|
1ST DEC 2008
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 While university officials try to come to terms with the mass shootings at Virginia Tech last week, schools across the country are looking at their own campus communications systems and wondering if they could mount a faster response to a dire emergency.
They can.
"What's the one thing that every student has with him every minute, that's turned on and waiting for text messages? Cell phones," said Rick Bowen, director of business development for the Tampa-based Agile Communications Group. "Our system could have alerted every Virginia Tech student, every faculty member, every staff member of the emergency -- all 26,000 people -- in as little as a minute and fifteen seconds."
Agile Communications has developed a text messaging system that can be installed on any college or university campus in under two hours and costs the school nothing until it is used. There are no unsolicited, annoying -- and expensive -- commercial text messages popping up on a daily basis on the cell phones of system participants.
When Agile is activated, text messages are blasted to every phone on a university's system with emergency updates and safety directives. And because Agile is carrier neutral, it will reach cell phones regardless of the network provider.
Virginia Tech officials have been second-guessed for using email, megaphones and human messengers running up and down hallways warning students to stay behind locked doors. The emails were useful only for those using computers with their email turned on. The other warnings, students said, were more confusing than helpful. Had Agile been in place, officials could have warned everyone on and off campus of the danger instantly.
Unlike most of its competitors, Agile's is a two-way service, allowing the recipient of a text message to respond, perhaps with information critical to the situation.
It isn't only in times of tragedy that Agile is vital. Dangerous weather approaching? Text message students and faculty to stay home and take cover. Agile can be used any time a university needs to reach a lot of people fast and reliably.
The retail price for using the system is 10 cents per message, which means a single text message blast at Virginia Tech would have cost the university $2,600. A small price to pay for lives that might have been saved.
Agile has valuable everyday applications, as well. Agile already serves Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), which text messages news about programs and coming attractions, driving people to its Web site. The Florida Aquarium and the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center also are Agile clients.
Related Links
Student News
Provided by The Student Zone (United States) |
|
| |
|
|
 |
HOME -
TRAVEL
-
ENTERTAINMENT
-
FEATURES
-
COLLEGE & UNI GUIDES
-
CAREERS
-
FINANCE
-
COMPETITIONS
-
INTERACTIVE
-
CONTACT
|
|
