Authored by Chris Noell, SVP of Product & Engineering at Raptor Technologies
Chris Noell, as senior vice president of product and engineering, leads the product vision, roadmap, and engineering execution at Raptor Technologies. Chris has over 20 years of experience and was previously the head of product for Alert Logic where he created the industry’s leading cloud security solution and led the transition of the platform to a modern microservices architecture. He was also formerly the founder of TruComply, a payments security SaaS provider.
Who is Raptor?
Raptor Technologies was founded in 2002 with the mission to protect every child, every school, every day. The Raptor School Safety Suite integrates visitor, volunteer, and emergency management software to help schools manage every aspect of safety. With Raptor, schools can approve all entrants, manage volunteers, and confidently respond to any emergency in seamless collaboration with first responders—all in one, user-friendly suite. Today, Raptor is trusted to protect over 35,200 K-12 schools across our nation.
What challenge is Raptor aiming to solve?
Successful response—and the number of lives saved—depends on how fast first responders receive accurate, specific information about the emergency. Past school tragedies are heartbreaking reminders of how time equals life, and that we cannot afford even one second of delayed or inaccurate correspondence with dispatchers and responders.
Although our focus is to prevent another unthinkable tragedy, schools need to be proactive and prepared. Raptor equips schools and staff with the right tools so they can respond to emergencies in seamless collaboration with first responders for better, faster emergency response.
What is the Raptor and RapidSOS solution?
Wireless 911 calls create a unique challenge since they are mobile and are not associated with a fixed location or address. Additionally, standard E911 calls do not automatically provide all the potential situation-specific details needed for quick emergency response.
To overcome the challenges, Raptor Alert connects the caller to 911 and instantly shares critical information through the RapidSOS Portal or through integrations with RapidSOS Ready partners, such as 911 Computer Aided Dispatch and call handling systems like VESTA and VIPER. Information digitally routed to 911 includes:
- Caller Name and Information (e.g. Job role)
- Dispatchable Address
- Callback Number
- School Name and Precise On-Campus Details (e.g. Building name, headcount of students and staff, number of visitors on the school’s campus)
- Real-time status of the emergency
- Type of emergency (e.g. Lockdown)
Why did Raptor become RapidSOS Ready?
Raptor Alert, coupled with the RapidSOS emergency response data platform, delivers rich, real-time data for smarter and faster emergency response. Raptor Alert generates critical information that first responders can use to save lives. By integrating our solutions to work together seamlessly, we empower 911 operators, dispatchers, and emergency personnel with a single source for mission-critical information that can help them respond to school incidents faster than ever.
Since every second matters in an emergency situation, Raptor needs to communicate the situation to 911 operators in their preferred tooling. With RapidSOS, Raptor can automatically deliver this critical information to operators and first responders at the touch of a button. For example, instead of just sharing the caller’s phone number, Raptor, together with RapidSOS, can provide the caller’s name, their precise location within the school, and the nature of the emergency – speeding response and ultimately saving lives.
To learn more about the joint solution, see the press release here.
To learn more about sending your life-saving data to first responders through the RapidSOS Platform, talk to an expert today.
