• Punch Technologies Announces Upcoming Launch of Punch Alert 4.0 and New Punch Alert Local (PAL) community

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Aug 21 2015
    Media Contact: Molly Antos
    Email: media@punchalert.com

    Available in October, now on iOS and Android, Punch Alert 4.0 and PAL, is Available Free to Everyone. Anyone Can be a PAL and Help Make their Community a Safer Place

    CHARLOTTE, NC, Aug 21 2015 –

    Punch Technologies will launch in October its new and improved Punch Alert 4.0 — the only app that connects the full chain of safety communications — available soon on iOS and Android. The app will be free for any individual and available to the public.

    Punch Alert 4.0 will also include Punch Alert Local (PAL) — an opt-in community safety program within the Punch Alert mobile application.  Users of Punch Alert can decide whether or not they want to be a “PAL.”  By pressing the panic button, users of PAL can  alert not only 911 or other designated responders but any PAL in close proximity. They will also be able to chat, post and receive tips and view announcements for the purpose of making their community a safer place.

    “Now, the general public can play an active role in their community’s safety,” said Greg Artzt, CEO of Punch Technologies. “PALs are not expected to be responders in risking their lives to help others in need.  They can make a decision at the moment of incident whether or not they can help.  Often, people simply walking nearby, knocking on a door, or making a loud noise can deter or stop a personal crime such as a rape or other abuse. PAL is like a mobile version of community watch.  There is safety in numbers, and with the PAL program we envision a world where we are never truly alone.”

    Punch Alert is the only universal panic button developed for mobile emergency management. Punch Alert uses smart communication technology to inform and notify responders.  It provides essentials tools to help local authorities assess the situation and take necessary action. Its real-time location tracking — GPS for outdoor location monitoring and iBeacon for indoor positioning — is essential in managing an emergency.

    “Our goal is to help make the world a safer place by minimizing response times so drastically that most crimes and crises will be deterred or prevented,” said Artzt. “This new version of Punch Alert and the PAL community offers a safety platform like no other.  There’s no app that gets you help faster.”

    Go to joinpal.co to sign up for early access to the PAL community.

    For more information on Punch Alert, visit:www.punchalert.com, or go to vimeo.com/104136990

    About Punch Technologies

    Punch Technologies is a Charlotte, North Carolina-based mobile software company and creator of the Punch Alert mobile security and communication platform. The Punch Alert Platform is the only all-in-one mass emergency communication platform that leverages both GPS and iBeacon location technology. Punch Alert is designed specifically for any school, university, public or corporate entity that needs to protect and send notifications to its employees, students, residents, or community.

    For more information visit www.punchalert.com, or follow Punch on Twitter @PunchTech.

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  • Franklin County School Districts And Local Official Responder Groups Team With Punch Technologies To Streamline Emergency Communication Capabilities

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    Jul 28 2015

    Media Contact: Molly Antos
    Email: media@punchalert.com

    Five Districts Implement Punch Alert — the Only All-in-One Mobile Emergency Com-munication Platform — to Protect and Connect 16 Schools

    CHARLOTTE, NC, Jul 28 2015 – Five Franklin County School Districts in Maine are the latest to team up with Punch Technologies and launch Punch Alert — the only all-in-one mobile emergency communication platform — across 16 schools — and all of the county’s official responder groups (police, fire, emergency management and state police).

    “We feel very fortunate that our County is going with the Punch Alert System,” said Dr. Thomas Ward, Superintendent of Schools, Mt. Blue Regional School District. “This is a great collaborative effort between schools, law enforcement and all first responders. Anything we can do to reduce the time it takes to stop an intruder saves lives.”

    Franklin County secured a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant which made the implementation of Punch Alert possible.

    Punch Alert improves security by including a panic button that, once pressed, alerts emergency responders of a potentially life-threatening situation. Responders then have the ability to release emergency information to others on campus when appropriate, in-volving them collaboratively in the response process.

    It streamlines communication by enabling faculty, staff, and students to submit infor-mation and emergency responders to deliver mass updates during emergencies. Punch Alert also, through its use of GPS and iBeacon/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology, provides location awareness by capturing the location of the initial report and actively monitoring the location of all faculty and staff until the emergency is resolved.

    “Punch Alert was uniquely created to help schools and universities with their emergency management,” said Greg Artzt, CEO of Punch Technologies. “Punch Alert is the perfect security solution for the Franklin County School Districts, and it will enhance the coun-ty’s existing school security measures.”

