Parents, Kids and Text Messaging

The Town of Leesburg is offering a training session to help parents understand how to use text messaging to contact their children in emergencies.

Leesburg IT Commission to Host Public Forum on Text/Alert Messaging Technology on January 29, 2008

Children's Safety Through Text/Alert Messaging Technology

The Information Technology Commission of the Town of Leesburg will hold a forum on the topic of Textual and Alert Messaging Technology for the benefit of the public on Tuesday, January 29th at the Ida Lee Park Recreational Center at 7 PM. The featured speaker will be Robert Jones. A short networking session will precede the forum starting at 6:30 PM.

In light of the of the Virginia Tech tragedy of last year, the Leesburg IT Commission decided to seek out speakers with expertise in the Textual and Alert Messaging field to provide the public with a better understanding of the technology, its use, and its possible future. Three speakers will be presenting at the Forum: Robert Jones, Director of Marketing, Rave Wireless, Inc; Ara Bagdasarian, co-founder and President of Omnilert, LLC; and Jill Stelfox, Chief Executive Officer, Defywire. An earlier news release provided background information on Mr. Jones. This news release will provide background information on Mr. Bagdasarian and his portion of the presentation.

Mr. Bagdasarian is the co-founder and President of Omnilert, LLC the leading mass notification communication provider for Higher Education in North America and will be presenting on the possible future of Text and Alert Messaging technology. Prior to Omnilert, Mr. Bagdasarian worked as national sales manager for Vcall, founded web(((RESONANCE))), worked in channel sales at technology distributor Ingram Micro, Inc., and founded XNETIX Internet Technology Group in Buffalo, NY in 1996. He also managed business development with the McBride's web services division.

Currently Mr. Bagdasarian is involved with Ominlert's "e2Campus" service. The e2Campus service was conceived in late 2003, when the company founders read a story about a female student who was horrifically raped and murdered in her Lehigh University dormitory in 1987. The article revealed one key factor in the incident was the fact that the tragedy may have been prevented if the student had been informed about the criminal activity on campus.

This sparked the idea that became the e2Campus service, "there must be a better way to communicate with the campus community”. The basic premise for the service being, “Since most students carry mobile phones, we can alert them via text messages". The founders ran this new idea by a local community college (Anne Arundel Community College) and they agreed to pilot the program. In the Fall of 2004, AACC launched e2Campus and became the first campus in North America to use a text mass notification system. Three years later over 300 colleges and universities (including Lehigh University) are using e2Campus in a mission to make their campuses safer through instant mass communications.

Information Technology Commission
Town of Leesburg, Virginia
25 West Market Street
P.O. Box 88
Leesburg, VA 20178
(703) 737-7003
ITCommission@leesburgva.gov

Forum Contact: Commissioner David Kirsten
dkirsten@leesburgva.gov

Given the criticality of communications in today's world, and the ubiquity of text messaging has the communications technology of choice among the under-25 population, it is important for parents, teachers and other community leaders to understand and use text messaging.

If you do not know how to text, please consider attending this important forum.