Swedish AI Firm ‘Sees’ Hazards with Cameras, Wi-Fi

For years, laundry operators have mounted cameras both in and out of laundry operations in order to enhance security and help ensure compliance with workplace policies. Now, as artificial intelligence (AI) comes to the fore, a Swedish company is taking this idea in a new direction with a camera-based AI system that analyzes safety conditions.

“Everybody should be able to return home unharmed after a day’s work, so we can’t accept the status quo,” said Lamin Faye, co-founder and CEO at Buddywise, a Stockholm-based startup. He previously worked for 11 years at wind energy giant Vattenfall, including as vice president of safety and digitization.

A recent online article in TNW (The Next Web), a website focused on tech innovations in Europe, introduced readers to Buddywise and its use of a network of cameras, coupled with Wi-Fi-powered real-time analysis that can detect employee conduct that could lead to safety problems. The system doesn’t identify individual employees, but rather behaviors. “No facial recognition is used and we never identify subjects,” the article says, citing text from the company’s website. Instead, the idea is to observe employees acting in an unsafe manner, and to alert management to provide staff with additional training and/or monitoring to correct these issues. For example, if an employee is working in a manner that’s ergonomically unsound, the system would alert management to counsel staff and/or adjust the workspace to reduce physical strain. Similarly, if the system detected a forklift driver operating in an unsafe manner, or an employee not wearing required personal protective equipment (PPE), it would also alert management to these situations.

The system analyzes video in real time, without making a permanent recording of events taking place in the workplace. The AI analytics are fed into a dashboard, thus allowing employers to measure their employees’ safety performance over time. Operators can tell the AI software to focus on certain risks and to send alerts for any particular incidents they may want to track.

European investors have shown interest in this technology. Buddywise recently secured 3.5 million euros from the Swedish AI fund J12 and the Helsinki, Finland-based, Kvanted, plus individual “angel” investors Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss, the founder of Soundcloud and the ebike subscription service, Dance, the article said. Click here for details.