PagerDuty.org and Twilio.org have each named Trek Medics International as one of their Crisis Response Grant winners, providing the nonprofit organization with essential financial and technical support to expand its reach and continue enhancing its mission-critical emergency communications platform, Beacon. Now active on four continents, Beacon is being used by a wide range of emergency response organizations to dispatch local responders to a host of critical emergencies, ranging from road traffic injuries in Africa to hurricanes in the Caribbean and overdoses in the U.S.
“The rapid expansion of mobile phone networks across the globe has made it very easy for victims to call for help when it’s needed,” said Jason Friesen, a former paramedic and founder of Trek Medics. “But there’s still this huge gap in how to actually send help to the victim quickly and reliably. The 911 dispatching technologies used in the most advanced emergency response systems simply aren’t affordable or even practical for much of the world, including for many at-risk communities here in the U.S. And now, with Covid-19, vulnerable populations are even more isolated as traditional response systems are increasingly overwhelmed. This incredible support coming from PagerDuty and Twilio at the same time will provide much needed stability for Trek Medics in very chaotic times, and allow us to continue building practical solutions for vulnerable communities and expand our impact throughout 2021.”
PagerDuty and Twilio are both ideal partners for Trek Medics, each providing unique technology solutions and vast experience in crisis response:
PagerDuty, based in San Francisco, CA, builds a suite of analytics tools to help technology companies keep a vigilant eye on the performance and health of all their system components and prevent service disruptions. “We know time is critical when it comes to lives saved and stronger health outcomes, particularly for underresourced communities who are disproportionately affected by delay and breakdowns across the health ecosystem,” said Olivia Khalili, PagerDuty’s VP of Global Social Impact and Philanthropy. “We are proud to support Trek Medics’ life-saving emergency care, and to offer PagerDuty’s monitoring and alerting to reduce disruptions and meet growing demand with its Beacon platform.”
Twilio, also based in San Francisco, CA, has been supporting Trek Medics from the very beginning through its myriad communications solutions, including handling the SMS messages sent by Beacon to responders in over 20 countries as well as the management of incoming emergency calls to dispatch centers in Haiti, Malawi and Puerto Rico.
The financial support and technical expertise awarded to Trek Medics by PagerDuty and Twilio will be used to continue enhancing the features and functionality of the Beacon platform and to expand its reach by nearly double by the end of 2021.
“We are so grateful to PagerDuty and Twilio for recognizing the importance of community-based response solutions as Covid-19 continues to impact every facet of our lives,” Friesen added. “Because of their generous support and unparalleled expertise, we’re able to empower communities to coordinate emergency response at the local level on a scale far greater than we could’ve ever imagined.”
To learn more about the Beacon platform and sign up for an account, visit the Beacon website at: https://trekmedics.org/beacon/
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