NEW YORK, May 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Continuing a decades-long commitment to driving innovation in public safety, emergency response and community resilience, Verizon today announced the winner of its first-ever Verizon Frontline App Developer Challenge.
The competition, launched last year on National First Responders Day, was designed to identify next-generation mobile applications built to help first responders achieve their missions more safely and efficiently. The challenge culminated with a special event at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) where three finalists pitched their app concepts live to a panel of public safety judges with the winner taking home a grand prize of $25,000.
The winner of this year’s Verizon Frontline App Developer Challenge was Rian Karim of San Jose, Calif., who designed a situational awareness-focused app, named Apex Eye, that uses AI to help transform drone video and data into a complete, clear, operational picture.
“Every day, first responders show up for wildfires, (building) collapses, hurricanes, and mass casualty events ready to handle whatever comes next,” said Karim. “They run toward the things that we run from and the least we can do is give them the clearest possible picture of what they’re running into. That’s what Apex Eye does. It turns live overhead drone footage into real-time, role-specific ground intelligence and delivers it directly to every responder on scene.”
The other finalists competing for the $25,000 grand prize included:
- Olivier Kepler Francois, a student at the University of Massachusetts - Boston who developed a clinical decision support tool for paramedics in the field.
- Will Ponczak, a student at James Madison University who created a real-time situational awareness app for incident commanders.
All three Verizon Frontline App Developer Challenge finalists were invited to become a part of the Verizon Frontline Innovation Program where they will be able to work with industry and public safety partners to continue developing their apps.
“We celebrate the bold thinking and spirit of problem-solving that so often drives progress in public safety,” said Cory Davis, vice president of Verizon Frontline. “The Verizon Frontline App Developer Challenge was about highlighting and supporting those innovators who are creating practical, life-saving solutions for first responders and helping bring those critical ideas to life.”
For Karim, the Verizon Frontline App Developer Challenge demonstrated that “there are companies and people actively working every day to make us safer and make us smarter in the ways we protect people. So, that meant a lot to me and I hope this (app) can take the next step and actually end up in people's hands and on their phones. I think that would be so cool. I’m so excited to see where this goes.”
Further supporting Verizon's mission to enhance emergency preparedness, the event featured a showcase highlighting winners of the Verizon Community Disaster Resilience Prize. This program provides mentorship, support and network access to tech startups dedicated to finding solutions to natural disasters. Among the innovations highlighted were FNN’s edge computing-enabled lightning sensors, and Hyfi’s Verizon 5G-powered flood sensors, alongside first responders and community leaders who are utilizing the advanced disaster management solutions to drive societal breakthroughs and make communities more resilient.
Beyond these specialized mobile applications, Verizon is simultaneously driving broader technological breakthroughs across the public safety sector to ensure network and community resilience from the ground up. Leading this wave of innovation is Verizon's new Digital Twin technology, which uses drone-captured 3D imagery and AI to identify the exact location of network damage after a storm, allowing engineers to prioritize repairs, speed up restoration, and enhance safety by reducing the need for on-site visual inspections.
By investing in next-generation technologies and the developers who build them, Verizon is honoring a legacy of innovation while helping communities stay connected, prepared, and resilient for the future.
Watch the full event, including the winner’s presentation, HERE.
This announcement was originally published by Verizon. Read the original press release.
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Media contact:
Eric Durie
eric.durie@verizon.com