Company: AtHoc, Inc.
Entry Submitted By: Spire Communications
Company Description: AtHoc provides network-centric emergency notification systems to military, government and commercial enterprises for physical security, force protection and personnel accountability. The Air Force, Army, Navy, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, NASA, Microsoft, Boeing and PricewaterhouseCoopers rely on AtHoc’s unified management systems for their emergency alerting and critical communication needs.
Nomination Category: Company/Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Innovative Company of the Year in North America

Nomination Title: AtHoc, Inc.

Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Emergencies, by their nature, are unexpected.  When they occur, the difference
between a major disaster and contained event often comes down to the quality of
the response.

AtHoc has addressed this important challenge by developing a technology that
rapidly alerts thousands of people in geographically dispersed areas and
delivers instructions for effective action.  AtHoc’s IWSAlerts leverages an
organization’s IP network to alert users via multiple devices simultaneously,
including alerts to computers, telephones, pagers, BlackBerry devices, sirens,
public address systems, land mobile radios and e-mail.

Standard mass notification systems send passive alerts to a single device with
limited information delivery and no feedback capability. With AtHoc IWSAlerts,
any device connected to the network will receive intrusive, detailed alerts
that include recipient-specific instructions for action. Each individual or
group receives detailed information about what they should do, where they
should go. For first responder groups, alerts can provide event location, the
type of emergency and the type of safety gear they might need.

AtHoc’s solution allows emergency managers to receive alert receipt
confirmation, letting managers know the status of individuals; are they ok,
injured, out of the area, etc. This important feature gives emergency managers
critical information about their personnel. 

Emergency operators can centrally create, manage and send alerts to any
computer or device from any standard Web browser, giving them the flexibility
to move operations centers without losing the ability to alert their
populations.

Alerting thousands of people quickly during an emergency, delivering clear
instructions for action and receiving feedback on the recipient’s status
ensures an effective and safe response. 

AtHoc’s IWSAlerts is employed for force protection readiness, anti-terror
warnings, installation alerting, public safety and critical communications.
AtHoc IWSAlerts provides unified and redundant multi-channel alerting,
scalability and speed (within minutes) of alert dissemination, accurate and up-
to-date contact information, scalability and security, delivery tracking and
message confirmation. AtHoc is helping to protect lives and property. Here are
examples in 2008:

* UCLA successfully deployed AtHoc IWSAlerts to notify students, faculty and
staff when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck the greater Los Angeles area.
Within minutes of the earthquake, UCLA emergency managers
activated “BruinAlert” based on AtHoc IWSAlerts and sent alerts that reached
97% of the campus population. BruinAlert won the California Emergency Services
Association Gold Award for its state-of-the-art emergency alerting.
* Air Force Materiel Command used AtHoc IWSAlerts as its command-wide emergency
notification system and deployed IWSAlerts across 10 bases and tenant units,
providing mass notification and personnel accountability capabilities to all
125,000 active-duty military and civilian personnel.

* American Red Cross, Broward County, Fla., used AtHoc IWSAlerts for emergency
notification during the 2008 hurricane season. “In the wake of Tropical Storm
Fay, we successfully used AtHoc IWSAlerts emergency notification system to
deploy our staff to evacuation shelters for operations,” said Aniko Bahr,
Emergency Preparedness Manager, Florida’s Broward County American Red Cross.

* U.S. Air Force Central Command (USAFCENT) employs AtHoc as the network-
centric emergency mass notification standard for the entire command, including
installations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other allied nations.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

Awards
Frost & Sullivan Report- Award Winner
The 2008 Frost & Sullivan Award for Technology Innovation in Mass Notification
Market acknowledges the success of AtHoc IWSAlerts, a comprehensive network-
centric notification system that uses existing IP networks to communicate
during an emergency.
“AtHoc’s proven market success with an innovative solution that integrates IP
and traditional forms of alerting into a single unified platform deserves
recognition. Leveraging a facility’s IP infrastructure as the basis of a mass
notification system is a fundamentally new approach that redefines traditional
physical security. AtHoc has made significant contributions to this important
and growing market, and they should be commended.” - Alejandra Lozano, Frost &
Sullivan Research Analyst. Find report at:
http://www.athoc.com/pdf/Frost_Sullivan_Award.pdf

Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 Program for Silicon Valley Software and IT
Companies
AtHoc has been named to Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 Program for Silicon
Valley Software and is included among the fastest-growing companies in the
region. AtHoc's increase in revenues of 859% during the five-year period
resulted in a 26th ranking.
"Sustaining high revenue growth over five years is an exceptional
accomplishment. We commend AtHoc for making the commitment to technology and
delivering on the promise of market longevity. We are proud to honor AtHoc to
Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50." - Mark Jensen, Managing Partner, National
Venture Capital Services, Deloitte & Touche LLP;
http://www.athoc.com/news/release_Silicon_Valley_Fast50.aspx

Case Studies
U.S. Air Force Reserve Command
http://www.athoc.com/products/caseStudy_AFRC.aspx

Air Force Air Education and Training Command
http://www.athoc.com/customers/caseStudy_AETC.aspx

U.S. Strategic Command
http://www.athoc.com/pdf/AtHoc_CaseStudy_USSTRATCOM_05V0412.pdf

Video
Government Security News Video on AtHoc
http://gsnmagazine.live.netconcepts.com/cms/general/1070.html

Articles
This January 2009 GSN article highlights UCLA winning an award for its
deployment of BruinAlert, a unified emergency alerting system built on the
IWSAlerts emergency notification solution from AtHoc;
http://www.gsnmagazine.com/cms/features/news-analysis/1398.html
 
This January 2009 Tinker AFB article describes how Tinker AFB personnel use
AtHoc services for emergency alerting; 
http://www.whiteman.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123135138

This January 2009 AS&HF article describes how network-centric emergency
alerting can greatly augment response plans to effectively deal with emergency
situations; http://www.facilitymanagement.com/articles/security1-0109.html

This December 2008 Government Computer News article describes the use of AtHoc
IWSAlerts by the Air Force Materiel Command for command-wide emergency
notification; http://gcn.com/articles/2008/12/05/air-force-materil-command-improves-alert-system.aspx

This November 2008 HSToday article describes how UCLA used AtHoc IWSAlerts to
alert students, faculty and staff during an earthquake;
http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/6237/92/
 
This October 2008 Military Embedded Systems article describes how Iraq's Camp
Slayer, which is located in a volatile area threatened constantly by wartime
dangers, uses AtHoc IWSAlerts for emergency alerting; http://www.mil-embedded.com/articles/id/?3624

This August 2008 9-1-1 Magazine article describes how standard protocols and
interoperability in emergency alerting are important;
http://www.athoc.com/pdf/CAP_reprint.pdf

This July 2008 Security Solutions article describes how UCLA uses BruinAlert
emergency alerting system, which is built on AtHoc;
http://securitysolutions.com/enduser/schoolsuniversities/popular_demand_ucla/index.html

This June 2008 GCN article describes how the Air Force's Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency informs personnel about emergencies and
urgent situations using the IWSAlerts notification system from AtHoc;
http://gcn.com/articles/2008/06/05/usaf-agency-deploys-alert-system.aspx

This April 2008 HSDaily Wire article describes how private industry can learn
from the Office of Naval Research the best practices for emergency alerting;
http://hsdailywire.com/single.php?id=6017

This March 2008 Robins Air Force Base News article describes how Robins Air
Force Base is using AtHoc IWSAlerts to push out emergency messages;
http://www.robins.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123091165

This March 2008 Fire Chief article describes how the American Red Cross,
Broward County (Fla.) Chapter, successfully used AtHoc IWSAlerts as part of its
recent disaster readiness exercise and evaluation;
http://firechief.com/technology/communications/Florida_redcross_0310/

This January 2008 Mission Critical Communications article highlights best
practices of the DoD and how network-based alerting systems help organizations
in times of emergencies;
http://www.athoc.com/pdf/MissionCriticalCommunications_EmergencyAlertreprint.pdf

This January 2008 Responder Safety article addresses how new technology in
emerging alerting is helping response centers to be effective;
http://www.athoc.com/pdf/ResponderSafetyReprintWeb.pdf

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:

Guy Miasnik, AtHoc president and CEO, has over 18 years in IT with expertise in
Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I)
technologies. He has managed programs as a captain in the Israel military and
senior executive of technology companies. Guy founded Kinetica Ltd., an
engineering integration firm specializing in Internet and communications. Guy
orchestrated Kinetica's growth from start-up to profitability in less than two
years. His tenure at Kinetica culminated in an acquisition by NetVision, an
Elron Industries (NASDAQ: ELRN) subsidiary. Guy graduated from Harvard
University (MBA) and the Technion (BS Electrical Engineering, summa cum laude).