Decisions For Heroes, the 'BaseCamp for Mountain Rescue' launches

There are not many startups that set out to save peoples lives – unless you count the generic use of things like Twitter to get the word out fast about an earthquake or some other life-threatening event. But then again there aren’t that many aiming for the extreme niche of mountain rescue teams. But Decisions For Heroes, which just launched, is aiming to do just that, and it just goes to show how far the application of social data to a problem can reach.

Cliff rescue climber Robin Blandford – who also happens to be a former executive with Reuters’ new media operation – created DFH after volunteering on rescue operations with the Irish Coast Guard. He’s created the service to address three common challenges for these life-savers: equipment, communication logistics and paperwork/data. So Decisions For Heroes monitors key metrics for these rescue teams like “response readiness”, team availability (since so many of these teams are staffed by volunteers), qualifications and experience.

With a laptop and internet connection, teams can record the details of their rescue operations and training exercises. The software then automatically performs analytical charting, draws heatmaps, and benchmarks reports to outline the teams areas of strength, weakness, and expertise.

DFH then links up all these disparate, global rescue teams, which all share the same kinds of needs, to share data and perform paperless reporting between teams, in a way that they’ve never done before.

The site is based on a 40 Euro a month basic package for rescue teams, going up to an ‘all you can eat’ scenario which so far is unpriced. Think of it as BaseCamp for danger. DFH originally came through the Seedcamp European startups programme.

Eventually the system is designed to generate statistics, observe patterns, educate potential casualties, and ultimately reduce accidents. And who could ask more than that.