North East-based surveillance technology start-up Ocucon joined four emerging tech businesses to demonstrate the region’s innovation and leadership in this sector to Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney.
The meeting, which took place at the Urban Sciences Building (USB), Newcastle Helix on Thursday 5th July, saw Carney meet with representatives from Ocucon to discuss the company’s growth to date and receive a demo of the world’s first Video Surveillance as a System (VSaaS) system.
Breaking new ground in surveillance technology, Ocucon delivers a powerful, cloud-based storage and retrieval platform, combining intelligent data analytics with the facility to store, analyse and retrieve unlimited amounts of HD video surveillance footage from within the Ocucon portal. It is the first technology of its kind to offer unlimited cloud-based storage as a service.
During the visit Carney also met with North East-based digital artists and designers Atomhawk; automotive visualisation specialists Zerolight; animation studio Animmersion; and Grid Systems, a smart city eco-system.
The meeting followed Carney’s keynote speech on the second day of the Northern Powerhouse Business Summit, during which he outlined the potential impact of growing protectionism on the global economy. The summit is part of the Great Exhibition of the North, which is taking place in NewcastleGateshead throughout the summer.
Ocucon Chief Technology Officer, Stephen Purvis commented at the event: “Newcastle is the seventh fastest growing tech hub in the UK and there are countless companies and individuals based within the region who are pushing the boundaries of digital and technological innovation. However, all too often we don’t celebrate these achievements enough. That’s why opportunities like the discussions we’ve had with Mark Carney today about the opportunities, but also the challenges that exist for businesses in our region, are extremely important.
“Since our launch last October, we’ve seen significant interest in Ocucon both from large UK corporations and retailers, but also major retailers in North America. We’re already in advanced talks with a number of companies and anticipate signing our first major US-based customer in just a matter of weeks. Our story is just one example of how tech startups can thrive here in the North East to compete on both a UK and global stage.”
Launched in October 2017, Ocucon is set to revolutionise the ability of businesses to defend against fraudulent cases of slips, trips and falls – currently estimated to cost the UK economy alone more than £800 million a year – by removing physical limitations on the amount of surveillance footage an organisation can save. Ocucon is expected to be of interest to any organisation capturing significant amounts of CCTV data, and since its launch has seen significant interest from both UK and US supermarkets and retail chains.
The UK-based firm also recently launched Ocucon Pixelate. Developed in partnership with Google, the new product harnesses the power of AI and machine learning to deliver an intelligent and cost-effective video redaction tool that can be used with all forms of camera footage.