Category Archives: Technology

Introducing the 2021 WT Fast 50

Welcome to the 2021 edition of our Washington Technology Fast 50that ranks the fastest growing small businesses in the government market.

Its a celebration of the depth, diversity and hard work of small businesses in the federal sector.

The rankings are based on information that companies submit, including five years of revenue data. We then calculate their compound annual growth rate over those five years. For 2021, the range is 2016 through 2020. Companies are then ranked according to that CAGR.

Thats why the largest company by revenue isnt necessarily the No. 1 company. That honor goes to the fastest growing. It might seem like a no-brainer, but I get questions about that each year.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE RANKINGS

In the coming weeks, well profile several of the companies on the Fast 50 but here are a few things I want to point out.

In a rarity, we have a repeat at No. 1.

Data Intelligence Technologies Inc. is on quite a roll and is one of the few companies to capture the top spot in consecutive years. They did it this year with a 2016-2020 CAGR of 311.1 percent.

They are the third company in 20 years to repeat as No. 1. The others were Merlin International in 2005 and 2006, and OBXtek in 2013 and 2014.

We have 19 companies on the 2021 list that also appeared on the 2020 Fast 50. Last year's rankings had 17 companies repeat.

In what must be a record for the Fast 50, DigitalSpec is making its eighth consecutive appearance on the Fast 50 with a CAGR of 41.2 percent from 2016-2020.

The depth and focus on thisyears group of companies also stands out to us.

For example, Data Intelligence is focused on data just as its name implies. That means everything like engineering, cloud hosting, science, security, visualization and analytics

The OM Group at No. 14 has focused its efforts on cloud migration and the many services that surround those efforts.

Some of the Fast 50 firms keep their target agencies in a tight group. For example, Advanced Concepts & Technologies at No. 29 has focused its acquisition expertise on supporting the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as one of the main lines of business.

This isnt the first year weve noticed the depth of capabilities among the Fast 50. But it is still important to note that innovation and cutting edge skills arent solely found at the largest companies in the market.

As you explore the rankings, youll find that weve collected valuable information on these companies including leadership, contracts, major customers and lines of business. Each profile links to the company website where you can learn more.

Posted by Nick Wakeman on Oct 21, 2021 at 1:27 PM

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Introducing the 2021 WT Fast 50 - Washington Technology

SUZHOU, China, Oct. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- "Paradise for Innovation and Entrepreneurship" 2021 Suzhou Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is the first competition co-hosted by the Talent Office, the Science and Technology Bureau, the Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Suzhou Municipal People's Government, and the Suzhou Daily. It aims to attract talents to Suzhou to innovate and start businesses, gathering surging power for the high-quality development of Suzhou, according to the Organizing Committee of 2021 Suzhou Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.

2021 Suzhou Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Finals

The competition was officially launched in April this year. Relying on the "Gusu Technology Entrepreneur Plan", "Competition and Investment for Evaluation" was adopted. 1,233 projects registered for the competition, and 415 projects passed online evaluation, covering 9 major fields such as electronic information, biomedicine, and advanced manufacturing. Finally, 308 projects were selected for the plan, and each project can receive a project funding of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan. The final was held on October 20. 18 high-quality projects competed for the first, second, and third prizes, and received funding of 500,000 yuan, 400,000 yuan, and 300,000 yuan respectively. First prize projects that meet the conditions of the Gusu Leading Talents Program will be given priority.

This competition adopts a new competition system and has achieved remarkable results. First one is "Competition for Evaluation", to give the project team the opportunity to fully demonstrate themselves through roadshows, reduce the loss rate of good projects, and successfully unearth 8 high-quality projects that have not passed the online evaluation; The second one is "Investment for Evaluation" to increase the participation of social capital. During the roadshow season, over 100 venture capital institutions participated and facilitated the docking of over 60 projects with venture capital institutions; The third one is 7 offline special competitions such as "Future of Technology", "Advanced Manufacturing" and "Yangtze River Delta", which have greatly expanded the source of participating projects. The number of projects has increased by 20%. Cooperating in other areas to expand the source of team projects, the number of teams established is 58.

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SOURCE The Organizing Committee of 2021 Suzhou Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition

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2021 Suzhou Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is held, and "Competition and Investment for Evaluation" have...

Matrox Celebrates 45 Years of Technology Innovation

Marking more than four decades of continued innovation through constant reinvention and an enduring commitment to technical excellence

This year, Matrox proudly celebrates its 45th anniversary. Innovation has been central to the brands identity since its inception, and continual evolution has propelled Matrox through decades of technological and industry change.

Its two divisionsMatrox ImagingandMatrox Videoenjoy a longevity that far outpaces many other major players in the pro AV/IT, broadcast, industrial imaging, and machine vision markets.

