SIA New Member Profile: Calipsa

New Security Industry Association (SIA) member Calipsa offers a cloud-based false alarm filtering platform uniquely designed for false alarm reduction. Calipsa is headquartered in London.

SIA spoke with Brian Baker, vice president of Americas at Calipsa, about the company, the security industry and working with SIA.

Tell us the story of your company.

BB: Calipsa was founded in London in 2016 by Rashid Khan and Boris Ploix, who came together after completing their machine learning studies at the University of Cambridge, UCL and Imperial College London. They were looking to apply their learning to a real-world challenge and began researching the security industry. During their research, they saw the burden that false alarms place on video monitoring companies and believed they could make a real difference to crime prevention through a unique new approach: applying artificial intelligence (AI) technology to the challenge.

Today, we are proud to offer technology that transforms the way businesses detect and prevent crime and empowers security professionals worldwide to make better decisions in real time. We currently work with clients in seven different countries worldwide, and as the global leader in false alarm reduction, we’re committed to developing technology to support people – not replace them. We’ve built a global team that is passionate about creating a future where humans and technology work together to eliminate crime, and our mission is clear: to help make the world a safer place.

What solutions/services does your business offer in the security industry? And what makes your offerings/company unique?

BB: Calipsa is video analytics software with a difference. Using the latest deep learning technology, Calipsa’s cloud-based False Alarm Filtering Platform removes over 90 percent of false alarms, recognizing the causes of alarms and filtering out any not caused by human or vehicle movement. Calipsa takes just minutes to set up and requires no new hardware, meaning it can be managed from anywhere in the world.

As the global leader in false alarm reduction, Calipsa is there to help monitoring stations, installers and CCTV manufacturers to better detect and prevent crime. The benefits range from increased operator efficiency to improved response times to genuine alarms, happier customers and an opportunity for business growth. We currently work with over 60 companies worldwide, adding a critical layer of video analytics to enhance their video monitoring efficiency.

What is something we might not know about your company – or something new you are doing in security?

BB: Calipsa is building industry-leading partnerships with some of the biggest names in security technology to improve the accessibility and usability of our false alarm filtering solution. Our unique video analytics software can be embedded seamlessly into existing monitoring operations thanks to our one-click integrations with a number of central alarm monitoring platforms, including Immix, Sentinel and Webeye. We have also built successful partnerships with camera manufacturers, including Videofied, for which we have developed a custom algorithm to deliver an unrivaled rate of false alarm reduction in the industry.

What is your company’s vision, and what are your goals for the security industry?

BB: Simply put, Calipsa’s vision is to help make the world a safer place. We are passionate about finding new ways of using technology to help security professionals add value and enhance how they protect people and property. Our goal is to eradicate the burden of false alarms through our filtering capabilities. Further, we want to not only understand what is a true versus false alarm, but also support monitoring stations in identifying which of their true alarms are genuine and suspicious. With this, we can ensure that operators will one day only be presented with alarms that require a response.

What do you think are the biggest opportunities in the security industry right now?

BB: The growing capability of video surveillance technology provides a huge opportunity for the industry not only for existing video-first security companies to enhance the services they offer through the adoption of better camera hardware and advanced cloud-based analytics, but also for other areas of the security industry to move into the video space. With the increased demand for visual verification, manned guarding companies can start to expand the services they offer by moving into the video monitoring space and offering hybrid, remote guarding solutions. We also believe AI will continue to provide more opportunities for the security industry to provide an enhanced level of security for its end users by automating more of the repetitive tasks and allowing employees to focus on using their skills to add value.

What do you enjoy most about being at your company – and in the security industry?

BB: What makes Calipsa unique is its people. Our team is hugely passionate about what we do, and everyone works hard every day to deliver the best possible product for our customers. We are a diverse team that communicates regularly to share ideas about how we can enhance our offering to improve the lives of our customers. At Calipsa, we live and breathe our values: respect, transparency and customer focus. These values not only define our internal culture, but also extend to how we treat our customers. We hope that this comes across to anyone in the industry who has come across us.

As for the security industry, we enjoy being part of a community that all believe in the same goal. We may sometimes compete with each other but ultimately we all share the same mission, which is to make the world a safer place. This makes the industry unique and ensures that everyone feels welcome and listened to.

What does SIA offer that is most important to you/your company? And what do you most hope to get out of your membership with SIA?

BB: SIA offers us an opportunity to connect with industry peers that we have yet to come across and allows us to both share and gain useful knowledge and insights so that we can continue to support the growth of the security industry. We hope to take advantage of the many learning and networking opportunities that SIA provides and to build long-term relationships with other members.

The views and opinions expressed in guest posts and/or profiles are those of the authors or sources and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Security Industry Association.