It’s fun when your two worlds collide! In September, I attended Global Security Exchange (GSX) 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. GSX is an annual conference that brings together security professionals from across different industries. For those working in the technical space, it is common to think in terms of just cyber security; however, there is a whole world of technology that is focused on the physical aspects of security, including guard management, visitor management, surveillance and cameras, and incident management, to name a few!
As I walked the show floor (which is the length of a couple of football fields!), I wondered whether I’d find any companies with a strong Alberta presence. I was happy to discover three!
Resolver - a Kroll Business Resolver is a risk intelligence company whose roots in Alberta go back to 1988. Before it was Resolver, the company was called PPM 2000 and got its start in Edmonton. In those days, the company’s product focus was on incident and investigation reporting software. Security personnel needed a way to track incidents that took place on company property, and PPM was among the first to offer software to do this. Since that time, PPM was acquired and Resolver now offers a platform to track, report, and look at the impact of all types of risk, whether it is related to compliance or audits, incidents or threats. And while the company is now based in Toronto, the Edmonton team is holding strong, with more than 40 members.
Samdesk Samdesk is another Edmonton-based company. Founded in 2013, Samdesk focuses on real-time crisis alerts. Samdesk is also the name of the AI-powered monitoring tool the company produces. Samdesk delivers speedy alerts and situation awareness to help companies respond to critical events. Using multiple public data sources like Twitter, Nextdoor, and Snapchat, Samdesk gathers data and flags events as they happen. For example, if there is a bomb scare close to one of your business sites, you can get a notification up to 45 minutes sooner than you would through traditional news media.
Userful Userful is a Calgary-based company that offers a leading platform-as-a-service provider in the Enterprise AV-over-IP market. If you aren’t in security, you might read that and ask “Ummm, what?” For many large organizations, their operations centers are hubs of physical security allowing them to follow alerts and camera systems, and access control systems and dispatch tools. Userful has built a platform that allows employees in the operations centers to view more content from any audio visual (AV) source on their video walls. Their Visual Networking Platform is disrupting the market with a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model that allows customers to choose from a suite of highly integrated AV applications to support modern service needs across the enterprise. Security operations is only one aspect of what the company does, as they can help with logistics and workforce management also.
It was great to be at an event like GSX and see Alberta companies interacting with companies from around the world. It was also a lot of fun to meet their teams in person!