| 61 T T Sue Russell Entrepreneurial passion there from a young age The Pukekohe-based company, was founded by Joshua and partner Jasmine Crosbie in 2018. CONTRACTING Watchful We'll take care of the rest. You shoot the offenders. * *In full HD or 4K Our real-time camera monitoring solution advances your security like never before, for a fraction of the cost of a security guard or patrol check. Watchful. http://watchful.co.nz Former police Constable, Joshua Parsons, says the decision to embark on a new career in security was something he felt very capable of doing. “I had not had any experience directly in the industry but I knew I had entrepreneurial passion from a young age. My main motivation for leaving the Police was for family and for creating something for ourselves,” says Joshua. The Pukekohe-based company, was founded by Joshua and partner Jasmine Crosbie in 2018, beginning in home security. Joshua describes as an intrinsically difficult sector, he was lucky enough, around three years ago, to explore solar security which at the time was in its infancy in New Zealand. “That was a watershed moment for me. We imported around 25 solar cameras from a provider in Australia, and within the first few weeks one of our new customers who was using an imported solar camera was burgled. They thought we had done it ourselves. I started my business to stop crime – and coupling that mentality with my Police background, there was no way I was going to accept medicoracy. So we got to work and constructed our own solution” Today, the company monitors over 700 cameras, and two yeras ago, began developing its own software to bring real-time monitoring capability to any camera. “In the early stages, Iwas fortunate to have technical capability within our business to complete the early construction of the design. Cameras are set on towers on construction, civil, logitics and now even retail sites powered by solar energy and 4g internet connectivity. They are capable of alarming themselves and yell at anyone within the vicinity of their range to leave site, subsquently notifying Police of any criminal activity that took place. “I wanted a system that would deter anyone from entering a site, rather than simply videoing them committing a crime and reviewing the footage after an incident. “Our clients want their sites to be operational and not have delays or stress caused by crime, and what we’ve designed and built “Our clients want their sites to be operational and not have delays or stress caused by crime, and what we’ve designed and built in the form of our physical products and software does just that.” in the form of our physical products and software does just that. So far this year data collected shows that 600 potential crimes have been averted and the company has stopped more than 1300 crimes since it began. Never one to stop pursuing business opportunities and to continuously evolve the company, Joshua has now shifted focus from the early stage camera tower development to further developing the ‘Watchful’ software capable to be used on any camera. “It’s takes the success of what we achieved in the solar sector and allows other sectors who don’t need the full prevention towers to use our software on their exisiting cameras.” Joshua says this new direction is full of possibility, opening up the technology to a much wider audience and they now supply clients in Australia with Watchful The business remains community focused, and Phil Crosbie, Joshua’s father in law, fabricates the steel for the towers at another factory just 600 metres away, while the concrete bases are constructed with another local company. “About 85% of what you can see of our solar camera towers is sourced locally.” And moving one step forward again, Joshua is building his own Artificial Intelligence assistant to employ on the cameras. ‘Threat to Text’™ will herald in the next evolution on how smart, autonomous camera security operates. Planned to be on the market in the first half of 2024, Joshua says this is a particularly exciting era the business is entering. “The system is starting to take logical actions to threats, trained by thousands of real human interactions we’ve made to deal with a threat. We know this is going to be a significant development for the security camera sector, as it effectively turns any camera into a security guard that can understand threats and make sensible, logical decisions on what to do next, like automatically playing a speaker or contacting a keyholder to seek further advice on what could be happening on site.” The best way to describe this new technology in security is summed up well in Joshua’s own words. “It’s an autonomous monitoring tool. It is able to detect and understand threats, take a logical action, and assist human monitoring operators in monitoring thousands of cameras at once.”
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