SIREN

Published on May 18th, 2023

Solution

Name of Finalist Rebecca Wang

Location San Jose, CA

SIREN is a gunshot detector and communicator that’s designed to transmit information about an active shooter situation in real time. The device's audio readings gather information about an attacker’s location within a school, alerting law enforcement within five seconds of a gunshot going off, reducing response times, and offering escape assistance to the school community. Having filed a provisional patent, SIREN is now conducting testing at schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and is receiving feedback from students, teachers, parents, and law enforcement on their product.

The Problem

As students of America, we are tired. Tired of spending 120 days of our school years practicing to barricade our classrooms. Tired of thoughts and prayers. From Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, Nashville, America, we have a problem.

More than 2120 school shootings have occurred since 1970. School shootings have killed 750 individuals and injured 2043 people. In 2022, the United States recorded a record high of 303 school shootings according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. Most schools spend time out of academic education during the school year to practice lockdowns in case of a shooting.

Despite this pressing matter, there exists no thorough advancement that mitigates school shooting casualties and offers students a reassuring sense of security in a supposedly safe environment. My co-founders and I recognize this national public safety issue and, in our research, we found a lack of effective communication from authorities which limits the ability of those at school – students and faculty – to make the best decisions to flee to safety. After the first gunshot is fired, it takes an average of 5 minutes for the police to receive a call--filled with misinformation and chaos 85% of the time.

Every second counts in these situations. On average, in one minute during an active school shooting, one person is killed and another is injured.

Your Solution

SIREN is a novel, patent-pending gunshot detector & communicator for all parties: students, faculty, parents, and law enforcement.

In a compact 3D-printed case, the detector contains a microphone with a 50-foot detection radius that captures & feeds audio into our custom machine learning model deployed on the Raspberry Pi for analysis. With a 99.3% accuracy rate, the model identifies gunshots and triggers the communication pipeline when necessary.

In practice, multiple gun detection devices will be placed in the hallways with unique IDs, so an audio reading with the highest loudness & frequency will indicate the suspect’s current location. An image of a school map annotated with the suspect’s location will be sent via text. Likewise, within 5 seconds, automated calls will be sent to law enforcement.

Existing solutions are unaffordable for vulnerable schools (Title I), lack communication with the school community, retain hours of sensitive data, and rely on companies’ personnel to identify gunshots, leading to costly seconds wasted.

SIREN is the first innovation to integrate automatic gunshot detection and communication. SIREN prioritizes its Triple A values: accessibility, accuracy, and affordability. We ensure privacy by not storing audio data and eliminate the need for manual identification. With faster response times, wider coverage, and scalability, we stand out in the market.

Founding Story

Last year, tragedy struck in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and 2 adults. Fast forward to the present, tragedy upon tragedy, school shootings have become the norm. A norm that threatens the safety and wellbeings of us, the students, as well as our parents, grandparents, and loved ones.

Given how the discussion of solutions to school shootings has been politically polarized, my co-founders and I wished to tackle the issue from another perspective. We conducted a survey of nearly 2,000 students, faculty, and parents and consulted Parent-Teacher Associations to develop SIREN.

Your Impact

Having filed a provisional patent for SIREN and fundraised nearly $8000 (most of which came from teachers and parents), we recognize the urgency of implementing our innovation. Our 3 goals for the next year are as follows:

Secure funding for research & development. Work with ambassadors and representatives of educational and federal institutions (Federal Commission for School Safety and National Institute of Justice) to license and mass-produce SIREN nationwide.
Conduct sucessful testing & scaling over the San Francisco Bay Area. Navigate existing regulations and sales cycles of schools (especially Title I), implement at 5 schools/~20,000 students, and receive feedback from students, faculty/administrations, law enforcement.
Host product demonstrations at Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs). Initial partnerships stem from the local San Francisco Bay Area schools in our school districts we surveyed prior to developing SIREN. Discuss with PTAs and personally consult with administrators to set up our product’s system.

Successful testing will generate press opportunities and attract more schools, and we will commence our first avenue of growth from partnerships with individual schools to entire school districts. Parallel to this, the second avenue of growth includes Google SEO, social media marketing, and educational videos on school safety to increase awareness about our product.

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