PR’s Richard Gonzalez visited and described a nondescript building in Silicon Valley, not too far from Levi’s Stadium, where Super Bowl 50 was played. That’s where public safety officials were huddled to help ensure the safety of teams and their fans during the days leading up to Super Bowl 50. Data from field reports, 911 calls, traffic and weather are ingested by software and processed with complex analytics to help public safety officials sift through tremendous amounts of data and have actionable intelligence with which to make decisions. Haystax’s California Common Operating Picture (Cal COP) for Situational Awareness, used to provide this actionable intelligence, is used year round by eight core urban areas in the state of California and has been since 2009. Haystax has helped first responders secure the past six Super Bowls (prior to Super Bowl 50) and Santa Clara provided a challenge that other locations in the past haven’t, partly because the game will be played 45 miles away from where tens of thousands of fans will be lodging in San Francisco. One of the main challenges is coordinating information between different law enforcement agencies with different chains of command throughout the region. “All those kinds of things need to be enabled much more by technology because you don’t have the benefit of kind of close geography.” – Bryan Ware, CTO, Haystax Technology Please click here to listen to the full clip on NPR.org
