Toronto based art and design institute, OCAD University, has started offering its students the ‘Guardly Safe Campus’ mobile app for free. The safety tool escorts students around campus as a piece of software on their phone and lets the user to get in touch with campus security and other personnel during an emergency or other potentially dangerous situation.
The Guardly Safe Campus mobile app came into existence thanks to the collaboration between OCAD University and the app developers Guardly. The two organizations worked together for two years and developed a web-based incident management system which is now deployed at OCAD. Interestingly, Guardly itself is a product of OCAD’s Mobile Experience Innovation Centre incubator program. Guardly developed its infrastructure and first iPhone app during a six month residency at OCAD. Guardly did not forget its roots and the students and staff at OCAD where used at testers for the mobile app which works on most major mobile platforms including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows 7. Users can download the Guardly app and use it even if they are not OCAD students. There is a free and a premium subscription version.
The recently deployed app works with Guardly Command, which is an internet based program that alerts personnel about emergencies on campus. Staff can then monitor, manage, and respond to the situation with in the defined “geofence” of the campus. The web app gives security personnel and staff real-time locations, identification of callers, and their profile. They can also access any necessary medical information or other details provided by the user in their pre-programmed profile. Communication is made easy thanks to the smartphone and staff can keep in touch through voice or text.
“Guardly puts our services directly into students’ pockets, on a platform they are especially comfortable with,” said Vicki Brown, director of OCAD University campus services & security. She further added that, “Our growth created a need for an innovative approach to campus safety that could transcend physical infrastructure. OCAD University is a leader in the mobile sphere, so it makes us very proud to be the first campus in Canada to offer this new service to our community.”
Source: CampusTechnology
Photo: Guardly
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