New tech partnership helps fight crime
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) – A NEW agreement has been signed to shield South Africans from rampant crime and traffic accidents.
Huawei, the mobile phone manufacturer, announced the exclusive partnership with Rapid Response, the award-winning mobile app that transforms a mobile phone into an emergency panic button.
The agreement will see the app embedded within Huawei phones as a native service that links users to emergency service providers.
“This innovative service mirrors our commitment to putting our customers first in all that we do,” said Charlene Munilall, General Manager of Huawei Consumer Group South Africa.
“By offering access to the Rapid Response service, our customers will be able to receive immediate response to crime and accident emergencies,” Munilall said.
South African entrepreneurs Marlize Holtzhausen and GerritCloete established the Rapid Response service in 2013. It has gone on to take top honours at the 2014 GoogleFest pitching competition in Zurich, as well as the International Labour Organisation’s Enterprise Challenge the previous year.
“An endorsement from a company like Huawei says a lot about our credibility and the type of change they want to see. Low levels of service delivery in emergency services and the high crime affecting families are two of the biggest challenges in South Africa, which will now be seen in a different light as assistance is immediately at hand,” Holtzhausen said.
The Rapid Response app incorporates a number of innovative services that can make a significant difference in response times and the type of assistance available to someone in an emergency situation.
Utilising location-based services, including NFC technology, Rapid Response is able to alert emergency services providers such as ER24, a contracted security company or personal contacts that an emergency has occurred.
Utilising the Rapid Response NFC tag or a one-touch emergency button, users can send an emergency alert in the event of a crime emergency, or a car or similar accident in which medical care is required.
Once an alert is sent out, ER24 will either dispatch an emergency response vehicle or alert the local police station or designated private security company.
Holtzhausen said dispatching emergency assistance in a timely manner was critical to ensuring the safety of people in distress, as well as minimising trauma to victims and their families.
As the GPS co-ordinates of the emergency situation are dispatched with the alert, emergency and security personnel are also able to respond more effectively.
Trials of the Rapid Response app will include integration with Huawei’s Talkband wearable device.
This product features next-generation technology that can capture critical information such as heart rate and, as it incorporates NFC, can be used instead of the Rapid Response tag.
“The Rapid Response service represents the perfect melding of innovative technologies that unleash the true potential of smartphones as devices that become central to how we live, work and play. We look forward to a long-term partnership with Rapid Response, and being able to offer our customers new levels of peace of mind, no matter the situation they find themselves in,” Munilall said.
– CAJ News
