KOVA’s SilentPartner App Reaches Phase 2 of National Institute of Justice’s Ultra High Speed App Challenge!

Written by KOVA Corp

Exciting news! KOVA is thrilled to announce that our public safety app, SilentPartner, has been chosen to be one of only ten competition entries to advance to the next level of the National Institute of Justice’s Ultra High Speed App Challenge!

SilentPartner is a ground-breaking new mobile app that allows emergency responders to use their smart phones to capture data ranging from audio to photos to video while on-scene, to organize and classify that data so it’s easily retrievable, and then instantly and securely transmit it to their office database.

In evaluating the SilentPartner app, as well as its competitors, the judges – a panel of experts in the fields of criminal justice, public management, application development, emergency management, and network management – took the following criteria into account:

  • Contribution of the application towards improving the effectiveness and/or efficiency of criminal justice services (60%).
  • Ease of implementing the application by state and local criminal justice agencies, including considerations of platform, and time and cost requirements (15%).
  • Practicality of data set selection in terms of relevance, ease of acquisition, and ongoing access (15%).
  • Feasibility of evaluation methodology and impact measurement (10%).

We here at KOVA are beyond excited to be able to say that SilentPartner satisfied each of these points, and that the National Institute of Justice found our app worthy of advancement to the next level of the competition.

The National Institute of Justice is a division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and handles the research, development, and evaluation needs of that department. Their stated mission is to use science to improve the nation’s understanding of crime- and justice-related issues.

Together with the National Science Foundation and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Institute of Justice promotes the development of criminal justice apps that are compatible with Ultra-High-Speed (UHS) networks. In order to encourage and support organizations who develop such apps, the NIJ created its Ultra High Speed App Challenge.

This challenge calls for organizations to submit their designs for “UHS-compatible apps that measurably improve the efficiency and/or effectiveness of criminal justice and public safety services and operation.”

The National Institute of Justice explains the reasoning behind their competition in this way: “The expansion of UHS networks offers increased opportunity for the development of ‘disruptive’ criminal justice apps – apps that actually change the way services and information are delivered to criminal justice and other public safety practitioners.  New UHS apps now have the potential to provide ubiquitous, real-time, individually tailored information and decision-support for criminal justice and public safety practitioners in rapidly evolving emergency situations, and the increased capacity of UHS systems now makes it possible to merge and manipulate data allowing for the development and use of powerful analytical and management tools.”

Apparently, the NIJ thinks that our SilentPartner app is exactly the kind of ‘disruptive’ criminal justice app they’re looking for. Out of the nationwide pool of contestants, only ten were chosen to advance to Phase Two of the Ultra High Speed App Challenge – and KOVA’s SilentPartner app was one of those ten.

For more information about SilentPartner, check out our new video explaining just how this ‘disruptive’ new app works!

 

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