Local entrepreneurs unveil products at Pickens Innovation Center’s ‘Commercialization Day Launch’
DevObal Admin • Apr 24, 2019
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The entrepreneurial spirit of Pickens County was on full display in downtown Pickens on Monday, with the launch of products ranging from a device that makes it easier to get the mail out of your mailbox through your car window to an alert system for high-speed police chases.
It was the Pickens Innovation Center’s Commercialization Day Launch, unveiling the products of more than a dozen local inventors and business owners under the center’s guiding influence.
“It’s an exciting time,” Pickens Mayor David Owens told a crowd of nearly 100 gathered in front of the center on Court Street for the event.
The Innovation Center’s goal is to connect creative people and their ideas with the means to make their dreams become reality – and to turn the city of Pickens and surrounding area into a hub of invention and entrepreneurism and promote economic diversification.
The new business owners are using local companies as much as possible to build their products.
Tim Morgan, former Pickens County assistant sheriff, was there with his wife, Trish, unveiling a device that allows law enforcement officers to send a message to smartphone apps that lets drivers know a high-speed chase is in progress in their vicinity.
The product, called PursuitAlert, attracted visits from the sheriffs of Greenville and Oconee counties, as well as a couple from Texas who lost their son when the driver of a stolen van who was being chased by police swerved into the oncoming lane and collided head-on with the 18-year-old.
“We believe if he’d had this app, he would be here today,” Jack Whitney said. “We just don’t want to see another family go through this.”
Entrepreneur Eric Varner was there with another device designed to save lives on the highway.
RyderSaver is a pole with a light atop it that attaches to the rear of a moped to make it more visible. Varner said he got the idea for the device by reading news stories about moped fatalities in which the drivers of cars said they couldn’t see the moped.
He’s working on a tracking device to go with the lighting system.
Andrew Hendricks, a recent Clemson University marketing graduate, was showing off an equally simple but ingenious device called Mailbox Retriever.
He invented it as a school project when he was in the third grade at Hagood Elementary and built it with help from his grandfather, George Roach.
It’s a hard, clear plastic sleeve that fits inside a mailbox and slides out easily to make it possible to get mail out of the box without having to reach deep inside it from your car window.
Roman Visser’s Pet to-Go system is another simple but potentially useful product for people traveling with their pets. It’s a cabinet that has a food and water bowl in the bottom drawer, and other drawers for storage of food, pet toys and other items.
It can be programmed to dispense food and water at a specified time and close up when the animal is finished with its meal.
Some of the vendors on hand were unveiling more traditional products but with a new twist.
For example, Ron Few’s businesses – called Twist – is selling antiques online.
Daniel Ross, of Lit Coffee, was marketing high-quality coffees from eight different countries. It operates as a nonprofit, donating 5 percent of its profits locally and globally.
The company started three months ago operating coffee carts in various sites across the Upstate and selling to local coffee shops.
While the cutting edge and the new were the dominant theme of the 13 businesses unveiled, Mark Burgess, owner of Burgess General Store at 710 Main St., Pickens, is bringing an old idea to the 21st century.
His great-grandfather operated one of the first general stores in Pickens County, and he sees his new venture as a throwback to simpler times, with mostly local products for sale.
“The main goal is to kind of bring the past and the present together,” he said.
A task for will hear arguments for trying BY REBECCA HOLLAND If the man whose truck was caught in the path of a Baton Rouge Police Department pursuit in March would have known the chase was nearby, would he have been killed? If Maggie Dunn and Caroline Gill, the two teenagers killed when an Addis police officer ran a red light during a pursuit last New Year’s Eve, had been alerted, would they be alive today? No one can answer these questions, but Pursuit Alert founder Tim Morgan doesn’t want other families to have to think about similar kinds of "what ifs." He created a warning system that allows law enforcement to send real-time alerts to residents through an app. Notifications that a pursuit is within a few miles could prompt people to stop driving or be on the lookout for speeding vehicles. ...
