APCO’s Senior Counsel will provide an update on key legislative developments impacting Emergency Communications Centers including the PROTECT 9-1-1 Act, 9-1-1 SAVES Act, and the Emergency Reporting Act.

Hear from the practitioners – directors of 9-1-1 centers – on what they need to achieve the vision of an advanced, broadband-enabled, emergency communications solution.

FirstNet, AT&T Public Safety Sales, and RapidDeploy partner to provide awareness of next generation 9-1-1 Call Handling and Computer Aided Dispatch. When a request for service is delivered to call handling platforms, Computer Aided Dispatch can then be employed to connect the 9-1-1 Dispatcher to information that resides off premise, or in “The Cloud”, as well using LTE to interface with assets in the field. Learning about the opportunity for improved situational awareness by removing data silos across applications is core to this presentation. An additional area of education that will be presented is sharing the real time reflection of GIS updates published to the PSAP’s Esri infrastructure.

Public Safety Grade – what is it and how is it achieved? In this session we discuss the history of the concept and the realities that have stood in the way of achieving it. Cloud computing, server and application virtualization and Software Defined Networking (SDN) are tools available to experienced engineering teams that can be used to make PSG a reality. Join us to learn more and participate in this important discussion.

NIST PSCR recently completed the final evaluation of prototypes from the Challenge Augmented Reality and Internet of Things or CHARIoT Challenge. This session provides an overview of the challenge design, highlights from the final event, and future opportunities for collaboration. Come learn more from the technical lead of the AR contest and the prize manager.

Emergency Communications Centers must remain resilient and provide critical services during significant incidents and events which could adversely affect the ability for employees to operate within the traditional brick and mortar 9-1-1 center. The COVID 19 pandemic provided the catalyst for untethering the 9-1-1 call-taker and dispatcher from the center, allowing these services to be provided remotely. Distributing the emergency communications function provides opportunities but also bring challenges. Alexandria City and Arlington County have made significant advancements in remote ECC operations and will present successes, lessons learned, and tips on how any center can create or expand remote capabilities.

APCO’s Senior Counsel will provide an overview of the public safety issues presently before the FCC, including improvements to 9-1-1 location accuracy, outage notifications, and protecting public safety spectrum.

Public safety telecommunicators are a critical link in the cardiac arrest chain of survival. Placing the proper tools in their hands can improve out-of-hospital cardiac arrest outcomes. This presentation will focus on methods to provide proximate AED locations to telecommunicators during call taking. Instead of asking callers if there is an AED nearby during a cardiac emergency, dispatcher centers should strive to have the ability to direct callers to the closest life-saving device. This includes building and maintaining a registry of known locations and having the requisite dispatch system integration to efficiently display nearby locations during call taking and dispatch.

Today over 5,000 9-1-1 centers have the ability to receive real-time information from connected devices, buildings, and medical databases. With valuable location and additional emergency data automatically delivered to their screens, dispatchers and field responders can provide an expedited, data-driven, and intelligent response. From innovative solutions that empower increased real-time situational awareness to technologies that enhance interoperability across agencies nationwide, attendees will hear about what’s next in NG911.

The Public Safety Next Generation 9-1-1 Coaltion is a diverse group of stakeholders representing public safety including 9-1-1, fire, emergency medical, and law enforcement professionals who are united behind legislative principles that address the needs and concerns of public safety. Learn about the Coalition’s efforts to pass legislation that enables a nationwide upgrade to Next Generation 9-1-1.

Hear from representatives of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau about the changing regulatory landscape for public safety communications.

FirstNet staff will be on hand to review recent achievements and describe what to expect in the coming new year for the FirstNet nationwide public safety broadband network.

Deploying new technologies, particularly those that could bring imagery from emergency incidents into ECCs, adds stress to an already stressful job. This session will describe best practices and lessons learned for launching peer support programs specific to 9-1-1.

Public Safety does not need to be intimidated by staggering, seemingly endless, amounts of data now available from a multitude of resources including Internet of Things (IoT) providers. Instead, 911 Data Messaging can be accessed, coalesced and safely delivered to First Responders in the field – all within the existing 911 workflow – to provide greater situational awareness with potentially life-saving results. Join this session to learn how data messaging to 911 enables live messaging between 911 callers or third-party emergency contacts/call centers and 911 telecommunicators in real time, similar to the way that text-to-911 communications occur today. Attendees will appreciate the opportunity to leverage existing system, enabling tech companies to send human-verified data to their center directly, obliterating the need to monitor a separate over-the-top (OTT) application.

Continued attacks on emergency communications centers (ECCs) have reinforced the need for physical and cyber security. Yet ECC administrators often can’t just install off-the-shelf solutions to meet their needs – but why not? What makes cybersecurity unique for these centers? Join CISA subject-matter experts as they discuss the unique cybersecurity requirements of ECCs and how to articulate those needs to decision-makers to justify the increased support necessary to tailor cybersecurity solutions, processes and staffing to meet requirements. Learn about the unique drivers of public safety cybersecurity, as well as ongoing initiatives to enhance communications cybersecurity governance, interoperability and resiliency.