Continued innovative product releases evince Matroxs sustained market leadership; in 2021 alone, the company launched a highly anticipated IoT edge device, released new software tools that leverage deep learning capabilities, unveiled next-generation multi-4Kp60 encoders, and continues to advance work in remote production and champion open standards in the AV-over-IP realm.

Innovative Products with Transformative PowersSince its founding in 1976, Matrox has borne witness to, and helped propel, major technological shifts. Matrox explored the end-user consumer market before shifting its corporate focus to specialized professional markets, including digital signage, media and broadcast, enterprise communications, manufacturing, medical imaging, and factory automation. A storiedhistory of innovationhighlights the companys pioneering product launches and expansive market reach.

Matrox Videos focus in recent years is the expansion of their standards-based uncompressed, lightly compressed, and intelligently compressed product portfolio for content capture and processing, visualization, real-time encoding, recording, live streaming, IP KVM extension and switching, decoding, and AV distribution over IP. Greater demand for SMPTE ST 2110 and IPMX-based open standards implementations are driving the next wave of technological innovation to support new and emerging performance media-over-IP workflows and applications. Matrox Videos broadcast OEM products continue to form the basis of broadcast graphics systems, channel-in-a-box systems, video servers and other PC- and cloud-based video solutions used worldwide.

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Matrox Celebrates 45 Years of Technology Innovation - Security Today

- INZONE brings Industry 4.0 infrastructure and services to the world's most innovative regions, creating a virtuous cycle of investment that accelerates digital transformation and helps communities bridge the digital divide

- First INZONE in Las Vegas expected to contribute $115.8 billion in total economic impact over the next 10 years

- Initial collaborators include Amazon Web Services, Guavus (a Thales company), Hivelocity, ITRenew, Lenovo, Terbine, Terranet, and VMware

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Vapor IO, developers of the Kinetic Grid intelligent infrastructure platform, has joined forces with leading Open Grid technology providers to deliver INZONE, a program for bringing critical infrastructure and applications to forward-looking cities and regions, enabling enterprises in those markets to accelerate their digital transformation. The INZONE program is designed to catalyze innovative services and create a virtuous cycle of investment in a defined geography, serving as an economic catalyst for bridging the digital divide and accelerating industry 4.0 transformation.

Vapor IO INZONE Las Vegas - Phase 1

The city of Las Vegas, Nevada and surrounding Clark County will host the first INZONE, encompassing the Las Vegas Strip and nearby industrial areas. The Las Vegas INZONE will host applications and services designed to benefit manufacturers, retailers, hospitals, hotels, convention centers, casinos, telecom service providers and other nearby businesses, as well as to local governmental entities and schools.

INZONE leverages Vapor IO's Kinetic Grid architecture, which locates neutral-host infrastructure near high-density industrial and retail zones. Enterprises within an INZONE can leverage Open Grid technologies to implement Industry 4.0 solutionsincluding private 5G, IoT, video analytics, smart retail, and cloud robotics, among others. Vapor IO currently has plans to implement INZONEs in 36 US markets.

"It all comes down to delivering infrastructure within microseconds of the target facilities, then enabling that infrastructure with last mile networks combined with the intelligence of software APIs and real-time telemetry," said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. "We call this unique combinations of technologies INZONE because it enables Industry 4.0 application within a physical geography without requiring on-premises data centers."

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INZONE enables developers to successfully build and release latency-sensitive applications that are housed off-premises but behave as if they are on-premises. This is made possible by Vapor IO's carefully chosen colocation sites and fiber routes that provide low-latency access to nearby industries.

It Takes a VillageINZONE is more than a collection of technologies; it's an economic accelerator, delivered collaboratively by multiple vendors. By virtue of the neutral host, shared-infrastructure model of Vapor IO's Kinetic Grid platform, customers and partners of Vapor IO can quickly deploy their technologies and services without having to build and operate the critical infrastructure. This makes it easier and faster to bring Industry 4.0 products to market while also amortizing infrastructure costs across the multitude of its users.

The following companies are providing technologies and participating in the first INZONE in Las Vegas:

Amazon Web Services (AWS) will provide AWS Outposts (a service that offers the same AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs, and tools to virtually any datacenter, co-location space, or on-premises facility for a truly consistent hybrid experience) as part of the INZONE testbed environment in Las Vegas, making it possible to run AWS workloads as if they were on-premises.

Guavus (a Thales company) will provide its SQLstream real-time analytics technology to drive 5G telco, Industry 4.0 and other vertical industry use cases enabling distributed data collection, AI-based analytics deployed at the network edge , and low-code/no-code dashboards for customer ease of use.

Hivelocity will provide bare metal provisioning and private cloud services atop ITRenew servers, making it easy for enterprise customers to provision and manage servers on a pay-as-you-go basis.

