AlcatelLucent Enterprises has launched their Safe campus in Kenya. The solution will be provided through MFI who are their local partners . Ahmed Youssef, AlcatelLucent Enterprises Business Develoment Manager (BDM) for Africa, Middle East and Europe says Safe Campus is about awareness , emergency coordination and mass notification. While Safe Campus was launched to education institutions and maintains them as their core target, Youssef explained that the solution had been deployed in other hospitality institutions, such as airports.
"We have experience from the largest universities all over the world," says Youssef. In addition, the Los Angeles school district , which is the largest in the United Sates has deployed our solution.
Safe Campus incorporates voice and data from IP (Internet Protocol) touch phones , video solutions, whiteboards and whiteboards. However, Youssef says that organisations using legacy equipment can still deploy the solution. The solution is modular and can be deployed starting at a small scale and expanded later.

Amongst features offered is the "snooping" of calls to emergency numbers from within a campus. This notifies a campus emergency team thus enabling them to cooperate with first responders. Unique features include a location based service which pinpoints disaster spots down to a point in a map or a floor plan.

Youssef says that Safe Campus incorporates various notification methods including SMS , mobile phones, websites and social media integration. Urgent notifications can be configured to interrupt ongoing communications, such as a call, or to be broadcast from a handsets loudspeaker without the call being picked.

The system can be extended for use in non -emergency systems. Users can be grouped such as according to departments, faculties and years. Message initiation can be configured according to organisation policies, allowing only vetted users to initiate notifications.

Safe Campus can also been customised to allow students to communicate with departments in different ways. Other options include customised application for various mobile devices. Safe Campus has already been implemented through customised iPad apps in some airports.

Youssef adds that AlcatelLucent has been keen enough to ensure that their products integrate with other third party products. A local office in Nairobi is dedicated to product integration in strategic industries.

MFI solutions is the sole implementer of Safe Campus in the region.