At the 2018 Startup Weekend in Fargo, our team won first place with the idea of building a communications platform for law enforcement to leverage during major incidents such as child abductions or active shooter situations. Officers from the West Fargo PD approached the STEM program at the high school seeking solutions to their challenges in managing these incidents. Our team created the Rising Tide software company to build out the MICA (Major Incident Command Assist) Platform for law enforcement.

Currently today it takes over an hour from the time a major incident is declared until law enforcement officers have boots on the ground working the case. With the MICA Platform in place, that time can be cut down to under a minute. Every second in a child abduction is critical. MICA leverages the fact that officers are geographically dispersed at the start of a major incident and utilizes geospatial aware task assignment to minimize travel time of officers responding to incidents.

MICA puts many innovative solutions into the hands of first responders enabling them to focus on their task at hand and spend less time and effort on managing information and writing reports. Responding officers can simply dictate their notes directly into the system instead of having to take time out from the investigation to fill out paper reports.

The Incident Command is equipped to manage the rapid flow of information and translate that into leads upon which investigators can follow up. Commanders can see maps in real-time of all of the investigative teams and track patterns and trends in the movement of suspects. The system ensures that every lead is checked out and closed down.

Bringing a common communication platform for all of the various agencies involved is critical to the success of law enforcement. In every practice exercise since 2011, the number one weakness identified was communications breakdowns across agencies. MICA brings law enforcement a 21st century solution.