The Record - Issue 20: Spring 2021

125 Ultimately, the pilot programme also aims to serve as a networking platform so that public safety bodies around the world can share experi- ences and knowledge. Most notably though, Iris is a solution to help emergency services organisations understand and use the data available to them. During an emergency, first responders are saturated with unfiltered information rapidly coming from multiple sources. As such, decision-making, team coordination and crew safety becomes more difficult. Iris will address this data satu- ration to help first responders make faster and safer decisions in the field. The solution lays out all the relevant data needed to increase situation awareness on every stage of an incident. It integrates with building safety data, 3D models and visual tools for inci- dent management. It provides automatic incident briefs using text-to-voice technology, can auto- mate reporting and enables users to create cus- tomised tools. But once all these cutting-edge features are available, what do our users do with them? Usability is as important for Unblur as the development of the technology itself. Understandable, easy-to-use features can change the outcome of an emergency situa- tion and the way emergency services relate to technology altogether. Being able to transmit instruction through voice commands, for exam- ple, enables users to save time and dedicate their attention to more pressing scenarios. Iris also leverages machine learning capabil- ities to truly modernise emergency services operations. The intelligent command centre can help responders make decisions more quickly by suggesting recommendations based on pro- cessed field information. Its algorithms process and categorise officers’ expertise and different incident outcomes to produce new possible pro- tocols to support tasks during an emergency. Irene Schreiber is the head of communications at Unblur PUB L I C S E C TOR Unblur is empowering front-line responders with technology to better tackle emergency situations