Iron Legion , DifferenceMakers
One of the problems we see is that police have a lack of situational awareness when responding to critical incidents.
Iron Legion, the 2018 Campus-wide DifferenceMaker, is a team aiming to expand the effective use of drone technology in emergency response, particularly with police departments. The team consists of George Le, a senior in Computer Science, and Peter Maitland, a junior in Homeland Security/Criminal Justice. With Iron Legion, their goal is to ensure that emergency response teams have the insight they would need, which can be gathered by drone intelligence, in order to use their resources effectively.
In order to do this, Iron Legion would consult with various departments and provide them with guidance based off of the drones on the market and the department’s typical needs. They would provide training and advising on counter-drone strategies and tactics as well as interactions with drone operators. Iron Legion would help connect these departments with services in order to ensure their drones are well-maintained and that they would last long.
As the 2018 Idea Challenge Campus-wide DifferenceMaker, Iron Legion was awarded $6,000 to fund their project. Thus far, they have used these funds to purchase their own drone for demonstration purposes and to obtain customers. In addition, they are continuing to understand the drone industry as well as making sure they test their business model.