The Next Gen 911 | Vic A. Merjanian

Interview Transcript of: The Next Gen 911 | Vic A. Merjanian

Alan Olsen: Can you share a little about your background with us?

 

Vic A. Merjanian: Many years ago I was at UCSD as an undergrad and I found myself in situations with friends with family and we needed help. But there wasn’t really an easy way to get help you were among a sea of people but you couldn’t find help. It got me thinking, people use apps to order food, to date, to do so many things- why can’t you use an app to get help as well. That was kind of where we started things off from.

 

Alan Olsen: So this is the new 9-1-1 service?

 

Vic A. Merjanian: We look at it as a next gen 911. 911 is a very important piece of the pie and it does a lot of things, but there are a lot of situations in which having an app based system might be really beneficial, for example if you’ve got a mass emergency, the unfortunate events that occurred in Las Vegas, weather-related events, I mean do you remember all of California was on fire a little while ago. How do you tell people what to do, where to go and how do people who need help raise that request for help?

 

Alan Olsen: And then you’re also doing a call to action for the emergency services with this app?

 

Vic A. Merjanian: Absolutely so what we’re doing is we’re telling people with this app you can request help and we’ll even do things like use augmented reality, real-time translation and mesh networking so even when there’s an emergency and people can’t see through smoke or fire, with the system they’ll be able to see you and send help. When cell towers and Wi-Fi are down our system will still work and connect you with people to send help and that’s really the story, it’s about the power of people and getting you in contact and in connected with the people who can help you.

 

Alan Olsen: When cell phone towers are down and when electricity is lost, how is it how is that working then?

 

Vic A. Merjanian: So what we do is we use devices like iPhones and Android devices and we’ve developed technology that allows these devices to talk to
each other directly without the need for any special hardware and it’ll work when every other network is down.

 

Alan Olsen: It’s similar to what Bluetooth did to the industry then.

 

Vic A. Merjanian: Exactly so we’re talking to so many venues, to large hospitality chains large educational systems and basically one thing these places all have in common is when an emergency occurs, you need help and the network’s by definition will be overloaded if you’re lucky if you’re unlucky the network will be completely down in which case nothing is going through and that’s really where this steps in among other use scenarios and we’re able to provide help.

 

Alan Olsen: Is this an early-stage company right now?

 

Vic A. Merjanian: No, we’ve actually been around for about five years and we’ve last year alone we helped 62 million use scenarios, so it’s been used 62 million times during emergencies, we saved our first life within 20 minutes of deployment many years back and it’s just been wonderful help since then.

 

Alan Olsen: Right now the boundaries are in within the borders of the United States or have you moved into the countries?

 

Vic A. Merjanian: Right now our user base is primarily in the United States and when our United States user base travels overseas the system still works. We are in discussion to deploy the system into international properties and assets as well.

 

Alan Olsen: It’s interesting, even though we talk about the technology for emergency services it seems that there’s also other scalable applications that can apply.

 

Vic A. Merjanian: Absolutely we’re in discussions with people who use it for warehousing and things like that. Anyone who needs to connect with people to communicate information in a reliable manner even when networks and other systems are down are looking at this technology.

 

Alan Olsen: All right Vic so you got you got some people out there listening to what you’re saying Vic how do I get involved with this?

 

Vic A. Merjanian: We encourage them to check us out online www.TitanHST.com and check us out see what we’ve got on there we’ve got a great demo with augmented reality, the real-time translation and we’d love to talk to people and get them connected at the end of the day it’s about saving lives, minimizing injury and reducing property damage.

 

-Transcript edited for Concision
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This transcript was generated by software and may not accurately reflect exactly what was said.

Alan Olsen, is the Host of the American Dreams Show and the Managing Partner of GROCO.com.  GROCO is a premier family office and tax advisory firm located in the San Francisco Bay area serving clients all over the world.

Alan Olsen, CPA

Alan L. Olsen, CPA, Wikipedia Bio

    Vic A. Merjanian on Alan Olsen's American Dreams Radio
    Vic A. Merjanian

    Mr. Merjanian is dedicated to improving school safety, as well as organizational safety (spanning private and public businesses, NGOs, and governmental agencies).Â
    Mr. Merjanian envisioned Titan HST when he visited his Alma Mater High School before Christmas in 2013 and experienced first-hand the day-to-day experience of a high school student today. His beloved campus was on daily “lock down” – enhanced security measures, closed campus, a discovery Mr. Merjanian abruptly experienced when he was nearly tackled by a “security parent” in the front office after nonchalantly walking onto campus.
    Mr. Merjanian believed there has to be a better way to empower students, staff, teachers, police and parents in light of the daily threat of school violence and other emergencies, without needing to tackle un-expecting peaceful visitors. Titan HST was created to provide immediately accessible, organizationally, and technologically structured comprehensive 2-way emergency communication – empowering all, reducing anxiety and response time, and enabling incident resolution.
    Mr. Merjanian received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from University of California, San Diego. Subsequently, he received his Juris Doctor from University of San Diego, School of Law where he also served as co-founder and editor-in-chief of the inaugural edition of The San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law, the nations first student-run climate change and renewable energy law journal.
    He is fluent in Armenian and is also proficient in basic Spanish and has classical training in piano, music theory, and guitar.
    Mr. Merjanian serves as a Board Member on the Board of Directors for Two Wings, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating, mentoring and life coaching to empower at-risk youth and survivors of sex trafficking. Previously, he served as a co-founder and leader of a community group in San Diego dedicated to assisting the families of deployed military personnel. He is also a member of Surfrider Foundation.
    -Bio from www.titanhst.com

    Alan Olsen on Alan Olsen's American Dreams Radio
    Alan Olsen

    Alan is managing partner at Greenstein, Rogoff, Olsen & Co., LLP, (GROCO) and is a respected leader in his field. He is also the radio show host to American Dreams. Alan’s CPA firm resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and serves some of the most influential Venture Capitalist in the world. GROCO’s affluent CPA core competency is advising High Net Worth individual clients in tax and financial strategies. Alan is a current member of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (S.I.E.P.R.) SIEPR’s goal is to improve long-term economic policy. Alan has more than 25 years of experience in public accounting and develops innovative financial strategies for business enterprises. Alan also serves on President Kim Clark’s BYU-Idaho Advancement council. (President Clark lead the Harvard Business School programs for 30 years prior to joining BYU-idaho. As a specialist in income tax, Alan frequently lectures and writes articles about tax issues for professional organizations and community groups. He also teaches accounting as a member of the adjunct faculty at Ohlone College.

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