(March 23, 2017) Technology offers a huge new range of opportunities for mental health support. At the recent South by Southwest (SXSW) conference, one new digital tool was singled out for its potential to not just provide users with valuable information, but to prevent tragedies and save lives. (“Tech Idea for Preventing Fatal Police Interactions Wins Shark Tank-Like Competition,” Government Technology, March 13)
Held annually in Austin, Texas, the legendary music festival has grown to feature a variety of tracks for attendees to explore the latest developments in the worlds of entertainment, culture and technology.
As part of SXSW’s Civic I/O government and policy sessions, a panel of mayors and industry experts judged a fast pitch competition among emerging companies vying for a share of $25,000 provided by Amazon Web Services.
The mayors of Denver, Orlando and West Sacramento joined a panel of technology entrepreneurs to judge startups' proposals for business ideas that address civic problems. The panel also included Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, and Nicole Neditch, the senior director for community engagement at Code for America, a nonprofit that brings government and technology together to improve government services.
RideAlong, a digital tool designed to make for safer interactions between police and people with mental illness, took home the $10,000 first prize. The Treatment Advocacy Center estimates that the three percent of US adults who suffer from a severe mental illness account for almost half of all fatal law enforcement encounters. RideAlong’s founders set out to provide police with the critical information to prevent such tragedies and to divert those experiencing a crisis away from the criminal justice system and into mental health treatment instead.
The system — available on smart phones as an app — is already being tested in a pilot program in Seattle. RideAlong automatically collects and organizes information about those with severe mental illness from various sources, such as family, government agencies and social service providers. Police responding to calls can then look up a name or address and view an easy-to-read profile of an individual. Police in Seattle are already provided with similar information in PDFs emailed to them as they drive to the scene, but may have trouble finding and accessing the information before they arrive.
Meredith Hitchcock, RideAlong co-founder, spent a year in Seattle on a Code for America fellowship. She and two other fellows were able to devote a full month studying police interactions with citizens with mental illness before they began developing the app. Riding along with police, speaking to social service providers and interviewing individuals with mental illness provided them with the critical field work to understand the needs of the day-to-day processes involved and develop a tool to address them specifically.
Pitching RideAlong to mayors was a different proposition than her earlier efforts sell the concept to first responders and the technology startup community.
“First responders are interested in the operation, what’s going to be involved to get this set up, who’s going to manage content, what’s the benefit on the day-to-day basis,” said Meredith. “The mayors were looking much more at, what’s the bigger-term vision, how do we use this to make smarter cities, how do we offer more strategic and smarter first responders?”
This exciting new app exemplifies SXSW’s premise that that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together.
We congratulate Meredith and her team for their groundbreaking work and look forward to seeing this technology spread to police and emergency services departments across the country.
To comment, please visit our Facebook page.
Held annually in Austin, Texas, the legendary music festival has grown to feature a variety of tracks for attendees to explore the latest developments in the worlds of entertainment, culture and technology.
As part of SXSW’s Civic I/O government and policy sessions, a panel of mayors and industry experts judged a fast pitch competition among emerging companies vying for a share of $25,000 provided by Amazon Web Services.
The mayors of Denver, Orlando and West Sacramento joined a panel of technology entrepreneurs to judge startups' proposals for business ideas that address civic problems. The panel also included Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, and Nicole Neditch, the senior director for community engagement at Code for America, a nonprofit that brings government and technology together to improve government services.
RideAlong, a digital tool designed to make for safer interactions between police and people with mental illness, took home the $10,000 first prize. The Treatment Advocacy Center estimates that the three percent of US adults who suffer from a severe mental illness account for almost half of all fatal law enforcement encounters. RideAlong’s founders set out to provide police with the critical information to prevent such tragedies and to divert those experiencing a crisis away from the criminal justice system and into mental health treatment instead.
The system — available on smart phones as an app — is already being tested in a pilot program in Seattle. RideAlong automatically collects and organizes information about those with severe mental illness from various sources, such as family, government agencies and social service providers. Police responding to calls can then look up a name or address and view an easy-to-read profile of an individual. Police in Seattle are already provided with similar information in PDFs emailed to them as they drive to the scene, but may have trouble finding and accessing the information before they arrive.Meredith Hitchcock, RideAlong co-founder, spent a year in Seattle on a Code for America fellowship. She and two other fellows were able to devote a full month studying police interactions with citizens with mental illness before they began developing the app. Riding along with police, speaking to social service providers and interviewing individuals with mental illness provided them with the critical field work to understand the needs of the day-to-day processes involved and develop a tool to address them specifically.
Pitching RideAlong to mayors was a different proposition than her earlier efforts sell the concept to first responders and the technology startup community.
“First responders are interested in the operation, what’s going to be involved to get this set up, who’s going to manage content, what’s the benefit on the day-to-day basis,” said Meredith. “The mayors were looking much more at, what’s the bigger-term vision, how do we use this to make smarter cities, how do we offer more strategic and smarter first responders?”
This exciting new app exemplifies SXSW’s premise that that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together.
We congratulate Meredith and her team for their groundbreaking work and look forward to seeing this technology spread to police and emergency services departments across the country.
To comment, please visit our Facebook page.