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@hackharvard-blog
Check out the Harvard Crimson's coverage of the Public Safety Innovation Hackathon!
“The work that you do in this area can save lives. If you can put something together that moves us from Microsoft Word to the cloud…then we can reduce some of the inefficiencies that are driving the crime rate up and help us save lives.”
-- Ed Davis, Boston Police Commissioner
1st Annual Public Safety Innovation Hackathon
Every day, our law enforcement officials put their lives on the line to protect us. But all too often, these heroes lack modern, easy-to-use technologies to aid their work.
Instead, police departments are often stuck using outdated software, including everything from clunky data management systems to Internet Explorer 5. These technologies drive inefficiencies that cost the police a lot of time and money. Furthermore, it makes it difficult for the police to collect, analyze, and disseminate the information necessary to protect the public. More often than not, your average consumer can access more cutting-edge technology than the police force.
Why is there such a discrepancy? The problem is that we don’t have enough technical talent pouring into the public safety industry. And yet, these issues really matter. It’s clear that something needs to change.
That's why we partnered with EVIDENCE.com to host the first annual Public Safety Innovation Hackathon at the Harvard i-Lab this past weekend (November 2-3). This event gathered public safety leaders, hackers, and technical mentors to work on solutions to some of these problems.
The day kicked off with a series of presentations from guest speakers including:
Ed Davis, Boston Police Commissioner
Athena Yergarnian, Former CTO of the Los Angeles and Boston Police Departments
Scott Greenwood, civil rights lawyer
Jason Droege, President of EVIDENCE.com
Scott Crouch, Founder and CEO of Mark43
After learning about the technical challenges facing police officers, our teams of hackers set off to work.
We provided plenty of food and swag to fuel their coding.
And, of course, what's a hackathon without free swag?
Hacking time ran from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon. After a little more than 24 hours of coding, our teams were ready to demo their projects.
It's always impressive to see how much can get done in just one day. The demos spanned from projects like Contego, a wearable device that measures the effects of emotional stress on police officers so that they can be properly managed (created by Alex Springer and Vinny Chakradhar, two MIT undegraduates) to Crimesource, an app that allows citizens to report crimes and see what crimes have been reported in their area (created by Harvard freshman Akshar Bonu).
Sadly, only one team could win first place prize of $1000 and a free trip to Santa Barbara, CA to meet the team of EVIDENCE.com. After much deliberation, the judges awarded first prize to Crash Reporter by Rob Bowden (below at right) and Ben Shryock (not pictured). This app streamlines the process of filing car accident reports, which greatly reduces the time spent filling out forms, allowing police officers to get back to work more quickly.
Congratulations, guys!
But of course, this is just the beginning of an ongoing conversation. The technological problems facing our nation’s police force are real, and they can’t be solved in a day. We are glad to help get the ball rolling, but in the end, real change will require us to inspire more engineering talent to enter the law enforcement industry. Technology has revolutionized many other fields, and now it's time to revolutionize public safety.
Photos from the first ever Public Safety Innovation Hackathon! Check out more on our Facebook page.
A huge thanks to all of our judges, speakers, sponsors, and participants! We couldn't have done it without you.
Code for Public Good at Harvard's Public Safety Innovation Hackathon!
With the Boston Marathon Bombings and an array of tragic shootings fresh in the nation’s mind, it is clear that innovation is needed to keep the public safe. To help solve these problems, HackHarvard and EVIDENCE.com are hosting the first annual Public Safety Innovation Hackathon. The event will take place at the Harvard i-Lab, running from 10am on November to 4:30pm on November 3.
Boston-area college students will gather to build technologies that address public safety issues in areas such as school safety, communication, information visualization, and mobile technology. Teams will compete for over $2500 in prizes, including a top prize of $1000 and an all-expenses paid trip to Santa Barbara, CA to meet with the team of EVIDENCE.com.
Winners will be selected by a panel of judges including:
Ed Davis, Boston Police Commissioner
Jason Droege, President of EVIDENCE.com
Athena Yergarnian, Former CTO of the Los Angeles and Boston Police Departments
Scott Crouch, Founder and CEO of Mark43
If you're interested, register for free on Eventbrite and RSVP to the Facebook event. We hope to see you there!