One of my favourite, picturesque towns in the Western Cape is Franschhoek, the feeling I get when I drive into this quaint little town is freedom and protection surrounded by the essence of nature.  Tourists from all over the world visit this epic little town and, in some way, feel that they are also safe and secure without realising that this is still South Africa with locals who take advantage of this mentality. One morning, while driving through Franschhoek, I thought, what if we create the feeling of safety into a reality? How can we keep Franschhoek safe without visitors feeling like they are being invaded with CCTV and surveillance but still being able to monitor who the perpetrators are and link this cutting-edge technology to all the security companies’ control rooms?

How can we educate the wine farms, guest houses and hotels on the latest, greatest technology currently in the market while still offering them a return on their investment?  I sat with our marketing team, and we decided to host a “Keeping Franschhoek Safe” Roadshow, where we invited all the key players to showcase exactly what technology is out there and how their guests and residents can benefit from this.

The event was hosted by Itec, Regal and Hikvision at Leopards Leap Wine Farm.  A representative from Regal, Talton Cooke, spoke a little about crime statistics and the housing of stock around the country while Hikvision’s Darren Carstens spoke about Smart Cities and the technology out there.  Itec touched on our different service lines and where we are doing things right throughout the country.

The feedback we received was “highly favourable and the content was very appropriate” to what is currently happening in and around South Africa, as a whole.

Perception is that we are all safe and secure without technology and the reality is that, when implemented correctly, there should be no need for crime in any town or city with our smart city solutions.

This, in no way interferes with our freedom and the feeling that we are being watched, we understand what you are currently experiencing, whether it be petty crime at a bank teller with opportunists that take advantage of people who perceive that beggars won’t steal from them, those who break into your premises to steal goods making your guests feel unsafe or not knowing who has entered your premises during the day or at night.Our guests were amazed at what technology is out there and didn’t know that this even existed at such a favourable cost to them too. All in all, it was a very successful day with most of our guests expressing that they need this technology.  Our methodology is not to sell you something, that is old school mentality, it is to understand where your vulnerabilities lie and what technology is best suited for you.  We first conduct a site assessment with our specialised team who build a full scope of work and plug in where there may be blind spots, or legacy equipment and plot out where a solution is required. Then we sit with our clients and provide them with a full solution that is catered specifically to them. We offer financing solutions, all depending on whether you want to leverage off Capex or Opex.

	Perimeter Protection Gone are the days where you need to spend copious amounts of money on electric fencing, driving into an area that looks like Fort Knox. We can do invisible walls and detect humans that step over this invisible boundary straight into your control room. We understand that animals and leaves fall from trees, the technology is so smart, it only detects humans.		Fire Protection Our technology can detect fire at far distances to prevent their precious land from being burnt. This is particularly favourable when people start fires in winter to keep warm and then leave the fire unattended which causes fires to spread.
	Facial Recognition This is where we can earmark certain perpetrators and the minute, they cross the invisible border; it notifies the call centre during the day or night that Perpetrator #1 has breached the perimeter.		Body Cameras Live GPS tracking and radio communications through the body camera. to the security control room.
	Panic Systems Creating a safe space with panic stations that link directly to security company call centers on main streets, known hot spots and bank tellers.		Artificial Intelligence – Human and Vehicle Detection Both Optical and Thermal solutions to protect longer distances. License Plate recognition that is plugged into a system to detect if the vehicle has been stolen etc.
	Dash Cameras Cars fitted with this technology can have live tracking to assist with collision detection and other smart features.