Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) Launches Roam Secure Alert Network for Emergency Notification
Alexandria, VA --[Emergency Notification News]-- October 4, 2007 Roam Secure, Inc. today announced Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) has purchased and deployed Roam Secure Alert Network (RSAN). College and campus administrators and public safety officials can send targeted alerts via SMS text messages on cell phones and to students, faculty and staff. Students (or their parents) can register for the system, NOVA Alert, at no charge by visiting https://alert.nvcc.edu or by texting “NOVA” to 411911.
NOVA, the second-largest community college in the country is located in the heart of Northern Virginia’s technology corridor just outside Washington, D.C.; with campuses in Alexandria, Annandale, Loudoun, Manassas, Springfield and Woodbridge. With RSAN, the entire student body or those at selected campuses, both on and off campus, can be notified. The system is capable of reaching most text-enabled device including cell phones, pagers, e-mail, and BlackBerry. RSAN also integrates with other communication media that may be deployed such as message boards, sirens, and speakers providing a single using a layered approach to mass notification.
“NOVA has a very mobile student body with many full- and part-time students spread across the greater Washington region on campus, at work, home or on the road. Reaching our students quickly with emergency information is very important and we have taken great strides to keep our students, staff, and faculty informed via a variety of methods and technologies. Our students communicate at home, school and work through e-mail and text alerting on a daily basis. Now we can reach out to them quickly using Roam Secure. The system also integrates with the other alerting systems in the surrounding local jurisdictions via Roam Secure’s emergency information exchange,” said Dr. Steven Sachs, NOVA’s VP for Instructional & Information Technology.
About Northern Virginia Community College
Northern Virginia Community College is the largest institution of higher education in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the second largest community college in the nation. NOVA enrolls more than 60,000 students at its six campuses in Alexandria, Annandale, Loudoun, Manassas, Springfield and Woodbridge, and through the distance learning program at its Extended Learning Institute. For more information about NOVA and its programs or services, call (703) 323-3000 or visit the College’s Web site at www.nvcc.edu.
Source: Vendor Press Release
Northern Virginia Community College deploys Roam Secure Alert Network (RSAN)
Connect-CTY(R) Service Provides Multi-language Message Capabilities to Ensure Emergency Notifications Reach Temple City's Diverse Community
TEMPLE CITY, Calif., Oct. 4 --[Emergency Notification News]-- The NTI Group, Inc. (NTI) announced today that Temple City has selected the Connect-CTY mass communication service. Temple City has implemented the Connect-CTY service to provide city officials the ability to communicate via multiple languages with its diverse community, regarding time-sensitive matters, such as unforeseen events or emergencies.
"The best way to keep residents safe is through communication, and the Connect-CTY service makes it easy to communicate with residents of a diverse community with its multilingual capabilities," said Robin D. Richards, Chairman and CEO of NTI.
The Connect-CTY service allows city officials to send and track personalized voice messages to thousands of residents, businesses, and local officials in just minutes, through a single phone call. Messages can be sent in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Mandarin and Vietnamese. The service requires no additional hardware; it can be used from any computer with Internet access or telephone, ensuring that officials can send vital messages from wherever they are located. The city also can track homes that were reached with a report on the results of outgoing messages.
City administrators can target messages to an unlimited number of groups -- everything from mobilizing emergency response teams to notifying necessary department heads. Authorized users also can use a map on the Connect-CTY system to contact people associated with specific geographical locations, sending messages only to select neighborhoods when needed.
Temple City will be conducting its first test-call today, to ensure all residents who would like to be included in the system are given a chance to correct their phone numbers. Primary residential and business phones in Temple City will automatically be included in the system. If residents do not receive the call, they should visit the city's Web site at http://www.ci.temple-city.ca.us and click on the "SIGN UP NOW -- SERVICES BY CONNECT-CTY" link to enter their contact information into the secure Connect-CTY database.
Source: Vendor Press Release
Multi-National Force-Iraq Deploys AtHoc IWSAlerts in Camp Slayer for Emergency Notifications
AtHoc's Network-centric Emergency Alerting System Now Fielded in Forward Positions to Rapidly Warn Personnel about Enemy Arms Fire
BURLINGAME, Ca. --[Emergency Notification News]- (October 2, 2007) -- AtHoc, Inc., the leader in network-centric emergency notification systems, today announced AtHoc IWSAlerts™ has been deployed in Camp Slayer, Baghdad, Iraq for the purpose of force protection. The Multi-National Force-Iraq is using IWSAlerts to provide emergency alerting for several hundred personnel, including rapidly warning them of enemy arms fire, impending attacks and severe weather conditions.
