As part of Verizon’s continued commitment to invest in public safety and support first responders, the company has chosen five companies to take part in the fourth cohort of its 5G First Responder Lab. The companies will work together to accelerate 5G development of solutions to common challenges along the EMS/patient journey from pre-incident and emergency response to treatment and recovery, all powered by Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network.
With the COVID-19 global pandemic, EMS workers on the frontlines are struggling with a heavy workload and oftentimes a lack of vital information at their fingertips. Solutions built on Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network will put critical information in the hands of EMS workers by enabling innovations like smart dispatching, non-emergent interventions, telehealth, and remote diagnostics.
The companies participating in this cohort include:
- Biotricity: Focuses on near real-time remote medical monitoring.
- Rave Mobile Safety: Offers critical communication and a data-sharing platform.
- DispatchHealth: Provides on-call medical care to your door.
- Vuzix: Uses augmented reality to better inform First Responders.
- Visionable: Provides a platform for near real-time medical collaboration.
Over the next six months, these companies will have access to Verizon 5G specialists, engineers, and Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network to further develop their solutions using 5G’s high speed and ultra-low latency capabilities. The 5G First Responder Lab launched in November 2018 in partnership with Responder Corp. as a first-of-its-kind innovation program to identify promising technology companies and give them access to 5G technology to test and refine their 5G solutions for public safety.
The first three cohorts included 15 startups who tested their developments on 5G Ultra Wideband, including autonomous persistent drones for security and situational awareness, gun detection software using existing municipal cameras, computer vision heads up display for firefighters to see through smoke, and VR training for police officers and EMTs. Verizon continues to explore partnership opportunities with several of these startups.
Verizon is also now accepting applicants for the fifth cohort of its 5G First Responder Lab focused on fire response and situational awareness solutions. The fifth cohort participants will be selected in Q4 2020.