ITRenew will provide hyperscale-grade, bare metal rack solutions in INZONE environments, delivering breakthrough TCO and sustainability, while enabling enterprises in a near-prem environment to leverage the same best-in-class hardware used by the world's largest cloud companies.

Lenovo will provide edge servers designed specifically for edge environments and use cases. These edge servers offer VMware's vSphere, vSAN and Tanzu Kubernetes platform in a small, secure and ruggedized form factor.

Terbine will provide edge-based handling of IoT data moving between vehicles, devices and various end systems. Terbine's IoT Data Exchange Platform will run on servers close to where data is acquired and consumed, supporting advanced applications in augmented reality, autonomous vehicle guidance, city-scale digital twins, localized traffic management, public safety and security.

Terranet Communications will provide last mile wireless for digital divide initiatives such as remote learning as well as for a variety of smart city applications.

VMware will provide its Telco Cloud Platform in support of 5G connectivity and its Multi-Cloud Services Grid for hypercomposition of edge-native applications spanning the user to core edge continuum.

Economic ImpactThe first INZONE being deployed in Las Vegas, Nevada will be served initially from two sites, spanning both the city of Las Vegas as well as areas in surrounding Clark County, including the Las Vegas strip. As detailed in Tolaga Research's Total Economic Impact of INZONE to Las Vegasand Surrounding Clark County, the INZONE program is expected to contribute $115.8 Billion in total economic impact over the next 10 years.

"Vapor IO's INZONE program will bring infrastructure and solutions to the city of Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County that will diversify the tax base and increase the region's competitiveness on the world stage," said Phil Marshall, Chief Researcher, Tolaga Research. "By supporting the deployment of INZONE and its partner ecosystem, Las Vegas businesses will have a fast path to Industry 4.0 automation and competitiveness. Industries from tourism to healthcare to manufacturing will now have the ability to use cloud economics and shared infrastructure to reduce the cost and complexity of deploying next-generation applications."

Bridging the Digital DivideA key aspect of the INZONE program includes building partnerships with city and county agencies as well as local NGOs to develop public-private partnerships to implement programs to help bridge the digital divide in Las Vegas. The city of Las Vegas already has an active program to deliver 5G private networking capabilities to the underserved and the INZONE program can provide a cost-effective means for expanding this program and helping the city and county attract federal infrastructure spending.

The First Commercial Implementation of an Open Grid ArchitectureThe Las Vegas INZONE is based upon principles advanced by the Open Grid Alliance (OGA). The OGA was launched in May 2021 to accelerate the creation of Open Grid infrastructure by providing a neutral platform in which member companies can co-create commercially viable technology integrations that extend today's Internet to enable next-generation applications that include cloud robotics, autonomous drones, real-time video inferencing, and augmented and virtual reality applications.

Supporting Resources

About Vapor IOVapor IO is developing the largest nationwide edge-to-edge networking, colocation and interconnection platform capable of supporting the most demanding low-latency workloads at the edge of the wireless and wireline access networks. The company's Kinetic Grid platform combines multi-tenant colocation with software-defined interconnection and high-speed networking. The company's technologies deliver the most flexible, highly-distributed edge infrastructure at the edge of the wireless network. Vapor IO has deployed its Kinetic Edge services in Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, and is actively deploying in 36 additional markets. Follow @VaporIO on Twitter.

Vapor, Kinetic Edge, Kinetic Grid and INZONE are registered trademarks or trademarks of Vapor IO, Inc. VMware, Telco Cloud Platform and Multi-Cloud Services Grid are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media ContactJessica ReesPhone: +1.415.889.7444Email: Jess@publicity.im

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Thanks to archeologists and historians, we know just about every step that mankind took to get from sculpting arrowheads in the Stone Age to dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. But while the evolution of military technology is extremely well documented, its driving forces remain poorly understood. Why did military technology develop at a different pace than other kinds of technology? Why did it develop rapidly in some centuries while staying relatively unchanged in others? These are the kinds of questions that Peter Turchin set out to answer.

Turchin, who you might remember from our discussion about the inspirations for Isaac Asimovs Foundation series, is an acclaimed and visionary evolutionary anthropologist. Like many children born inside the Soviet Union, Turchin was obsessed with history from a young age. At some point during his academic career, which mostly took place in the U.S. after his dissident father was exiled from their home country, Turchin decided to study history not by analyzing documents, but by processing raw data. This, he believed, would give him a more holistic and reliable picture of the past.

His modern approach to the ancient discipline led him to make a number of revolutionary discoveries. He became a scholar of historical dynamics, using mathematical modeling techniques borrowed from ecology to achieve a scientifically rigorous understanding of historical events. He turned cliometrics, the interpretation of history according to economic theories, into a new and even more ambitious sub-discipline called cliodynamics, which incorporates methods from sociology and anthropology. He developed an original theory to explain something Charles Darwin could not: the exponential growth rate of civilization.

