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This February, NIST’s Public Safety Communications Research Division will host a webinar featuring the prize winners of the Open Innovation Tech to Protect challenge. These prize challenge winners collaborated with the San Francisco Fire Department to build apps for first responders and mass casualty events.
By working directly with the people who use their products, these innovators are designing solutions with public safety in mind. Tune in February 25, 2021 to hear about how they went from prototype to product, as well as how collaboration with the San Francisco Fire Department was key to the app's success. Read more about the speakers below. Register now!
Gary Howarth, PSCR Tech to Protect Prize Challenge Manager
Gary Howarth, PhD is a Presidential Management Fellow and Prize Challenge Manager for the National Institute of Standards of Technology, Division of Public Safety Communications Research. In that role, he interfaces with diverse stakeholders from academia, government, the first responder community, and the public to develop and deliver programs that accelerate the development of technology for first responders. He earned his PhD in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University where his thesis research focused on the development of techniques to detect mobile regions of membrane proteins by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance. He has previously taught high school science and co-founded the NET Charter High School in New Orleans.
Britt Jensen, Peak Response
Britt is a user experience designer and researcher. Prior to co-founding Peak Response, she spent six years working in product design consulting where she helped develop everything from medical devices to children’s toys for clients around the world. She is passionate about bringing user-centered products to industries that are not traditionally design-focused and believes that everyone, no matter how highly trained, is able to do their work more effectively with well-designed products. As CEO of Peak Response, Britt is focused on product definition, user validation, business strategy, marketing, and partnership development. She is committed to immersing herself in the public safety industry to build products that are simple, relevant, and innovative. Britt is a graduate of Stanford University’s design program.
Francis Li, Peak Response
Francis is a full-stack software architect with nearly two decades of experience building and launching new products in Silicon Valley. A serial entrepreneur, he has been a consultant, a co-founder and held executive level roles in numerous prior startups where he was responsible for executing the development of new web and mobile applications and services across a broad spectrum of industries, including healthcare, digital marketing, and entertainment. With a complementary background in interaction design, Francis is also a passionate advocate for user-centered design and serves as a bridge facilitating the tight integration between design and engineering. Francis holds BA and MS degrees in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and a Master of Interaction Design degree from the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea.