# Onscene: Making Campus Policing Faster, One Call at a Time
The idea for Onscene came from recognizing how much time police officers spend on administrative work instead of responding to the situations in front of them. Campus police departments handle dozens of calls, each requiring officers to document conversations, record incident details, and complete reports. Much of this information is already communicated over dispatch calls, yet officers often have to manually transcribe and organize it afterward. We saw an opportunity to make that process faster.
We built Onscene, a tool that integrates with campus police dispatch systems to automatically transcribe police calls and organize the information for administrative use. Rather than requiring officers to listen back to recordings or manually document every detail, Onscene captures conversations as they happen and converts them into usable transcripts. Our goal is to reduce the administrative burden on officers so they can spend more time doing the work that matters.
Building Onscene taught us that solving operational problems requires understanding how people actually work. We learned that police departments have existing systems and workflows that software needs to fit into, rather than forcing officers to adopt entirely new processes. We also began thinking more deeply about the importance of accuracy, especially when dealing with sensitive conversations and incident documentation.
One of our biggest challenges was figuring out how to connect with existing dispatch infrastructure while maintaining reliable transcription. Police communications can be fast-paced, contain background noise, and involve multiple speakers, making accurate transcription difficult. We also had to consider the sensitivity of police communications and the importance of protecting the information being processed.
Through Onscene, we wanted to build something practical: technology that takes repetitive work off officers' plates. We are excited about the possibility of helping campus police departments operate more efficiently and ultimately giving officers more time to focus on keeping their communities safe.
