Technology for Good: How Epsilon Helps to Find Missing Children
At Epsilon, we’re committed to supporting our people, our communities and our clients. We’re lucky to have a lot of work in these areas that we’re proud of, but one of the most important ways that Epsilon makes a difference is through our partnership with the Federation for Internet Alerts (FIA), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
Every 40 seconds, a child goes missing or is abducted in the United States. On average, there are approximately 17.8 natural disasters annually.
While these two statistics might seem unrelated, they are both part of the scope of FIA. Founded in 2013, FIA leverages digital ad space to display real-time emergency alerts for child abductions, severe weather warnings, and life-threatening events. You might be wondering how a company like Epsilon became involved with FIA, but for us, finding ways to use our technology for good has always been incredibly important. We found that we could turn our digital advertising platform and assets into an advanced alert system during time-sensitive emergencies. By automatically adapting our dynamic ad rendering and deployment technology, FIA could push localized emergency alerts across our publisher inventory in a matter of milliseconds.
We’re very proud that FIA was founded through a collaboration between Epsilon (formerly Conversant) and GroupM. And we’re even more humbled to share that over the last three years, over 3,500 missing children’s cases across the US have been resolved based on the work we’ve done with FIA across the world.
3,500 missing children’s cases resolved based on Epsilon's work with FIA
Using Digital Media for Emergency Alerts
Epsilon’s contributions to FIA are primarily on the media and alerting side in the US. Our partnerships with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), and license to use the creative assets of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to process alerts as they happen, generate creative assets, and immediately start delivering alerts on our in-house Epsilon Digital network, while simultaneously making that creative available to other media serving partners.
Once information is received, messages are immediately sent out to devices within the concerned area via online and mobile advertisements. Due to their urgent nature, the alert messages overlay or override previous advertisements to help spread the word as quickly as possible.
Epsilon connects people through data and is therefore able to assist FIA by using technology and data services to enhance human safety. Epsilon has also designed a messaging hub for FIA named Push Hub, that allows them to expand their reach to companies like Xandr, ultimately spreading billions of alert impressions to more geographic locations in an efficient manner.
Making an Impact
Just over three years ago, Epsilon helped to create The Global Missing Children’s Network Engine (GMCNgine), through FIA. The platform, through a combination of artificial intelligence and digital advertising technology, dramatically expanded the alerts for missing children across a network of 30+ countries in over a dozen languages. Since in the launch of the GMCNgine, more than 3,500 missing children’s cases across the world have been resolved. This makes the GMCNgine the largest missing child recovery program in the world.
This partnership speaks to the very nature of our values of Passion and Accountability and doing 1% better every day. While it might seem like it’s not enough based on the sheer number of missing children – and that’s true, it’s never enough – it’s all worth if even one child has found a way back home.
Cover image source: https://www.internetalerts.org/
“I am so proud to have Epsilon involved from the beginning of FIA. Technology for good is such an important to thing to me personally – as a Father especially,” said Jason Bier, President of FIA. “We are just starting to scale the global GMCNgine platform, saving children’s lives around the world. There is much more good to come from this opportunity to help children.”