Yesterday, a press release submitted by Kentico Software regarding JaxReady came across my desk. JaxReady is a smartphone app created by the City of Jacksonville to keep local residents informed in the event of a natural disaster and is built on the Kentico CMS. Over the years, I've worked with a number of emergency managers and almost everyone of them will tell you that the biggest difficulty they face as EMs is having the general public take interest in emergency preparedness well before a disaster hits.
Perhaps where websites and outreach programs have fallen short in meeting emergency management needs, mobile applications such as JaxReady offer the public an increased chance to improving their changes of of survival during a disaster. Sherry McGuire, User Experience Developer of JaxReady commented that "The mobile apps we are creating will give residents powerful informational tools never before available, and all from the convenience of their pockets."
“We are proud that our robust and feature-full support for mobile sites plays a part in the delivery of this potentially life-saving information to users’ fingertips in emergency situations.” said Petr Palas, the CEO and founder of Kentico Software. Created by the City of Jacksonville's Information Technology Department and Emergency Response teams, JaxReady is on the cutting edge of this kind of technology. Better yet, the smartphone applications was developed at no extra cost to taxpayers as the application was built on Kentico CMS with existing resources, and is offered free at iPhone and Android application stores.
According to said Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown, “Jacksonville is proud to lead efforts that provide residents with useful, up-to-the-minute storm information through the JaxReady app. This is a great example of how city governments can use existing resources to reach people in new and innovative ways to provide a higher level of service and safety”.
“Having used Kentico CMS for its main website for over two years, its flexibility, stability and ease-of-use during development and management meant that Kentico was the obvious platform to fully manage and deliver the content presented on JaxReady,” says Richard Baker, who developed the application for the City of Jacksonville.
As mentioned before, the smartphone application is offered free for Android and iOS devices: JaxReady for iPhone and JaxReady for Android.