Emergent Signs On As Vision 2024 Special Venue Sponsor

By James Careless

Emergent, a maker of first responder-centric incident command, fleet management, and inspection software, has signed on as a Special Venue Sponsor at the 2024 Vision FirstNet Users Summit (Vision 2024). Hosted and organized by the Public Safety Broadband Technology Association (PSBTA), Vision 2024 is being held at Las Vegas’ Sahara Hotel October 7-10, 2024. The company will also be presenting a Vision 2024 session entitled, ‘Creating an Intentional Mission Critical Platform for Public Safety’, on Tuesday, October 8, 2024, at 2:30 pm.

Who Emergent Is

Emergent’s mission is to improve the safety and operational effectiveness of first responders by offering innovative frontline technology designed to enhance their safety and effectiveness. To make this happen, Emergent equips its users’ vehicles with telemetry control units that connect

to the company’s cloud and, by extension, to the tablets of incident commanders and other fire/EMS officers on the ground.

“We use that telematics data to help manage incidents and the fire ground for the incident commander,” said David Blankinship, President of Emergent. “We offer programs to leverage this data for incident scene control and fleet management, and likewise for fire inspection. As well, Emergent’s Essential Ops Bundle uses the installed telemetry control units to listen to everything from the seat belts to the engine and water pumps, to let incident commanders see what their apparatus is doing in real time. The idea is to keep all of that fleet in service and know when something’s going wrong instantly.”

Why They Are Sponsoring Vision 2024

Although sponsoring and presenting at Vision 2024 will undeniably give exposure to Emergent’s products, Blankinship said that their primary purpose for being here is to support first responders — which is what Emergent is all about.

“It’s an important event for us that represents everything that we are,” he told AllThingsFirstNet.com. “We understand that public safety needs solutions that help firefighters, because helping firefighters helps our public and our communities. For us, Vision 2024, the PSBTA, and this Special Venue Sponsorship represent these things coming together. After all, to do what we do, we have to have terrific broadband communications dedicated to public safety available wherever public safety people go.”

What Emergent Will Be Presenting

During Emergent’s Vision 2024 presentation, ‘Creating an Intentional Mission Critical Platform for Public Safety’, the company wants to show how Emergent’s software and FirstNet’s broadband network can work together to keep first responders safe and provide elite situational awareness for any call. To this end, “we want to talk about what does a mission critical platform mean,” said Blankinship. “That means a lot of things to a lot of people, but to us it means focusing on the firefighter in the field. It means understanding that equipment can talk to us, buildings can talk to us, and we want to put that information from IoT [Internet of Things] devices and embedded devices to put it in front of firefighters when they’re making critical decisions and critical moments.”

In this situation, FirstNet serves as “the glue” that connects this data and first responders together. “It’s the underpinning part,” Blankinship explained. “Meanwhile, Emergent is the software that lays on top of it and integrates all the equipment, the cardiac monitors, the SCBA, and the users to achieve true situational awareness.”

Why Vision 2024 Summit Matters

Emergent’s decision to sponsor and present at Vision 2024 underscores this company’s respect and regard for the event. “Vision 2024 matters because it’s not a typical public safety show,” said Blankinship. “This show is all about the people who make public safety communications happen. As such, Vision 20204 is the place where we’re talking to policymakers, legislators, and the fire chiefs that are influencers in this space. We’re talking to people that really understand that you have to have a network, along with solutions that ride on that network. That’s where Emergent fits in: As a FirstNet Embedded IoT partner, we see ourselves as a facilitator for this smart group of people who’ve worked so hard to make nationwide first responder broadband services a reality.”

Vision 2024’s role as a meeting place for public safety’s communications heavy hitters explains why Emergent feels it has to be at this event, above all others. “We attend a lot of shows to promote our company, but that’s not the fundamental reason we’re coming to Vision 2024,” Blankinship said. “We are here to support the importance of FirstNet and its service to first responders. We’re focused on this technology that creates this fabric that just literally saves lives, reduces cognitive demand on firefighters, and makes a real difference materially every shift. That’s the heartbeat of us. We’re here because this is a group that influences that mission. We’re here because FirstNet is making a difference, and we support it.”