Drawing from everything he learned during previous research projects, Turchin decided to tackle yet another intimidating question, this one dealing with military technology. The article, composed by Turchin alongside an international team of cliodynamics experts, recently appeared in the interdisciplinary journal Plos One. By analyzing over 10,000 years of history from 10 different regions around the world, Turchin and his team were able to identify the key forces the drove the creation of our worlds most fearsome war machines: population size, nonmilitary technological advances, and geographical connectivity.

Because previous efforts to quantify technological developments around the world were often criticized for being too subjective in their measurements, Turchin et al. tried to define their variables as clearly as possible. The primary goal of their study, the researchers wrote, was to identify patterns in the evolution of military technologies from preindustrial societies. By technological evolution, the researchers wrote, we mean here the dynamics of update (and possible loss) of technologies used by societies at significant scale, regardless of how that society came to acquire that technology.

Although some scholars prefer to study the evolution of technology in its entirety, most have treated military technology as a completely different animal, and for good reason. Machines of war generally do not develop at the same pace as other kinds of technology, suggesting that the underlying processes must be triggered by a distinct set of stimuli. Advancements in military technology also exert unparalleled influence over civilization, changing the power dynamic between different states and as a result spurring a variety of ideological developments.

The researchers observed that the greatest breakthroughs in military engineering seem to have occurred during the past few centuries. Additionally, these breakthroughs seem to be happening at shorter and shorter intervals as time goes on. Economist Michael Kremer hypothesized that there must be a positive correlation between the evolution of military technology and population growth. High population, he proclaimed, spurs technological change because it increases the number of potential inventors () in a larger population there will be proportionally more people lucky or smart enough to come up with new ideas.

Kremers theory, while compelling enough to accumulate a devoted following of world systems analysts, is not without its flaws. First and foremost, Kremer treats population size as an extension of exchange of information. Turchin et al. found this disconcerting because the way that a society exchanges information is influenced not only by its size but also its social, cultural, and economic makeup. Case in point: While the Soviet Union and the U.S. had a similar population size, they each developed military technologies at a markedly different pace.

For Turchin et al., population size is only one small part of the puzzle. Just as important as size is intellectual property or previous inventions, which need not even be military in their original application. For example, while improvements in metallurgy and metal processing initially manifested in the form of the iron plough, these developments are spurred advances in military technology. Without the ability to efficiently work metal, we would not have knives, swords, daggers, or battle axes. Even rifles and artillery, though far removed from the iron plough, could not exist without this initial invention.

And yet, even accounting for this so-called stock technology, the researchers still felt they were missing something. The model assumes that the means and knowledge to adapt and improve upon existing technologies are readily accessible, continue Turchin et al., as well as the organizational capacity to deploy these technologies at large scales, which are open questions requiring further scrutiny. And so, the final and perhaps most important puzzle piece they settled on was geographical connectivity the exchange of information not within but between rival states and factions.

Once a military technology had proven advantageous in inter-state competition, the researchers write, there arose an existential pressure on nearby societies to adopt that technology as well, so as not to be left behind. In recent history, the nuclear arms and space races are prime examples of this principle, but Turchin et al. also identified a number of preindustrial iterations. Before atomic weapons, horse-mounted combat was the military tactic that was most in vogue, spreading from its birthplace in the Eurasian steppe to the rest of the world in what historians would consider a mere blink of an eye.

Using statistical analysis, Turchin et al. were able to verify hypotheses from researchers like Kremer while rejecting others. Although population size, preexisting technologies and geographical connectivity proved to be hugely significant, the same cannot be said for other variables like a societys level of social and cultural sophistication. Ultimately, though, no single variable proved strong enough to predict advancements in military technology. Instead, Turchin et al. combined what used to be distinct, separate, and even contradictory theories into a single equation for the evolution of warfare.

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Military technology: what drives the development of new machines of war? - Big Think

Starting around 3,000 years ago, a wave of innovation began to sweep through human societies around the globe. For the next millennium the continued emergence of new technologies had a dramatic effect on the course of human history.

This era saw the advancement of the ability to control horses with bit and bridle, the spread of iron-working techniques through Eurasia that led to hardier and cheaper weapons and armor and new ways of killing from a distance, such as with crossbows and catapults. On the whole, warfare became much more deadly.

During this era, many societies were consumed by the crucible of war. A few, though the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Roman Empire and Han China not only survived, but thrived, becoming megaempires encompassing tens of millions of people and controlling territories of millions of square miles.

So what drove this cascade of technological innovation that literally changed the course of history?

We are a complexity scientist, Peter Turchin, and a historian, Dan Hoyer, who have been working since 2011 with a multidisciplinary team to build and analyze a large database of past societies. In a new paper published in PLOS One on Oct. 20, 2021, we describe the main societal drivers of ancient military innovation and how these new technologies changed empires.

