Exlusive Interview with Sponsor of the $10,000 Crowded Places Idea Award

July 7 2008 | 1 comment(s)

Exlusive interview with Fiona Strens, co-director of Secure-Futures Ltd, a UK-based company to catalyse innovation and investment, focused on key national security. In our interview, Fiona talks about why they sponsor the $10,000 award for the GSC Crowded-Places competition and about general security challenges for governments.

GSC: What is the problem with Crowded Places and why do you focus on this particular issue?

Fiona Strens: "We live in a world where we fear all sorts of events - floods, earthquakes, terrorist attacks - that can disrupt our day-to-day lives. These often have the biggest and most destructive impact in environments with high people densities i.e. crowded places. These might be train stations, sports stadia or nightclubs - or even just busy streets. Crowded places are the most challenging scenarios for the communities involved in security, surveillance and crisis management. An added complication is that venue owners, venue operators, police forces, local authorities and emergency services all have security responsibilities. Coordination, especially in times of crisis, is a challenge. The UK needs joined-up, pragmatic approaches that can minimise risk to the public."

GSC: Why are you sponsoring a competition on Crowded Places?

Fiona: "Competitions like the Global Security Challenge are an excellent way to find out about people's ideas and fledgling businesses. They attract a diverse range of competitors from across the world - some just enthusiastic individuals working on their own and some housed within universities or small companies. The crowded places competition is intended to give us access to a set of bright ideas we otherwise wouldn't know about."

GSC: What technologies are you looking for?

Fiona: "We are interested in anything that can turn crowded places into safer places. This can include ideas, as well as new technologies or new applications of existing technologies. They might have the potential to improve security planning, surveillance, access control, real-time warnings of a problem, crisis management, evacuation, crowd control and so on. See www.crowded-places.com. Once we know what sort of ideas are out there, we'll try to stitch them together to paint a vision of what could be - to tempt public and private sector customers and investors.

GSC: What do the competition's winners get?

Fiona: "There is a cash prize of $10,000 for the winner. But maybe more importantly the best ideas will get show-cased with people who might be interested in becoming customers or investors. And Secure Futures Ltd will provide free mentoring and advice to the winner and probably several others on how to take their idea forward in the national security market, offering market insights and making business-enabling connections."

GSC: Are there additional areas where you see problems for governments in terms of security?

Fiona: "The security world moves so quickly that there will always be areas that need improvement. The challenge is to keep one step ahead. In some specialist areas that requires security-specific investment. But in many situations, it demands the clever application of existing technologies, often developed for other purposes, in new ways.

For example how does the security community exploit the opportunities offered by the internet revolution? Or how can advanced scanning and imaging technologies developed for medical purposes be deployed in new environments? This is as much about lateral thinking as it is about technology breakthroughs. Our aim is to educate on the challenges and get people thinking out of the box. We all want to be able to go about our day-to-day business feeling safe but not at any price."

 
If you are interested in finding our more about Secure Futures, please email contact@secure-futures.com

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