York-based tracking and security specialist Vismo has been appointed as a commercial partner of the Global Interagency Security Forum (GISF) for aid worker safety and will kick off the partnership with a demonstration of its personal security apps at GISF’s Global Security Risk and Policy Conference 2026, London next week (May 26-28th)
Founded in 2006, GISF is a network connecting NGOs, UN agencies and donors to improve security risk management (SRM) of aid workers including duty of care, secure access to them, and other enhancements to their safety in complex operating environments.
As a partner, Vismo will work with GISF members to help improve the safety of aid organisations’ employees, volunteers and contract workers through its smartphone apps and assistance via satellite devices, with a focus on at-risk areas and while they are travelling.
Vismo CEO Tom Cowling said: “NGOs operate in an environment of escalating and increasingly complex security risks. They include targeted violence, kidnapping, arbitrary detention, disinformation and threats from emerging technologies such as drones – alongside tighter budgets and reduced enabling support.
“We are therefore delighted to join GISF’s partner programme and help GISF to support greater transparency and collaboration across the entire security risk management field for aid workers, while also providing direct assistance via our technology.”
Cowling continued: “NGOs don’t manage security risks in isolation. Effective security risk management depends on a wider ecosystem of specialist services, from insurance, legal advice, and medical evacuation to risk analysis, training and crisis support.
“Many NGOs navigate all this alone and under time, human resource and financial pressures. The result is limited transparency, increased costs and greater difficulty in accessing appropriate support. That’s where we come in with invaluable help and innovation.”
At the conference, and as a tier-one critical event management company, Vismo will demonstrate its Locate & Protect and Monitor apps, which between them give users enhanced protection 24/7, and their employers the ability to monitor the wellbeing of users and rapidly communicate with them if necessary.
Vismo’s platform goes beyond its locate and protect functions, also providing active monitoring, mass communication to users in critical situations – and integration with workflow software.
The apps utilise intelligence streams and precise tracking data to mitigate risks by alerting users in real time to emerging and expected critical events, and to any events as they suddenly happen. User are advised via multiple communication channels on how to stay safe or be safer, and given details of any evacuation procedures that are being put in place to bring them to safety if necessary.
More than 450,000 individuals in Fortune 500, FTSE 100 and other companies, NGOs and government organisations, are currently safeguarded by Vismo.