The store of knowledge about the past is truly enormous. The trick is to translate that knowledge into data that can be analyzed. This is where Seshat comes in.

The Seshat Databank is named after Seshat, an ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge and writing. Founded in 2011 as a collaboration among the Evolution Institute, the Complexity Science Hub Vienna, the University of Oxford and many others, Seshat aimed to first systematically gather as much knowledge about humanitys shared past as possible. Then our team formatted that information in a way that allows researchers to use big-data analytics to look for recurrent patterns in history and test the many theories aiming to explain such patterns.

The first step in this process was to develop a conceptual scheme for coding historical information ranging from military technology to the size and shape of states to the nature of ritual and religion. The database includes over 400 societies across all world regions and ranges in time from roughly 10,000 B.C. to A.D. 1800.

In order to trace the evolution of military technologies, we first broke them down into six key dimensions: hand-held weapons, projectiles, armor, fortifications, transport animals and metallurgical advances. Each of these dimensions was then further divided into more specific categories. Altogether we identified 46 such variables among the six technological dimensions.

For example, we distinguish types of projectile weapons into slings, simple bows, compound bows, crossbows and so on. We then coded whether or not each historical society in the Seshat sample wielded these technologies. For example, the earliest appearance of crossbows in our database is around 400 B.C. in China.

Of course, humanitys knowledge of the past is imprecise. Historians may not know the exact year crossbows first appeared in a particular region. But imprecision in a few cases is not a serious problem given the staggering amount of information in the database and when the goal is to discover macrolevel patterns across thousands of years of history.

In our new paper, we wanted to find out what drove the invention and adoption of increasingly advanced military technologies around the globe during the era of ancient megaempires.

Utilizing the massive amount of historical information collected by the Seshat team, we ran a suite of statistical analyses to trace how, where and when these technologies evolved and what factors seemed to have had the largest influence in these processes.

We found that the major drivers of technological innovation did not have to do with attributes of states themselves, like population size or the sophistication of a governance. Rather, the biggest drivers of innovation appear to be the overall world population at any given time, increasing connectivity among large states along with the competition that such connections brought and a few fundamental technological advances that set off a cascade of subsequent innovations.

Lets illustrate these dynamics with a specific example. Around 1000 B.C., nomadic herders in the steppes north of the Black Sea invented the bit and bridle to better control horses when riding them. They combined this technology with a powerful recurved bow and iron arrowheads to deadly effect. Horse archers became the weapon of mass destruction of the ancient world. Shortly after 1000 B.C., thousands of metal bits suddenly appeared and spread within the Eurasian steppes.

Competition and connection then grew between the nomadic people and the larger settled states. Because it was hard for farming societies to resist these mounted warriors, they were forced to develop new armor and weapons like the crossbow. These states also had to build large infantry armies and mobilize more of their populations toward such collective efforts as maintaining defenses and producing and distributing enough goods to keep everyone fed. This spurred the development of increasingly complex administrative systems to manage all these moving parts. Ideological innovations such as the major world religions of today were also developed as they helped to unite larger and more disparate populations toward common purpose.

Within this cascade of innovation we see the origins of the worlds first megaempires as well as the rise and spread of world religions practiced by billions of people today. In a way, these critical developments can all be traced back to the development of the bit and bridle, which allowed riders better control of horses. Each step in this line has been long understood, but by employing the full range of cross-cultural information stored in the Seshat databank, our team was able to trace the dynamic sequence tying all these different developments together.

Of course, this account gives a greatly simplified explanation of very complex historical dynamics. But our research exposes the key role played by the intersocietal competition and exchange in the evolution both of technology and of complex societies. Although the focus of this research was on the ancient and medieval periods, the gunpowder-triggered military revolution had analogous effects in the modern era.

Perhaps most importantly, our research shows that history is not just one damn thing after another there are indeed discernible causal patterns and empirical regularities through the course of history. And with Seshat, researchers can use the knowledge amassed by historians to separate theories that are supported by data from those that are not.

This story was co-authored by Daniel Hoyer, a researcher and project manager at the Evolution Institute and a part-time professor at George Brown College.

[Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week. Subscribe to The Conversations science newsletter.]

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The horse bit and bridle kicked off ancient empires a new giant dataset tracks the societal factors that drove military technology - The Conversation...

Wed, 10/20/2021 - 15:48pm | By: NCS4 Staff

Ryan Zatolokin, Axis Communications Senior Technologist for New Projects - Americas, will be recognized as NCS4s Technology Alliance Member of the Year during the 2021 National Sports Safety and Security Conference & Exhibition set for Nov. 9-10 in Phoenix.

This years theme is Reconnect. Reflect. Inspire. and boasts the most exhibitors and sponsors in conference history. The event is presented annually by theNational Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS4) at The University of Southern Mississippi.

