WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Students enrolled in emergency management & homeland security at Pennsylvania College of Technology are benefiting from a recent software donation.
Software developer D4H has donated its cloud-based emergency management software to the college. Students in the Incident Command System Operations class now have access to the same software used by over 100,000 responders in 37-plus countries.
The value of the donation is $14,450.
“By having access to this software, our students are exposed to modern incident management software that they will use in the field throughout their careers,” said William A. Schlosser, instructor of emergency management & homeland security. “All students in the major (about 60) will use the software.”
Marketed as “uncomplicated software for emergency and crisis management,” D4H facilitates real-time information sharing and collaboration among team members. The software includes configurable templates for various types of emergencies, integrated mapping and built-in weather forecasts.
“It allows emergency managers to organize the response to an incident and communicate with each other to manage the incident throughout the incident’s lifecycle,” Schlosser said. “It tracks things like resources used and tasks required. And you can create a map of the incident that is shared with everyone on the program.”
Penn College students employed the software for the first time earlier this month during a search and rescue full-scale exercise at the college’s Schneebeli Earth Science Center.
“The software package is tremendously simple to learn how to use and doesn’t require much setup. Students quickly engaged with it and were very successful using it,” Schlosser said. “The software allowed the students to use their classroom knowledge in the field. The partnership with D4H has been fantastic.”
“At D4H, we believe in empowering the next generation of emergency managers with the tools they need to succeed. We’re thrilled to partner with Pennsylvania College of Technology and provide their students with hands-on experience using our emergency management software. This donation reflects our commitment to supporting education and fostering innovation in the field of emergency management,” said Robin Blandford, CEO of D4H.
D4H is part of the college’s Corporate Tomorrow Maker program.
“We are so excited to receive this D4H emergency management software,” said Ana I. Gonzalez-White, college relations officer. “Its use within our emergency management program will be a great benefit to our students’ hands-on learning.”
The bachelor’s degree in emergency management & homeland security can be completed online or on campus. The major requires 300 hours of field experience and boasts a 100% graduate placement rate.
For information about emergency management & homeland security and other degrees offered by the School of Business, Arts & Sciences, call 570-327-4520 or visit www.pct.edu/bas.
Penn College is a national leader in applied technology education. Visit www.pct.edu, email admissions@pct.eduor call toll-free 800-367-9222.