    Punch Alert is also being utilized by schools nationwide including those in: Arizona, Florida, New York, North Carolina and Ohio.

    For more information on Punch Alert, visit: www.punchalert.com, or go to https:/vimeo.com/104136990

    About Punch Technologies Punch Technologies is a Charlotte, North Carolina-based mobile software company and creator of the Punch Alert mobile security and communication platform. The Punch Alert Platform is the only all-in-one mass emergency communication platform that leverages both GPS and iBeacon location technology. Punch Alert is designed specifically for any school, university, public or corporate entity that needs to protect and send notifications to its employees, students, residents, or community.

    For more information visit punchalert.com, or follow Punch on Twitter @PunchTech.

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  • Hickory Public School District Teams With Punch Technologies To Streamline Emergency Communication Capabilities

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    Jul 22 2015

    Media Contact: Molly Antos
    Email: media@punchalert.com

    Hickory District Joins Schools Nationwide as They Implement Punch Alert — the Only All-in-One Mobile Emergency Communication Platform — to Protect and Connect Their Campuses

    CHARLOTTE, NC, Jul 22 2015 – The Hickory Public School District in North Carolina is now using Punch Technologies’ Punch Alert emergency communication platform to protect and connect their public schools and district office — ten locations in total.

    Hickory is the latest school district to begin working with Punch Technologies and im-plement Punch Alert which is the only all-in-one, mobile emergency communication plat-form uniquely created to help schools and universities streamline their emergency man-agement.

    “During a tornado warning last year, we learned how beneficial it would have been to be able to communicate with all staff at one time rather than make many phone calls. Hav-ing the ability to communicate with everyone at once will enhance our safety procedures for all of our staff and students,” said Angela Simmons, director of student services at the Hickory Public School District. “Everyone will have the same information and know exactly what to do to keep their students safe.”

    Punch Alert improves security by including a panic button that, once pressed, alerts emergency responders of a potentially life-threatening situation. Responders then have the ability to release emergency information to others on campus when appropriate, in-volving them collaboratively in the response process.

    Punch Alert streamlines communication by enabling faculty, staff, and students to sub-mit information and emergency responders to deliver mass updates during emergen-cies. Punch Alert also, through its use of GPS and iBeacon/Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology, provides location awareness by capturing the location of the initial report and actively monitoring the location of all faculty and staff until the emergency is re-solved.

    “School security is a significant concern in this day and age. And, being a parent my-self, I know how crucial it is to know that your child’s school district is doing everything to create and maintain a safe environment,” said Greg Artzt, CEO of Punch Technolo-gies. “Punch Alert was created with this concern in mind. It relies on the most relevant, smart communication, along with emergency management and real-time location awareness, making it ideal for protecting a school campus.”

    Punch Alert is also being utilized by Providence Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina as well as with many schools and districts across the country including those in: Arizo-na, Florida, Maine, New York and Ohio. For more information on Punch Alert, visit: www.punchalert.com, or go to https:/vimeo.com/104136990

    About Punch Technologies Punch Technologies is a Charlotte, North Carolina-based mobile software company and creator of the Punch Alert mobile security and communication platform. The Punch Alert Platform is the only all-in-one mass emergency communication platform that leverages both GPS and iBeacon location technology. Punch Alert is designed specifically for any school, university, public or corporate entity that needs to protect and send notifications to its employees, students, residents, or community.

    For more information visit www.punchalert.com, or follow Punch on Twitter @PunchTech.

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  • Something New

    Starting a company or building anything new is really tough.  Why?  Because of the herd mentality.  The other day I brought my kids to their weekly swimming lesson, but this time something was different.  For some reason, two-dozen parents were packed into the pool area, standing or sitting right next to the pool.  I asked the owner if something was wrong with the standard waiting area, and she replied, “No, it’s just that we have a new student and when her parents decided to stay, all the other parents started copying them.”  That’s what happens to us all, every day, many times a day.  There’s another known phenomenon called “anchoring” that guides our thoughts and decisions in one direction or another based on some pre-determined subconscious anchor that we think is approximately right.  Often, this anchor is completely random, and yet it still affects our thinking.  Why do we do this?  Because human beings have a really hard time thinking about anything in true isolation.  We usually adjust up or down from some other starting point.

    Ok, now back to starting something new.  The goal is to create a new way of thinking and find the early adopters that can help guide the herd in a better direction.  But that’s easier said than done.  I don’t have the answer, but I believe the key is to have conviction.  If you’re trying to get someone to try a new drink, or game, or style of clothing, it may be difficult to have that conviction if society tells you that “you suck.”  However, at Punch we have a lofty goal of a much, much safer world.  This drives us with conviction through any adversity because we are working backwards from a better outcome.

