Virtual Observer was founded in 2006 as a Joint Ventre between Curtin University’s research team of the Institute for Multi-Sensor Processing and Content Analysis (IMPCA) and Digital Technology International (DTI) (largest provider of transit vehicle recording systems in Australia).
The concept developed from conversations following the London bombings on the 7th of July in 2005 and the difficulty in rapidly obtaining the required vision from the myriad of public transit cameras on hundreds of buses in London.
Objective:
To harness the external facing video captured on vehicles such as buses, taxis and police cars in a simple and powerful way.
At the time of my engagement into the project, there had been substantial investment in time, resources and capital. The technology had been successfully deployed in a small security fleet, as well as tested and extensively proven in the public transit arena.
Greater progress in commercialisation was required. Various markets and needs had been considered, and the product needed to connect to a market.
Approach:
- Investigate various market segments and explore customer market needs
- Development of a go to market plan and strategic plan based on applying the technology to security, law enforcement, and asset monitoring
- Update the business plan to reflect the strategy
- Secure Commercialisation Australia funding
- Development of a strategic plan for entering the market to identify and address the market opportunities
- Defined and managed software development pathway
- Market engagement with organisations in the security arena including with Thales (product demonstrations in London and Paris), Singapore Government, and a major Asian security organisation
- Managed patent portfolio
- Secured Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting mobile CCTV project which required new product design and implementation in record time-frame.
This product in conjunction with the Virtual Observer software solution was used as a primary security protection and intelligence gathering tool visiting dignitaries during the conference including Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister Julie Gillard, and subsequently President Barrack Obama on a visit to Darwin - Project transfer to internal team for completion and implementation
- Manage the acquisition of IP from Curtin University by commercialisation partner DTI Group
