And ePACT co-founder Christine Summers says such a network has a fairly impressive viral component.

Summers calls the company, which graduated from the GrowLab accelerator in Vancouver tonight, the “LinkedIn of emergencies,” because it’s a cloud connector of individuals’ emergency notification information that also functions as an alert system for organizations like schools, clubs, daycares, and youth sports teams.

“The vast majority of organizations put their emergency [contact] information on paper,” Summers says. “This is an opportunity to leverage networking technology for safety.”

The second co-founder, Kirsten Telford, saw that need firsthand. She was living in Japan when the massive tsunami of 2011 wreaked havoc on the coast, killing 15,000, and devastating the country’s infrastructure. And based on what she saw there, Telford recognized that we’re completely unprepared for a similar-size emergency in the US.

ePACT works by operating as a single source of emergency contact information. Everyone puts their data in, including allergies and medications, and organizations and people that need to access it request your permission. You grant permission to authorized organizations, like schools your children attend, or companies you work for, and they now know what to do and who to contact in case of emergency.

“If there’s an emergency, they can blast messages to the whole network,” Summers says. “Schools, for instance, can communicate out to families through text messages, a mobile app, email, and the web, and families can communicate with their network.”

That sounds like a prototypical good thing, but hard to monetize. But in fact, according to Summers, many types of organizations are federally mandated to maintain emergency contact lists. Schools head the list, but community organizations, sports teams, some clubs, fitness centers, and other organizations also need emergency contact information. According to ePACT, organizations in North America alone ask for emergency contact information 900 million times a year.

And it’s all on paper right now. Which means the emergency contact “industry” is ripe for disruption.

“The Toronto School Board, which we’re talking to right now, would save $1.75 million using our system,” Summers says. “Right now it costs them $10 per student to manage via a paper process.”

The co-founders had already raised $800,000 from angel investors before entering GrowLab. The company has five full-time employees, and Summers says it’s on track for 2,500,000 users within its very first year. And each user who joins, spreads the message.

“For every family that joins, we get another three families joining,” Summers told me.

So why join an accelerator?

“GrowLab held our feet to the fire,” she says. “It upped the ante for us … they made us think big and pushed the message: go hard or go home.”

photo credit: selva via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Verizon is working on the U.S.’s first-ever emergency texting service.

Text-to-911 will be incredibly useful for a wide range of mobile customers, from the young-and-hip to the hard-of-hearing. It’s also more useful than voice communication in uniquely mobile scenarios, such as low battery or poor signal strength.

Verizon has just selected a vendor for the project; rollout should begin as soon as early 2013. The FCC is applauding the move, which will bring SMS emergency response services to any text-messaging-capable phone.

FCC spokesperson Tammy Sun told TheHill that the organization “commended the company for offering consumers another way to reach 911 that is consistent with how millions of consumers already use mobile devices in their daily lives.”

The FCC itself has been trying to bring 911 emergency services into the land of SMS since at least 2010. In a speech in November of that year, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told the public, “It is time to bring 911 into the Digital Age.” Since then, the FCC has been soliciting ideas and pushing service providers to modernize 911.

Programs like this already exist in the UK. EmergencySMS allows any user who registers his or her phone to send texts to a call center, where the message is routed to police, fire fighters, or other first responders.

“Verizon is at the forefront of 911 public safety innovations, and today’s announcement is another step in making SMS-to-911 service available to those who cannot make a voice call to 911,” said Verizon VP Marjorie Hsu in a statement.

“Our company is continuing its long-standing commitment to address the needs of public safety and our customers by offering another way to get help in an emergency by using wireless technology.”

The need for more modern 911 options became abundantly clear during a crisis in 2009, when two girls trapped in a storm drain updated their Facebook statuses before contacting emergency services. In a similar scenario, a man used Twitter to report a woman’s seizure because he didn’t have enough battery life for a 911 call.

Whether because of technological literacy, changing hardware capabilities, or our own varying abilities when it comes to hearing, more 911 options are a good thing, and we look forward to hearing more from Verizon — and other carriers — about this trend.

Image courtesy of lightpoet, Shutterstock