The Technology Alliance Member of the Year Award recognizes a member of the Sports and Entertainment Technology Alliance who has demonstrated a high level of commitment to research and training addressing industry needs in sports safety and security. The 2021 Sports and Entertainment Technology Alliance members are Axis Communications, Esri, Honeywell Building Technologies, Intel, Johnson Controls, Microsoft, Patriot One Technologies, and S2 Global.

As the Axis Communications representative, Ryan has diligently worked to inform practitioners of how technical promise translates to operational capability, said Daniel Ward, CEM, MBA, NCS4 Director of Training and Exercise. His participation in webinars, workshops, and guidance reflect great credit upon himself and the entire Axis Communications team.

As a member of the Sports and Entertainment Technology Alliance, Axis Communications has partnered with the NCS4to educate venue managers, operators, and stakeholders on the latest technological developments in an effort to close capability gaps.

Axis Communications enables a smarter and safer world by creating network solutions that provide insights for improving security and new ways of doing business. As the industry leader in network video, Axis offers products and services for video surveillance and analytics, access control, intercom, and audio systems. Axis has more than 3,800 dedicated employees in over 50 countries and collaborates with partners worldwide to deliver customer solutions. Axis was founded in 1984 and has its headquarters in Lund, Sweden.

The NCS Sports and Entertainment Technology Alliance is an international consortium of leading architectural firms, service providers, and technology companies dedicated to spectator safety and security at sports and entertainment events. The Alliance consists of researchers, engineers, computer scientists, architects, and other stakeholders dedicated to spectator safety and security excellence through innovation. Most members are involved in safety and security at venues across the US and around the world, while others are seeking opportunities to integrate new and emerging technologies that have the capacity to contribute in a meaningful way.

For more information about the conference, visit http://www.ncs4.usm.edu/conference/ and for more information about the awards, visit https://ncs4.usm.edu/about/ncs4-recognition-awards/. For additional details about NCS4s Sports and Entertainment Technology Alliance, please visit https://ncs4.usm.edu/industry-engagement/alliance-members/.

About the 12thAnnual Conference:

The National Sports Safety and Security Conference & Exhibition will be held in Phoenix at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa onNov. 9-10.The conference will attract over 450 attendees and 60 exhibitors representing professional sports, intercollegiate athletics, interscholastic athletics, marathon and endurance events, sport and entertainment facilities, and those who provide safety and security products and services to the industry.For more information, visit http://www.ncs4.usm.edu/conference/.

About NCS4:

Established in 2006, the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security (NCS) is the nations only academic center devoted to the study and practice of sports safety and security. The NCS4is partially underwritten by grants from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The NCS4 mission focuses on three key pillars Training and Education, Research, and Outreach.For more information about NCS4, call 601.266.6183 or visitncs4.usm.edu.

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Ryan Zatolokin to Receive Technology Alliance Member of the Year at National Sports Safety and Security Conference & Exhibition - Southern Miss...

This article is part of our latest Fine Arts & Exhibits special report, about how art institutions are helping audiences discover new options for the future.

Twenty-five-hundred years ago in a workshop in Athens, a master potter and his apprentice were creating a vase depicting Hercules driving a bull to sacrifice when the potter had a eureka moment instead of painting figures the usual black, why not red. Red? No one had ever done that before.

Something extraordinary happened to them on that day that changed the course of history, said Alexia Roider, the creative head of Zedem Media, an animation studio based in Cyprus. By applying some different substances to the clay and controlling the temperature inside the kiln, the potter changed the colors and the effects of the paint on the vase. (The creator is believed to be a potter known as Andokides.)

Its a very sophisticated technique of pottery making and the strong colors remain until this day, Ms. Roider said. The smoke in the kiln gives you the black, and the increase in the temperature brings out the red. There are lots of advanced technologies these days, but they did it with fire and sticks.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, holds a rare vase from that period, one of only about 55 in the world that shows both black and red figure painting. It inspired the museums first animated film, How to Make an Athenian Vase, produced in partnership with Zedem Media.

We wanted to portray an epiphany to help visitors appreciate the profound shift from black figure vase painting to red figure vase painting, said George Scharoun, the museums manager of exhibition and gallery media, almost like the shift from black and white to color photography.

The film is part of the museums effort to employ technology in new ways to engage visitors more deeply and more memorably. Besides animation, the museum will use augmented reality, computer graphics, 3-D computer modeling and sound design to create innovative displays and interactive experiences in five newly transformed galleries in the museums George D. and Margo Behrakis Wing for Art of the Ancient World.

The museum is using the same tools that they use in Hollywood movies to provide new ways to understand and appreciate objects from the past, Mr. Scharoun said.

The efforts by the Museum of Fine Arts to make art more accessible through technology is part of a larger trend, said Eric Longo, executive director of MCN, an association for museum professionals to share practices about emerging technologies (previously called the Museum Computer Network).

