CAPS 2024 continues MCP’s long tradition of thought leadership

There are many things of which we’re proud, starting with our collective ability to transform emergency-response and justice outcomes throughout the decade and a half that MCP has existed. We do this of course by imparting subject-expertise pertaining to technology, operations, training, recruiting and hiring, governance, and more. This expertise has been gained through decades of experience working for all manner of public-safety and justice organizations. We also do this by demonstrating, every day, the firm’s core values of persistence, integrity, accountability, trust, and prudence.

Another source of pride concerns thought leadership, for which MCP is known throughout the public sector. This takes myriad forms, including blogs, whitepapers, case studies, and published articles. The firm’s subject-matter experts also regularly can be found at various conferences, both large and small, speaking during educational sessions and panel discussions.

Speaking of conferences, we are quite proud of the one that we created five years ago, the virtual Conference for Advancing the Public Sector (CAPS). It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention and so it was with CAPS. The COVID-19 pandemic had hit, which created a knowledge void. MCP stepped up and created CAPS, taking only six weeks to do so. We’ve been producing the event ever since, and each iteration is better than the one before. That holds true for this year’s CAPS, which will be held next week on September 17-18.

The following are a few of the sessions that caught my eye:

Disruptive technologies: what they are and how they are taking emergency response to new levels — Technologies used in the public sector continue to evolve at warp speed. This session will examine the rapidly expanding use cases for unmanned aerial vehicles, aka drones, breakthroughs regarding transcription and translation that are making 911 telecommunicators even more proficient, and innovations in location services — especially those related to indoor mapping — and more.

Artificial intelligence: exploring the possibilities, dispelling the myths — Considerable curiosity exists regarding how artificial intelligence might be leveraged by public-sector organizations. But understanding of AI still is evolving and in fact is at a relatively nascent stage. This session will dive into numerous use cases that already have emerged and, perhaps more importantly, key considerations that organizations should contemplate as they decide when and how to implement AI solutions.

How Amazon Connect is changing emergency response — Currently, 17 early-adopter 911 centers have deployed Amazon Connect to handle nonemergency calls and the results have been astounding — a 20 percent to 50 percent reduction in nonemergency administrative calls being answered by telecommunicators. This session will explore a collaboration between MCP and Amazon Web Services to accelerate deployment of the solution, as well as implementation best practices, and provide answers to frequently asked questions.

911 and 988 integration: why it is essential and how to achieve it — Many mental-health and public-safety professionals believe that the 988 and 911 systems working in concert will create a powerful, holistic approach to local mental-health crisis response. But while progress has been made, 911-988 interoperability remains a work in progress. This session will dive into the operational challenges that exist and how to resolve them.

Innovating 911 digital alarm response with the ASAP Service — The ASAP Service was developed to deliver alarm/sensor-initiated calls — which typically enter the 911 center via its 10-digit administrative line(s) — directly into the center’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. This greatly relieves the call-handling burden on telecommunicators and greatly reduces call-response times. This session will explore the current state of this impactful solution and what the future holds for it.

To learn more and to register, click here. I urge you to attend CAPS 2024 — I am confident that you will find it time well spent.

Glenn Bischoff is MCP’s content specialist and the former editor-in-chief of Urgent Communications.