The alerts effectively and efficiently notify personnel of the emergency situation and provide details on how long the alert is in effect. Using IWSAlerts, military and civilian personnel in Camp Slayer rapidly receive warnings about threats, as well as clear instructions for action, such as temporarily increasing uniform posture in response to enemy fire. Within seconds, the operations center can activate pre-defined alerting scenarios, which turn networked computers into an integrated physical alarm system, capturing the attention of nearby personnel through loud audio and visual messages. The system can be integrated with sensors to automatically activate scenarios and warnings for incoming threats. Command centers now can proactively alert personnel of attacks and help ensure a quick and safe response.
AtHoc IWSAlerts was selected due to its ease and speed of deployment. AtHoc worked with local network technicians to install and configure the product within days. Army security specialists then ran numerous tests over a two-week period for information assurance certification before deploying the commercial-off-the-shelf software on their operational network. Initially deployed for Air Force personnel, the system was quickly extended to the Army and Navy who were co-located within the same joint command.
Source: Vendor Press Release
Los Angeles Unified School District Becomes the Largest School District in the Country to Implement a District Wide Mass Notification Service
District Selects Connect-ED® from The NTI Group, Inc. to Keep Students Safe and Parents Informed 
SHERMAN OAKS, CA --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- October 1, 2007- The NTI Group, Inc. (NTI) announced today that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has selected the Connect-ED notification service. The system will be used for school-to-parent communication in the event of an emergency, but will also be used for regular attendance notifications, as well as important school and district announcements. “We applaud LAUSD officials for taking charge of student safety and utilizing the Connect-ED system to communicate with parents and organize staff during emergency situations,” said Robin D. Richards, Chairman and CEO of NTI. “Effective communication during emergency situations is vital to student safety.”
The Connect-ED service will also enable school administrators to increase their communication with the school community by sending messages in multiple languages to parents and 
staff members in a matter of minutes. This means that the district can ensure that parents will receive important information about the safety of their children in the language they use at home.
The Connect-ED service also allows LAUSD to engage parents by notifying them of important announcements, updates and meetings. The service can be used to inform parents of upcoming teacher/parent meetings and information about attendance, holidays, field trips and bus routes. It can also be tailored to send messages to parents with children in specific grades or to parents of students participating in a particular sports team or club.
The fully hosted service does not require additional hardware, so the Connect-ED service can be used from any telephone or computer with Internet access, allowing LAUSD administrators to send vital messages from wherever they are located – even if they are evacuated in an emergency situation.
To ensure that important messages and alerts reach students and staff quickly, no matter what their preferred method of communication is, the Connect-ED system sends voice and text messages through four different modes of communication:
- Voice messages to home phones, work phones, cell phones, and e-mails
- Text messages to cell phones, PDAs and other text-based devices
- Written messages to e-mail accounts
- Messages to TTY/TDD receiving devices for the hearing impaired
Source: Vendor Press Release
MIR3’s Campus-Notification System is Praised for Performance During Real-Life Threat at New York’s St. John’s University
MIR3 inCampusAlert is Praised by New York Governor, New York City Police Commissioner, State Assembly Member and University Administration.
NEW YORK, NY –[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- October 1, 2007 – After a masked gunman was spotted and subdued without a single injury on the campus of St. John’s University on September 26, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told a news conference, “St. John's newly instituted emergency text messaging system worked like a charm.” The inCampusAlert™ Intelligent Notification (IN®) system, provided to St. John’s University by MIR3™, a California technology company that specializes in automated emergency notification systems for corporations, governments and universities, was credited with quickly keeping the campus population informed and calm and for enhancing public safety during the crisis.
MIR3 claims that inCampusAlert is the only mass notification system in the market today which allows for true two-way texting. According to MIR3, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer praised the recently installed MIR3 campus-notification system at St. John’s University, and New York Assemblyman Rory I. Lancman offered legislation requiring universities to implement emergency campus-notification at college and university campuses throughout New York State.
Dr. James Pellow, chief operating officer of St. John's University, lobbied his administration for an emergency notification system shortly after the Virginia Tech tragedy in April 2007. inCampusAlert was installed in early September. Last week, Dr. Pellow was quoted in the media as saying, “No one thought that we would be testing this latest technology this quickly for an emergency”... it “allowed us to manage this mini-city of 20,000 people.” The initial emergency alert was sent using MIR3 technology to St. John University’s campus on September 26 by Thomas Lawrence, the university's vice president for public safety and a former deputy chief of the New York Police Department. The message read as follows: “From Public Safety. Male was found on campus with rifle. Please stay in your buildings until further notice. He is in custody, but please wait until the all clear.”
According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, more than 70 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds own a cell phone and 92 percent of them use text messages regularly. “The University's response serves as a national model,” New York Police Commissioner Kelly added. “Coincidentally, St. John's was one of the participants in our campus security conference last week, during which we examined the emergency response at Virginia Tech, and other campuses.”
Source: Vendor Press Release