Dallas Animal Services awarded $200,000 investment at third annual Innovation Showdown
City of Dallas sent this bulletin at 04/23/2019 09:54 AM CDT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 23, 2019
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
Whitney Hanson, Dallas Animal Services
whitney.hanson@dallascityhall.com
(469) 404-2842
Dallas Animal Services awarded $200,000 investment at third annual Innovation Showdown
Dallas– Dallas Animal Services (DAS) competed in the third-annual Innovation Showdown on Wednesday, April 17, and received a $200,000 investment in its cutting-edge customer service application, the Dallas90 Shelter Service System (D90SSS). The award will go towards funding the development and implementation of this lifesaving application. Once developed and fine-tuned, DAS plans to share the application with shelters across the country, allowing them to customize it for their needs and increase their ability to save lives.
“We are incredibly honored that so many experts in our field recognized the value of our concept and trust DAS to bring that concept to fruition,” said Ed Jamison, Director of Dallas Animal Services. “We believe that the Dallas90 Shelter Service System will help DAS, and shelters across the country, eliminate the need to euthanasia adoptable animals for space.”
The D90SSS is designed to streamline and improve customer service in the Dallas Animal Services shelter by providing indoor building navigation, the ability to request help from a customer service representative with the push of a button, adoption queue systems, customer service video chat, advanced pet searching, and more.
“DAS exceeded a 90% live release rate for the first time in its history in December and we have continued to exceed that rate every month since; however, we don’t believe it is currently sustainable,” said Jamison. “The D90SSS will make that 90% rate sustainable because it will help us increase the number of adoptions by providing top-notch customer service to each person who visits us.”
The third annual Innovation Showdown, a collaborative project from the Petco Foundation, The Jackson Galaxy Project and the nation’s top animal welfare organizations that seeks to spark creative solutions by encouraging and investing in lifesaving innovation to reduce the number of animals euthanized in the U.S. Each participating investing organization contributed $50,000 in lifesaving funds for a total of $450,000 available to invest in the award-winning ideas.
“The Innovation Showdown shows how thinking out of the box in animal welfare to solve problems is another way to help us become a life-saving nation,” said Susanne Kogut, the Petco Foundation president. “The nation’s top animal welfare organizations coming together to provide insight, guidance and ultimately investments to launch these ideas is instrumental to their success.”
The Innovation Showdown, created in 2017 by the Petco Foundation and The Jackson Galaxy Project, is modeled after the critically acclaimed “Shark Tank” for entrepreneurs, but with one major difference. The Innovation Showdown’s ultimate goal is not a financial return on investment, but a lifesaving return on investment to save the lives of more animals in need.
Earlier this year, non-profit or municipal animal welfare organizations and for-profit companies, submitted their best ideas to save animal lives for the opportunity of investment at the Innovation Showdown. The full Innovation Showdown and the organizations’ lifesaving pitches can be seen here.
