to go to an exercise in cliff rescue, this afternoon I should have a second post up on our latest features (hint: attendance system updated!). In the meantime enjoy this great article about us in our local paper…

Thursday, 02 October 2008, Full text.

A YOUNG Northside entrepreneur has combined his talent for computer programming with his passion for the emergency rescue services to create a new potentially life saving technology.
‘Decisions for Heroes’ is a new computer management system, which Robin Blandford hopes will help emergency services save lives by allowing them to make better decisions in the field.
Howth local Robin is a cliff rescue climber as well as an experienced programmer and he now hopes to combine his talents and become a young entrepreneur.
Earlier this month Robin spent a week at Seedcamp, an event where business ideas compete for funding from venture capitalists.
The Decisions for Heroes team, consisting of Robin and his business partner David Doran, weren’t selected for funding at the end of the week, but Robin says he learned a lot and met some of the top names in the industry, leaving him more determined than ever.
“There were over 400 applications from across Europe and we were among just 23 people who made it to the final selection process,” he told Northside People.
“From this, only seven groups were able to win but we still got to meet teams of advisors as well as some of the top executives in the business.”
Robin came up with the idea for his programme while volunteering as a cliff rescue climber with the Irish Coast Guard in Howth.
He gained professional experience in digital media after leaving university, being identified early in his graduate recruitment cycle at Thomson Reuters as “one to watch” and placed on an accelerated management programme within the company.
“I realised that there were no good rescue team management applications which could analyse rescues and help decision making,” he explained.
“I decided that I would work on it and create something for my team to use, I was so happy with my work that I thought I would make a business out of it.
“The good thing about it is it’s based on practical experience of how search and rescue operations work and what they need.”
Robin’s philosophy is that things should be kept as easy to understand for the user as possible, believing user requirements to use his application should be nil.
“Nobody likes reading manuals - if we have to write one, we’ve got too complicated,” he said.
“Before this there was an awful lot of paperwork involved in rescue which could not be instantly accessed.
“Instead of archiving the information as paperwork, we act as a platform, generating real-time profiles of members, available resources, and activities.
“Decisions for Heroes uses this data to deliver live and intelligent information to devices in the field.
“It is a powerful application and I am lucky to be working with David as he is young but is one of Ireland’s best developers.”
The Decisions For Heroes application is currently being tested out by a number of groups and Robin hopes to begin charging for it in the coming months.

-Robin.

(Image Credit: Northside People)

Jemima Kiss from the Guardian interviewed us on the final day of Seedcamp. You should read the entire article on the Guardian site. Below is an excerpt about D4H…

Decisions for Heroes wasn’t selected for funding at the end of the week, but ByteSurgery founder Robin Blandford made it clear that the project is not dependent on that funding to go ahead. It’s a unique idea and one that polarised the Seedcamp crowd, said Blandford. “We save lives. We run a rescue team management application that helps rescue teams reduce their response times and help them make better decisions while they are on a rescue,” he explained.

The mountain rescue, coastguard and lifeboat teas around the british Isles organise their rescues through an ad hoc system of texts and phone calls. Decisions for Heroes coordinates that, so that if both the doctors on call register that they are offline for the next six hours, a warning message will be sent to the team leader. “We’ve gained a huge amount of confidence from meeting these guys,” said Blandford - himself a volunteer for the Irish Coast Guard. “We had an hour with Marten Mickos of MySQL and Andy McLoughlin from Huddle - to have people that senior say that they love your idea is a huge confidence builder.”

“The application has the element that the end user could be a charity or a publicly funded body, and that has polarised a lot of people about how big the potential market is. Some people saw the ision as much bigger, like Umair Haque - he said we should work with the Red Cross over in Asia so they can bring tranparency to disaster relief.”

It was noticeable that there didn’t seem to be anyone from UK Trade & Investment at the Seedcamp wrap-up session. Blandford said that if this had been in Ireland, he would have expected to see the equivalent people there. And he has a meeting today with Dublin’s Hothouse programme, which could offer Decisions office space, salary subsidies and more funding.

“I think there were some teams at Seedcamp who were reliant on winning to get funding, especially the ones that are a consumer play who needed who needed the promotion. But we’ve got revenue starting to come in the next six to eight weeks - we’re hoping to convert 30% of our trail users to pay accounts.’

Is Robin back in the office today? He’s on call. He might even be dangling down a cliff face on rope right now.

Related articles by Zemanta

• More from those Seedcampers