    So what’s our mission?  To create a much safer world where response times are so fast that most people would never even consider committing a crime.  Remember the Tom Cruise movie, “Minority Report?”  Just imagine murders or rapes being stopped before they even start.  But we don’t need to put three psychics in a pool all drugged up to predict the future with a special rolling marble.  There is a real way to do this.  In fact, I’ll state flat out that it’s going to happen.  How?

    Well, let’s start with 911.  Do you really think we’ll be dialing 911 fifty years from now? Do you remember 411?  Who still uses that when you can just say “Ok Google” or “Hey Siri.”  Punch Alert is our first step towards creating a better way to communicate during an emergency.  We are empowering organizations like schools to better protect themselves, and the early adopters have come on board.

    That was the start, and stay tuned for what’s next.  We’ve got something very special up our sleeves and the world might just never be the same!

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  • Text-to-911 Map(s)

    In the last few weeks we have been peppered with lots of questions about our Text-to-911 map and availability checker, so I am going to address them here.

    The Text-to-911 map is really a composition of several different datasets: US County map, PSAP points, the FCC “official” availability map and our own coverage map. So why the different maps? Lets break them down:

    • US County Map – This is used as our map base. About 75% of the counties in the US only have one 911 call center (PSAP), so in determining coverage, the county map is a good place to start. Since every PSAP is in a county, it can serve as the base.
    • PSAP Points – There are over 6500 PSAP’s and over 3100 counties in the US. In many metropolitan areas, or those of high population, there are multiple PSAP’s within the county to serve different jurisdictions. We’ll talk about jurisdictions later. We have mapped out every single primary PSAP (and most of the secondary PSAP’s) for every county and jurisdiction. Text-to-911 coverage is determined by PSAP, not county. There are quite a few counties that are reflected as partially supporting Text-to-911 in the availability checkersimply because at least one of the PSAPs in the county supports it, but not all.
    • The FCC Text-to-911 Availability spreadsheet – The FCC provides a spreadsheet that is updated every 30-45 days that reflects the PSAP’s in the country that support Text-to-911. This data is wholly dependent upon the individual PSAP’s submitting a paper form to the FCC regarding coverage. This is not terribly efficient, but fortunately, we can help with that.
    • Punch Technologies Availability Map – This is our availability map that plots the covered counties/PSAP’s according to the FCC, but we take it a step further. We are proactively reaching out to all of the PSAPs in the country and asking them when they believe Text-to-911 will be supported. Believe it or not, there are many PSAPs that already support Text-to-911, but in most cases they are not aware that there is a paper form that needs to be submitted to the FCC for inclusion in the “Official” spreadsheet. In some cases we have found that the submitted form is taking 6-8 weeks to be processed. That’s why we also reflect partially supported counties.

    While the FCC is the system of record for the Text-to-911 supported PSAP availability list, we feel very confident that our maps are more accurate simply because of our process to proactively determine where the service is supported.

    Now lets go through the continued challenges of maintaining the maps. The coverage map is very much a living document in that the PSAP’s have to continually be consulted to determine the level of coverage. Text-to-911 sounds like a simple service, but it is far from simple. I’ll save that for a later post. I think the biggest challenge is determining and maintaining the PSAP jurisdictions when there is more than one PSAP present in a county. When there is only one PSAP, the jurisdictional boundaries are obvious and straightforward; however, with multiple PSAPs available in a county, how 911 calls are routed to a particular PSAP, is a spaghetti diagram. There is not a (publicly available) defined methodology to routing 911 calls from the wireless carriers (I know, I have asked them at various levels of leadership). In some counties, the routing is determined by zip codes (really poly lines since the zip codes are nothing more than routes), in other counties it is determined by fire response zones or various zoning laws. Regardless of how it is determined, it is anything but clear.

    So, how do we use the information in our apps? We only paint availability based on total PSAP support for a county. If a county has more than one PSAP and not all of them support Text-to-911, we won’t paint that county as available. Currently, this is the safest way to present dynamic coverage. Although, we have made strides in remedying the issue. We have begun to consult the local county governments where partial Text-to-911 support exists to get emergency response jurisdictional maps. We have made headway and have begun to implement jurisdictional maps in the app coverage, but we have a ways to go since there is NO standardization for county GIS at present.

    Non-standardization is impossible in this day and age you say? Ha! Now that issue will really make your blood boil, but I’ll save that for later as well

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