Most museums have increased the size of their digital teams, he said, and many museums now have tech labs and innovation incubators to develop and test new ideas.

Digital is integral, Mr. Longo said. Its part of museums missions.

The Museum of Fine Arts reconfigured galleries, which open permanently on Dec. 18, will have architectural enhancements like raised ceilings, new windows to increase the flow of natural light and custom casework. They will display nearly 550 artworks and provide a new home for its collection of Byzantine art, showcase gods and goddesses, and explain mythologys profound role in the everyday lives of ancient Greeks and Romans.

Part of the purpose is to highlight the inventiveness of early Greek artists and look at the development of portraiture during the Roman Empire. Rotating exhibitions will juxtapose ancient art with works by 20th- and 21st-century artists to explore how they were inspired by classical culture. The inaugural installation will feature the American abstractionist Cy Twombly.

It is one of the worlds best collections of Greek and Roman art, said Phoebe Segal, one of the curators of Greek and Roman Art at the museum.

Part of the job of a curator the word comes from the Latin to care Dr. Segal said, is to keep the material relevant, to make it clear to people why they should care. Good design, wall text and, increasingly, digital media help do that, she said.

We would like to make the same connection in the museum when youre faced with the original artwork as when you watch a period film, Mr. Scharoun said. I want visitors to see ancient Greece and Rome as real places, to imagine the living, breathing people who made the objects, and the world they lived in.

In antiquity, statues were typically brightly painted or decorated with gilding and precious stones, but over time, colors dissolved or were stripped away. A 3-D digital reconstruction of the statue of Athena Parthenos can be experienced through augmented reality available on the museums app, as well as in a behind-the-scenes video of the process showing in the gallery. The goal is to recreate how people in ancient Rome may have seen it in color.

It allowed us to use a lot of pretty nerdy visual effects tools to visualize how Athena could have been painted, how she may have looked, said Evan Errol Fellers, a principal at Black Math, a production company and art studio based in Boston that collaborated with the museum.

The museum conservation team examined trace pigments on the mostly white statue of Athena using special lights and photographic techniques, and chemical analysis. A digital model of the statue was then created using hundreds of photographs.

Its a technique called photogrammetry that uses triangulation to compare the similarities among photos and then reconstructs 3-D geometry based on that information, Mr. Fellers said. Once we had that, our tools allowed us to digitally draw on the model and create photorealistic images using something called unbiased rendering, and to paint the statue of Athena without touching the real thing.

Some original pieces of Athena were lost so with these visual effects and 3-D sculpting tools in our hands, we had the ability to recreate her missing elements, Mr. Fellers said.

Its very special to be working on an actual piece of art, an ancient piece of art that now has found its way to our studio for our artists to then repaint once again, he said. Its this delicate balance of playfully engaging these techniques and digital sculpting tools, but in a way that was respectful of the period and the original sculptor. It adds a whole new appreciation for the intricacies of the artwork.

Sound installations are another way to help museumgoers slow down, to viscerally connect to the past, Mr. Scharoun said. A large-scale projection of footage recorded earlier this year at an archaeological site will accompany a new 3-D digital reconstruction of the sixth-century Temple of Athena at Assos.

The atmospheric piece will use audio to summon the landscape that people lived in and will immerse museumgoers in the sights and sounds of nature, he said.

You get the same panoramic view of the ocean that the visitors to the ancient temple would have had through a kind of virtual window, he said.

In a gallery designed to evoke an early Byzantine church, visitors will stand under a golden ceiling dome in front of a 10-foot altarpiece surrounded by a soundtrack of sacred Byzantine music. A small touch panel allows them to choose specific hymns.

You do have to stretch your imagination to appreciate the depths of time, Mr. Scharoun said. And once you do, you can see the collection in a new way.

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Museums Use Technology to Stir Interest in the Artistic Past - The New York Times

Police said that the BolaWrao 100 is a handheld device about the size of a smartphone which launches a Kevlar cord that wraps around people, immobilizing them.

ALCOA, Tenn. The Alcoa Police Department said that it will start using a new technology that should help keep police safe, while also safely immobilizing suspects.

They said they will start fielding the BolaWrap 100, a handheld device around the size of a smartphone. It launches a Kevlar cord and sends it towards a suspect, wrapping around their legs or their arms and torso. Police said it should restrain or immobilize people without hurting them.

According to the company that makes the device, WRAP Technologies, the device can be used from 10 - 25 feet away. The Kevlar cord is also 8 feet long and launches at around 513 feet-per-second.

Police said that the new technology is part of a national effort to reduce how much police use force and instead train them on de-escalation techniques. They said the device can help with efforts to de-escalate situations without using force.

With it, police may be able to control unarmed and aggressive suspects who may resist arrests. The Alcoa Police Department also said the device may help police who respond to calls involving mental health crises. They said it can be used if the person is a threat to themselves or to others.

