Emergency Ventures was just weeks from releasing its debut emergency services app last Friday, when weather forecasts began to predict South Florida could get hit by the storm that became Hurricane Ian.
During a routine meeting with Miami-Dade Emergency Management, founder and CEO Joseph Russo was asked whether the app would be ready in time for the storm.
"I said no, but give me 24 hours," he said. "And in those next 24 hours I didn't sleep a wink."
Established this year, Emergency Ventures is building a web and mobile app that connects citizens, volunteers and emergency managers during natural disasters like hurricanes. The app is personalized to offer information such as weather forecasts, evacuation zone details and emergency shelter locations that are relevant to the user.
Russo had planned on spending the weekend prepping for a pitch competition, where the winning startup could receive $100,000. Instead, he recruited three students he knew from bootcamp Boca Code to finish coding a preliminary version of Emergency Ventures that could be ready before Hurricane Ian arrived.
"We coded all night," Russo said. "We basically took a ticket that that was going to take a week or two to finish and we did it in 24 hours."
Before starting Emergency Ventures, Russo founded the nonprofit Palm Beach Tech Association, now known as South Florida Tech Hub. He is also a co-founder of 1909, an organization that supports entrepreneurs in Palm Beach County.
Russo was inspired to rethink the way people can connect with emergency services during natural disasters after working with first responders during Hurricane Irma in 2017. He was helping with food and water distribution in the lower Keys and was struck by how difficult it was to share critical information in the aftermath, when cell phone and internet service was out. The only way to get that information to locals was through a single radio station.
"It made me realize we still haven't brought 21st century technology to the areas we need it most, like emergency response," Russo said.
Eventually, the Emergency Services app will be functional even when a user loses cell phone reception. The startup will use cached data and mesh networking to connect devices that have the app via bluetooth. That will make it possible for users to access emergency notifications even when they can't find a signal.
So far the startup has not secured funding from outside investors. Russo said the venture could begin raising a pre-seed round at a later date.
And the pitch competition? Russo still participated, presenting Emergency Ventures virtually after the all-night coding session. It probably wasn't the best pitch he's ever delivered, he said, but at least it was with good cause.
"Competitions come and go," he said. "Getting the app finished and potentially helping people was my focus that weekend."
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