The ARC: Technology

The technology of the initial Alert Retrieval Cache is simple enough, though it must be customized to every area where it is installed - laws, regulations and simple infrastructure are key.

Asterisk was the keystone of the project, initially, and some scripts written in Perl (if I recall correctly) or Python. Any scripting language would do, really, just as any telephony software/hardware would work.

That combined with a content management system is all you really need.

The trouble with this method is that no one knows about it. For such a system to be effective, people need to know about it.

Thus, for the last years, I have simply advocated a simpler concept:

Mobile phone companies should have and advertise such a number if governments do not. They already have the hardware, they already have the software and they already have control of the network.

Setting up such numbers for donations is all well and good. But I would think - I do think - that saving lives is much more important than accepting donations to bury dead people who might have otherwise been saved.

Silly me. :-)