Irish Software to Save World Lives
A young Irish entrepreneur and cliff rescue climber, Robin Blandford will start delivering his new rescue team management software service "Decisions For Heroes" over the internet to rescue teams around the world on Tuesday 19th May 2009.
‘We Save Lives' is an unusual mission for digital media engineers, but while volunteering on rescue operations as a cliff rescue climber in the Irish Coast Guard, young entrepreneur Robin Blandford (pictured on the winch, left and below) recognised that all rescue teams have
three common challenges.
"They have a lot of equipment to train in, massive communication logistics, and large amounts of paperwork to back it up," says Robin.
Identifying that better decisions save lives, the software Decisions For Heroes was created to monitor response readiness, team availability, valid qualifications, and experience. Armed with a laptop and internet connection, 999 responders can record the details of their rescue operations and training exercises.
The software automatically performs analytical charting, draws heatmaps, and benchmarks reports to outline areas of strength, weakness and expertise, and organisations are granted the ability to share data and perform paperless reporting between their teams. Easy-to-generate statistics can be used to observe patterns, educate potential casualties, and reduce accidents in a community.
With the philosophy of launch early, release often, Robin harnessed the collaborative power of the internet to gather over 1,800 rescuers from Ireland, UK, USA, Greece and Australia to trial and shape the development of the software. Decisions For Heroes is amazingly intuitive, "Nobody likes reading manuals - if we have to write one, we've got too complicated" Blandford, aged 25, adds.
Blandford's company ByteSurgery Ltd acknowledged and awarded as a 2008 European Seedcamp finalist; 2008 Irish Web Awards finalist for 'Most Innovative', 'Best Web App', 'Best Technical'; and 2008 winner of Best Irish 'Technology Blog'.
It will now begin to commercialise and expand Decisions For Heroes to emergency services around the world from local fire brigade to alpine ski patrols.
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