Crowd-Vision Technology Wins the $10,000 "Crowded Places" Award at GSC

November 12 2008 | 1 comment(s)

Winner of the "Crowded Places Idea" Award 2008 is Crowd Vision from Switzerland

Crowd Vision is a software product that automatically detects and tracks pedestrians while they move under CCTV cameras. The concept is to run the analysis in real time of multiple CCTV cameras to get a more accurate view of how crowds are moving. This allows for a certain amount of forecasting of how a situation will develop – thereby offering the ability to use a range of interventions before a situation becomes critical. The software development has successfully used the Mecca pilgrimage as a test environment, generating wide interest.

Whatever the cause and mindset of the crowd, the main value lies in protecting the people in the crowd from themselves. Anybody who has managed a large-scale event knows that it is extremely difficult to assess the level of criticality in the crowd, On the one hand, if you are within a crowd you have no global overview of the situation and, on the other hand, if you observe the crowd from above, you have no 'feeling' for the level of criticality within the crowd. Crowd Vision, however, puts numbers to the state of the crowd allowing for an objective assessment.

The Innovator Behind Crowd-Vision

The innovator behind Crowd-Vision, Anders Johansson from the ETH University in Zurich says: "The award has acknowledged that even without external threats, a huge crowd poses a danger in itself, in terms of overcrowding and crowd disasters" Link to ETH Zurich

About Crowded Places Idea Award
The inaugural Crowded Places Ideas competition was launched together with Secure Futures Ltd to help bring fresh thinking to the problem of protecting the general public from the threat of terrorism in crowded urban environments. At present, governments and industry are looking for more effective ways to respond to the huge challenges posed by securing crowded places.

This new award is aimed to support researchers, infant companies with no revenue yet and any other inventors who just have an idea for securing crowded places. The winner of this award receives mentorship and a $10,000 cash award, from Secure Futures.

Winners of "Startup" and "Idea" Category Announced Tomorrow

Tomorrrow, at the GSC Security Technology Summit, the winners of the remaining categories: the "Startup" Award and best "Idea" Award will be announced at our event hosted by London Business School.

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