GLOBAL – I’ve never heard of the ICE initiative before, until flicking through the contacts on my mother-in-law’s phone the other day, I came across a contact dubbed ICE. She explained about how she read an article last year, outlining the idea behind ICE (In Case of Emergency) and decided she’d set herself up (her’s is her son’s number, who lives nearby). The idea, if you haven’t heard of it before, is simple. Add a contact to your mobile’s phone book, call it ICE and have the numbers for your next of kin or person you’d like to be contact In Case of Emergency. Easy.Looking a bit deeper, the whole thing kicked off in 2005 when a paramedic from East Anglia in the UK suggested it. Bob Brotchie’s idea was founded on the fact most people now carry a mobile phone with them, and if there was a uniform approach to emergency contacts, then it’d be easier for emergency services to do the right thing. Makes a lot of sense.
Unfortunately, not much seems to have happened since 2005, at least that I can find. I thought it an interesting point to raise both because it makes sense to me, but also to reach out to Conversations readers to see who has heard of it, who has done it and see if there’s anything we could, and should do to make it more widely known.
DarlaMack picked it up when it first came out, S60 Blogs have since written about it, though back in 2007 and finally IntoMobile picked up on the topic last year. So, here we are at Conversations, somewhat late to the ICE party but now seems as good a time as any to reiterate the ICE contact initiative. Meanwhile, tell us what you think below.
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