LOS ANGELES - Would you use an app that warned you about a pursuit coming your way? Digital Siren developed an app that will alert drivers of any pursuits in their area… it works similar to an Amber Alert. "A high speech chase is the single event where and officer endangers the public the most, just simply trying to do their job," said retired law enforcement officer Tim Morgan with Digital Siren . Morgan started working on the idea after being part of a high-speed pursuit chase that killed an innocent bystander.
BATON ROUGE - Police chases have killed five people in the capital area this year, including two members of law enforcement. As the Louisiana legislature continues to debate the best ways to handle these chases, states like Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina have some counties using the Digital Siren app. The app is free, and law enforcement would be able to send notifications to drivers' phones, warning them a chase is going on in their area. "We want them to be looking out for that fleeing vehicle, whatever the situation might be," said Tim Morgan, a former high ranking sheriff's deputy in South Carolina and the creator of Digital Siren.
MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. ( WKRG ) — There is an app that can alert those who may be in the area of a police chase, potentially saving lives. It’s called Digital Siren, and Mobile County has the biggest deployment of the system in the entire country. With the push of a button, law enforcement can notify anyone near a chase to get to safety. That button is installed in patrol vehicles and sends an alert to anyone with the free Digital Siren app. The app will also tell you when you’re out of range of the chase. “It’s kind of a no-brainer that we can alert the public of a high-speed pursuit that unfortunately kills so many people, innocent people,” said Charlie McNichol, the director of the Mobile County Communications District.
ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. – A young man from St. Louis was killed in a crash caught in the middle of a police pursuit that happened in St. Charles County along Highway 94. Krystofer Batsell was 21 years old when he died in 2018. His parents were preparing for a birthday party for their other son when they received the news. “There should be some divine law that you can’t lose a child on another child’s birthday,” said Connie Batsell, Krystofer’s mother.
BRIGHTON, Colo. ( KDVR ) – Tim Morgan set up an email alert system for his inbox so he could keep track of news about deadly police pursuits around the country. That’s how he discovered two innocent people were killed in Brighton, Colorado, after a suspect, who was running from a rookie police officer in 2021, slammed into them. “I get multiple emails a day with multiple stories in each email,” he said, “and I have over 5,000 that I haven’t read yet.”
MOBILE, Ala..(WALA)--A new app we first told you about two weeks ago, is meant to help innocent drivers avoid crashes during police chases. Now police are hoping to get the word out. The free app called “Digital Siren” has only been in our area for a few weeks, but it’s already been used. Most notably during a chase last week in Saraland where two men refused to stop on Interstate 65 and hit an innocent driver. They were busted with 17 kilos of meth.
MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — It's called Digital Siren, and it lets you know if you're within two miles of a police chase. Patrol cars throughout Mobile County are now equipped with the technology.
MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — It's called Digital Siren, and it lets you know if you're within two miles of a police chase. Patrol cars throughout Mobile County are now equipped with the technology. When the chase starts, the officer hits a button. Within seconds, your phone gets an alert. "This is the best thing that I've seen in all the years I've been monitoring car chases, to where we can at least do everything we know that we can do to try to protect the public and innocent people," said Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran. It's meant to stop tragedies like the one last year in Thomasville. Megan Brunson, her 5--year-old daughter Ava, and her mother Wanda were hit head-on and killed by a suspect fleeing an officer in a chase. Mobile Chief of Staff James Barber credited NBC 15's Andrea Ramey as the catalyst for bringing this life-saving technology to the area.
Bay Minette Police want you to download another app to your smartphone right now. It's called Digital Siren by Pursuit Alert technologies. On its Facebook page , the department writes its teaming up with the company to help people stay alert during emergencies. Basically, Digital Siren is a warning system...much like the alerts we already get to our cellphones for severe weather and missing children. However, with this app law enforcement can send real-time messages to drivers when they're near an emergency response. Several Alabama law enforcement agencies are using Digital Siren, after recent high speed police chases have ended tragically.
PursuitAlert
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Home OfficePO Box 1536Pickens, SC 29671864-404-5136
PursuitAlert
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Detroit Office401 South Main StreetClawson, Michigan 48017248-320-9592
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PursuitAlert Digital Siren technology is protected by U.S. Patent No. 11,302,176 B2, US Patent No.10.832.561 B2, as well as other foreign patents.
