first-responder-technology
(3)
The Fire Chief Had Two Radios and Still Couldn’t See His Crew - 3AM Built the Missing Map
A volunteer firefighter saw crews tracked with magnets and radio calls. The Buffalo company he co-founded spent a decade turning that blind spot into FLORIAN - and learned why emergency technology has to fit the incident, the budget and the procurement system.
Bounce Imaging
Bounce Imaging makes softball-sized, throwable 360-degree cameras that first responders, law enforcement, and military teams toss into dangerous spaces to see what is inside before they enter. Founded out of MIT and the Harvard Innovation Lab after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the company builds low-cost, rugged imaging and robotics systems - including the Explorer and the world's first thermal throwable camera, the Pit Viper 360 - that stream real-time omnidirectional video to a phone or tablet. Its devices are used by the FBI, U.S. Marshals, the Department of Defense, and more than 450 state and local agencies.
Francisco Aguilar
Francisco Aguilar is the founder and CEO of Bounce Imaging, the company behind a softball-sized, throwable 360-degree camera that lets police, firefighters and soldiers see inside dangerous spaces before stepping into them. He conceived the idea as a graduate student at MIT and Harvard after watching rescuers struggle to find survivors in the rubble of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The original Explorer earned a spot on TIME's Best Inventions of 2012; the thermal-equipped Pit Viper 360 repeated the honor in 2024. Today his cameras are used by 300-plus police and fire departments and by defense customers including U.S. Special Operations Command.