Michael Hickey, Interim-Dean at UNH Manchester, announced that the university has partnered with Rejjee founders, long-time New Hampshire advertising businessman Gary M. O’Neil and Cambridge-based serial entrepreneur and MIT Enterprise Forum organizer/lecturer Ken Smith, in creating what they call “an early-stage through completion, start-up internship program.”
“This is a great opportunity for the university,” said Dean Hickey. “This dynamic partnership is an example of the comprehensive experiences students get at UNH-Manchester. As we are re-designing our academics to include more experiential, hands-on learning, this project will be a great model.”
Twelve interns from diverse major areas of study have joined with O’Neil and Smith in a strategic product review of the company’s iOS and Android mobile apps and website, tools that burst the cycle of personal property crime and its $50 billion direct economic impact, as well as the $90 billion in annual fraudulent insurance claims.
“Our nationwide crime-reporting digital portal, Mobile Blue, is a first for law enforcement. It’s free to police and end-users. Next in the product line, the Rejjee Tuff Stuff Protection TSP personal digital vault service registers up to ten personal items for free, and Rejjee TSP Premium allows unlimited registrations for just $1.99/yr. Better yet, with customer permission, Rejjee is building a coalition of e-tailers/retailers that will offer significant and timely discounts to allow for the less-costly purchase of replacements for stolen/missing/damaged items for Premium subscribers,” said O’Neil.
According to Chief Mike Sielicki, of the NH Chiefs of Police, “Mobile Blue is going to become the non-emergency 911 for stolen goods, nation-wide. The NH Police Chief’s Association is the first statewide law enforcement organization to recommend Rejjee and Mobile Blue to all of its members. NH is the first state to create access to the same standard, electronic form for filing stolen goods reports used throughout the state.”
To use Mobile Blue, all a crime victim has to do is go to the URL and complete a short form. The report will be added to a nation-wide stolen goods reporting portal, accessible only to law enforcement departments. If the report indicates an incident in a participating law enforcement department’s zip code, then that department can view the report on-line and take appropriate action. If a department is not registered, the victim still gets an e-mail including a PDF of the stolen goods report that they can take to their local police department, or use it to file their insurance claim.
Rejjee is also working with former US Attorney Tom Colantuno as an Advisory Board member, and a Washington, DC – based law enforcement consultant, both advising on local, state, and Federal law enforcement implementation and the integration between Rejjee and the US Department of Justice / Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Rejjee came about when O’Neil was looking at the data captured in the Department of Justice’s - Uniform Crime Data Annual Reports. He wondered what could be done with that data process to actually get ahead of the crime cycle. O’Neil explained, “It’s one thing to know what happened regarding crime six months ago, but to know it in almost-real-time would be extraordinary – a really disruptive event.”
Instead of using smartphone GPS-technology to “find-it”, as dozens of other apps have done, O’Neil and his growing team moved to a “product replacement strategy” once he met Ken Smith, serial entrepreneur from the Boston-area, and author of the book Selling Innovation. “The replacement feature of Rejjee-TSP at $1.99/yr., puts Rejjee in a completely different business than the “find-its”, Smith stated. While “find-it” apps generally succeed only 7% of the time, Rejjee will deal with the 93% of those victimized who never get their stuff returned.
Police told the developers that the best part about Rejjee products is that they can display right onto the laptops in police cruisers in almost-real-time.
O’Neil added, “When you consider that the FBI says that annual losses from this type of crime impact as many as 23 million people, you quickly understand how overwhelming the reporting process could be between police, insurance companies, and crime victims.” The Rejjee team developed digital data-entry templates compliant with the National Crime Information System. “Essentially, we created a “write-once” data entry system that quickly transmits to all involved parties in a standardized format. The beauty and elegance of it all is that Rejjee operates right on the 60+ million US smartphones already in people’s hands.
At the 4th Annual Public Safety Trade Show-2014 in Manchester, New Hampshire, presented by the NH Chiefs of Police, the entire Rejjee team and UNH Interns demonstrated the unique user-experience aspects of the Rejjee site and Mobile Blue. “We were impressed with the effective information system Rejjee offered to law enforcement. The fact that NH, local and state police are getting Rejjee for free is great,” explained Chief Sielicki.
Over 100 police departments are now registered Rejjee users since it was launched publicly at the Social Media and Internet for Law Enforcement (SMILE) Conference in Tampa, FL just last week. Additionally, government law enforcement agencies from half a dozen countries will also be initially credentialed. The developers believe the number of participating jurisdictions will grow quite quickly, as their marketing approach has been one-to-one product demonstrations with law enforcement agencies at multiple trade shows. “With law enforcement on-board, we will quickly pivot to single-user and large group registrations,” Smith explained.“ We have some other very imaginative growth strategies to implement.”
Rejjee’s product development, investor relations and sales/marketing operations are headquartered in Cambridge, MA – the heart of the start-up economy in New England. The team’s willingness to base strategic and product development at UNH-Manchester was important to O’Neil. “Rejjee will take its place in the education development pipeline by providing extended learning opportunities like this,” he said.
Rejjee Basic Edition is free and available for iOS and Android smart phones. Mobile Blue can be found at mobileblue.rejjee.com. Law enforcement officials interested in accessing Rejjee can complete an access request form online.
