Krowdthink Ltd, developers of the Krowd event and venue app for networking and social engagement, has won funding under the UK Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition to improve crowd resilience.
The announcement was made on Day Two (1 March) of International Confex and the Event Production Show, at Olympia London.
Following the Manchester Arena bombing and subsequent terror attacks in London of 2017, the UK Government Office of Security and Counter Terrorism within the Home Office sought to encourage innovation to improve crowd resilience. Key areas of interest from the call include improving the detection of threats from explosives and weapons within a range of crowded places with high footfall and so reduce the chance of such future attacks happening again.
DASA was tasked with engaging the UK technology community and successfully solicited a wide range of proposals for innovation and research into this challenging task.
Krowdthink uses existing communication infrastructure to build public intranets that enable digital engagement in the context of the venue or event. The company’s approach is to enhance its venue-based communication and social platform – the Krowd – to integrate venue security staff with the crowd they are charged with keeping safe.
Krowd combines a secure social-engagement app, with features to enhance safety and security operations within high footfall spaces that are Wi-Fi enabled. It enables threat, event, venue and safety information to be shared via mobile devices, transforming ‘the crowd’ into a ‘virtual sensor’ to effectively identify threats and easily respond via alerts. Its use is intended to support the UK Government Crowded Places Guidance, which identifies that we all have an important role in keeping ourselves safe.
The Krowd makes this simpler and more accessible by combining integrated security features into a secure and private event app.
Instead of solely relying on security staff to keep safe, users can enable active crowd participation in keeping themselves safe.
This approach also provides a way to report minor crimes or concerns to on-site staff who can quickly respond to enhance the event, venue or festival experience.
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The deterrent effect on terrorists is potentially transformational; instead of a terrorist focussing on finding surveillance camera blackspots and security guard patrol gaps, they now need to worry that anyone with a smartphone using the Krowd could be reporting their suspicions.
The aggregated crowd alerts provide insight to an emerging threat, assisting security staff to respond rapidly and pre-emptively.
“This is an exciting new sector for event technology to innovate and deliver new value,” said Geoff Revill, CEO and MD of Krowdthink Ltd.
“It’s difficult for event managers and some venue owners to invest in the safety of their visitors to the extent they would like – we will lower that cost barrier to make crowd safety a standard investment activity,” added Revill.
Krowdthink is also planning a concept demonstration event in November 2018.
