Published on 12:00 AM, August 03, 2018

A brilliant approach to surveillance

From Left: Motasim Bir Rahman, Fahad Bin Faruque, Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo and Matt Saba. Photo: Sheikh Mehedi Morshed

Artificial Intelligence (AI), the area of computer science that emphasises the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like human beings, is giving surveillance cameras digital brains to match their eyes, letting them analyse live videos with no human interference necessary. This is good news for public safety, helping police and first responders more easily spot crimes and accidents and have a wide range of scientific and industrial applications.

Our problem is that every hour, over 1.2 million minutes of video data is produced in Dhaka with no efficient method to monitor it. One has to go through this vast amount of footage manually to detect any possible threats or suspicions and match it with physical photographs or documents to confirm, which is  immensely time-consuming.

Gaze Technology Inc. is a Canadian-Bangladeshi start-up company that carries the mission of using AI to constantly monitor the vast amount of visual data produced by cameras and transforming Dhaka into an AI city using intelligent video analytics and deep learning.

They use real time face recognition to identify people entering and leaving any secured premises and automatically alert the authority about any potential threat or unauthorised personnel, thus making security surveillance entirely automated. Their intelligent face search solution can be used to find lost people or wanted fugitives almost instantaneously in public places. "With Gaze Technology Inc., people have a simpler way to keep an eye on children lost in crowded areas, spot kidnappers and make sure nothing out of the ordinary is going on. We have a 98 percent accurate face search system," says Co-Founder and CEO, Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo.

Gaze Technology Inc. can also help law enforcement agencies track down lost or wanted vehicles on any street that has an AI based surveillance system within seconds with their license plate recognition (LPR) system. Their LPR system, paired with any payment solution, can automate the collection of toll and parking fees at any shopping mall, highway or public place.

Other Co-Founders of Gaze Technology Inc. are Motasim Bir Rahman and Fahad Bin Faruque. Motasim serves as the COO while Fahad is the CFO. Shehzad, Motasim and Fahad teamed up last summer in Vancouver and soon formed Gaze Technology Inc. Taken aback with their vision and commitment, Matt Saba joined them on their journey. He is also a Co-Founder. Motasim, Fahad and Matt have also been involved with Fireout.io, a Vancouver based computer vision start-up.

Among other things, recruiting the right people and technological adaptability, since people in Bangladesh are not used to working with AI, serve as the two biggest challenges for them.  Thankfully, all four of them have experience in the industry of computer vision and AI outside of the company, so they have plenty of expertise to bring to the table. The four of them are drafting proposals for public sector projects and working with people in the private sector. Their solutions are customised according to the necessities of the clients. They chose Bangladesh as their basic location for the company because they believe that AI has numerous advantages to offer to the country.