The FirstNet App Catalog is where FirstNet users can go to get innovative solutions tailored to them.  Over the last few months, the FirstNet team has been hard at work stocking the app catalog’s virtual shelves with powerful and intuitive applications to help public safety users. 

Heavily vetted and solutions have been added to the FirstNet App Catalog, including:

• Explorer for ArcGIS – a lightweight mapping app and data viewer from Esri that allows first responders to create, markup and interact with their maps, even offline. This gives public safety scalable ways to collect and translate location information into a clear and actionable picture.
• Intrepid Response – a situational awareness solution that provides near real-time location data on a feature-rich map, and rapid media sharing among team members, all in one tool.
• NetMotion – a purpose-built, mobile VPN and QoS solution that helps to optimize and secure application traffic.
• PulsePoint – in a cardiac emergency, time is everything. This app helps first responders save lives by crowdsourcing immediate care through CPR-trained citizens, allowing them to view alerts about nearby cardiac emergencies.
• SceneDoc – a mobile-first platform for digital evidence management and data collection to assist investigators in the field.

FirstNet now offers a new category of apps: FirstNet Listed.  Achieving a FirstNet Listed designation is easier and more cost effective for developers. FirstNet Listed apps still have the same security, relevance and data privacy as those in the previous FirstNet Reviewed category. But now, security scans are completed during the review process at no added cost to the developer. 

To help first responders do even more with their mobile apps, we’re also making bundles available via the FirstNet App Catalog. These bundles will pair complementary apps together. For example, a bundle could include Esri Explorer for ArcGIS and Push-to-Talk or Intrepid Response and Push-to-Talk. These bundles give first responders more situational awareness with a common operating picture of the incident – all without the legwork of trying to figure out what apps to use together.

With the FirstNet App Ecosystem, there’s never been a better time to develop and discover specialized applications that can help save lives. 

Chicago codes for good

FirstNet designed its App Ecosystem to foster and encourage creative and intuitive public safety solutions built on common and open standards. And hackathons bring this to life in local communities, pairing developer teams with seasoned first responders who have an eye toward the future. 

We’ll be hosting a FirstNet hackathon at the Illinois Institute of Technology on Oct. 19 - 20. This 24-hour event will bring developers from across the city, state and nation together with Chicago law enforcement, firefighters and paramedics.    

The goals are simple: Create innovative apps that help first responders and others in public safety do their jobs more effectively, and bring forward solutions that can help them better connect to their community, build deeper relationships with those they serve, drive transparency and solve challenges that may be unique to Chicago. All while developing new technologies that can advance first responders’ ability to keep us safe.

To help the teams compete, we’ll have tech coaches, first responders and developer tools – from code samples to APIs to loaner hardware – all onsite. Not to mention an $11,000 purse, featuring prizes from top sponsors Fleet Complete, IBM, Next Gen Global and Orion Labs. 

So, if you’ve got the gift of code and want to make a difference, then sign up here and come on out to the Illinois Institute of Technology this Friday at 5 p.m. CT. We’ll bring the coffee.