The National Institute of Standards in Technology (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Division announced two new competitions to advance public-safety communications with research and development (R&D) to support first responders.
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The Tech to Protect Challenge will be hosted in 10 U.S. cities to bring together a community of collaborators to develop technology solutions to help first responders improve the safety of communities. Researchers, entrepreneurs, technologists, students, programmers, designers and public-safety experts will come together to create solutions across critical technical areas of public-safety communications.
NIST anticipates awarding 182 prizes to top participants, from $1,000 to $100,000, totaling $2.2 million in cash prizes. The national innovation contest includes opportunities to participate in person and online beginning in June.
For more information, visit http://www.techtoprotectchallenge.org/.
Expanding the SIM Card Use for Public Safety Challenge asks contestants to investigate using a subscriber identity module (SIM) card as a storage container for authentication credentials that could help first responders securely access critical information.
The challenge will award up to $100,000 to the winning teams that propose their ideas on how they will securely store a file on a SIM card and create a mobile application that accesses a credential stored on a SIM card and authenticates to a FIDO2 service provider.
PSCR hopes to raise awareness of the need for convenient, standards-based two-factor authentication for emergency responders, while also demonstrating an innovative approach that could lead to future innovations.
Visit http://www.publicsafetysimcard.com for more information on how to participate in the challenge.
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