Technology
The 2015 Tech Impact Awards: Security
By Gianni Truzzi September 11, 2015
This article originally appeared in the October 2015 issue of Seattle magazine.
WINNER
APOLLO VIDEO TECHNOLOGY
Location: Bothell | Employees: 65
Most security video, notes Apollo Video founder and CEO Rodell Notbohm, will never be viewed. The challenge is to identify what is useful from thousands of hours of recording from the city bus networks the company serves.
Its RoadRunner mobile video systems use wireless-enabled cameras so that digital recordings can be retrieved only as requested, to investigate specific incidents or to survey broadly how drivers interact with riders.
Notbohm says the systems improve service as well as safety, as querying video across interdependent routes can explain and resolve persistent delays. In major incidents similar to the Boston Marathon bombing, video from all buses crossing an area at certain times could be quickly found to aid police investigation.
Apollo Videos systems are now used in more than 175 transit systems across North America, pushing Apollos yearly revenue growth over 50 percent each of the past eight years. Notbohm sees plenty of room for growth, especially as the company explores selling to trains as well in the wake of new National Transportation Safety Board recommendations.
SILVER AWARDS
FINSPHERE CORPORATION
Location: Bellevue | Employees: 10
From the way they cant be without them, its clear that many peoples smartphones have become their identity. Finspheres technology uses that reality to offer a convenient method of security authentication for credit card holders, matching geo-location information from a mobile phone to the location of a transaction for instant verification. Visa has licensed it for its customers to opt into through a banking app, and Visa expects it to reduce fraud activity by 30 percent.
CENTRI TECHNOLOGY
Location: Seattle | Employees: 20
With more transactions occurring online, enterprises worry about theft of customer data, because serious data breaches cost billions of dollars and cause serious damage to reputation. Centris BitSmart software helps close a major hole in online communications by adding an extra layer of tough-to-crack, end-to-end encryption that makes data and networks much more secure, protecting networks from hostile denial of service attacks. BitSmart is finding a welcome reception in financial services, along with health care, insurance, energy and retail enterprises.