Agrawala, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, developed M-Urgency, an app for Android mobile phones that instantly shares video, audio and location information in emergency situations with university police dispatchers. How did you come up with the app idea?
One question I always asked myself and the other faculty was what kind of technology can be developed and what kind of technological solutions can be provided to improve the quality of life on campus. One of the solutions we came up with was to provide much better-quality information to the first responders, and our solution was to provide a video to the first responders. The result has been this particular app.
How do people use the app?
When you need to contact police or fire or anyone else in emergency situations, instead of dialing 911, what you do is take this app out and at that time a connection is established from your cell phone to the dispatchers. At that time, where you’re calling from, and who you are, that information is given to the police dispatchers. And a video stream starts from the video camera so a dispatcher can hear and see what’s going on at the scene and come up with a much more appropriate and timely response.
Has this been tested already on campus?
We spent the last few months doing very exhaustive testing. Only after that, when we were convinced that the application runs and runs solidly, did we decide to release it.
How many students and faculty do you expect to download the app?
We would hope that anybody who has an Android phone right now, and when we release the app to iPhones and Windows Phones and others, that everybody will download the app. It is a major and significant advance in the way public safety situations are handled on this campus and then later on any other campus.
– Ben Giles
