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Special Annual Awards
2008 Campus Technology Innovators: Emergency Preparedness
8/1/2008
Looking ahead, Bryant is in the process of connecting to Rhode Island's Emergency Management Agency, as well as adding a community just over the state line in Massachusetts. With the assistance of OSHEAN and RINET, nonprofit organizations that provide highspeed networking to education and government agencies throughout Rhode Island, next are plans to tie in Brown University, Providence College, and Roger Williams University, to name a few.
Still, the new system has not been without its challenges. Because first responders are so accustomed to using twoway radios, many users were reluctant to embrace a new technology. Agency technical teams were hesitant, too, largely because they knew what kind of resistance they'd encounter. Bryant turned to the Smithfield Fire Department to help resolve these issues and convince other responders that the system would enhance, rather than replace, their push-to-talk two-way radios. Gradually, the strategy worked.
Today, the benefits of the plan are unmistakable. First, the system works-- an important reality given the lack of interoperability in the past. Also critical is the cost; because the technology runs over the internet protocol and not traditional phone lines or a new system entirely, Siedzik says that Bryant and all other participating organizations and institutions are able to keep operational expenses low.
"This product was seamlessly layered onto existing infrastructure and provisioned and delivered in the same fashion as a typical network service," he says. "The technology infrastructure of a university campus is a major investment that should be continually explored for better ways to leverage and capitalize on it."
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