Information about the costs of the BolaWrap 100 devices was not immediately available. The company said that the price depends on several factors, including the location of the department.

Alcoa Police Officers Issued BolaWrap:The Alcoa Police Department is excited to begin fielding new technology that hopefully will make the job a little safer. The BolaWrap 100, from Wrap Technologies, is a handheld device about the size of a smart phone. When deployed, it propels a Kevlar cord toward a suspects legs or arms and torso. Upon contact, the Kevlar cord wraps around and attaches itself to the targeted areas to restrain or immobilize without relying on pain compliance. Officers across the nation are being trained in the use of de-escalation techniques in an effort to reduce the need for use of force when appropriate or possible. The BolaWrap is a less-lethal tool that can assist in de-escalation efforts. It will help officers to control unarmed, non-compliant individuals who actively resist an arrest.Law enforcement officers are also increasingly being relied upon to respond to calls for service related to vulnerable persons those who are struggling with untreated mental health needs or substance abuse and addictions. The harsh reality is that not every person who suffers from a mental health or addiction issue is happy to be approached by a police officer. In some situations these individuals may be a threat to themselves or the public due to erratic or threatening behaviors and in need of emergency care. Because the BolaWraps restraint system can be deployed from a safe distance, officers now have an alternative means to bring such situations safely under control.

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Alcoa police to start using new technology that wraps suspects with Kevlar cord, immobilizing them - WBIR.com

Vaccine verification is critical to any countrys ability to control the course of the pandemic. Having a reliable, secure, and accurate verification system gives governments, businesses, schools, or any other institution the opportunity to assess the safety of indoor and outdoor gatherings and provides real-time statistics into vaccinated populations. Though many countries around the world have developed their own vaccine verification systems, often evolved from previous contact tracing apps, developing a reliable, secure and accurate system remains a challenge. Part of this is due to data storage and retrieval protocols. Another major obstacle is information sharing, especially when you consider how important it is that vaccine verification systems are accepted across domestic borders and international ones.

Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2009 to 2017, voiced his concerns about the long-term difficulties of having multiple Covid-19 vaccination verification systems. Its own user interface, validation, data storage, retrieval processes, and security protocols, will make it difficult to quickly and securely verify vaccination status. In order for a system to work, he advocates for five essential requirements.

Blockchain technology can provide a practical solution to the challenges of vaccine verification and can help meet the requirements Frieden describes. Due to the decentralized and encrypted nature of blockchain technology, information stored on the blockchain ledger is extremely tough to tamper with. That addresses a very crucial requirement of a vaccination verification system, which is ensuring the security and privacy of personal data.

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By scanning serial numbers of vaccine shipments and storing them on a blockchain ledger, goods can be authenticated at any point of the supply chain. To understand the process of how exactly the blockchain technology solves the question of data storage, retrieval processes and information sharing, we can look at VacciFi , an architectural framework for Covid vaccination passports provided in a study which looked into a GDPR-Compliant Blockchain-Based Covid vaccination passport.

Figure 1: The proposed architectural framework for VacciFi.

Lets say were applying this framework to travel. With this framework, an unvaccinated person would register through their local health authority for vaccination. After registration, they would be issued a vaccination ID, which they would take to the hospital or clinic where they would be vaccinated. During the visit to the hospital, the front desk will record all necessary information about the person getting vaccinated. Information such as travelers name, passport number, contact number, etc will be stored off-chain due to regulations such as general data protection compliance purposes. The hospital would store two types of information on the blockchain: 1) Passport number and generated hash of the vaccination ID and, 2) date of administered vaccination dose. This will generate a QR code which can be pasted on the passport and is also shared by email as an electronic copy.

The purpose of the QR code is for verifying vaccination details and validity. In the off-chain systems, four operations can occur: create (the right for the creation of a new record in the off-chain), read (the right to read and view record), update (the right to update existing records) and delete (deletion of records). Here is the proposed access privileges by different authorities based on VacciFis framework:

Figure 2: Access privileges of different authorities

Here, all parties have the ability to read the existing records and in the process verify a citizens vaccination records. The only party that is allowed to create or delete the file is the vaccination authority.

When traveling, the QR code is presented by the traveler to the immigration staff. Upon a scan of the QR code, all relevant vaccination details and the hash code (generated at the hospital) from the local off-chain storage. The hash is then verified by comparing it to the hash stored onto the permissioned blockchain, via a smart contract. If there is a match, the blockchain will return the validity and dates of vaccination (Figure 3), thus completing the verification process.

Figure 3: Verification system process

The security associated with only QR code-based digital health evidence systems, which many vaccine passports adopt, is a big source of concern. With personal data being involved, any leaks or insufficient safeguards will harbor the possibility of complete invasion of privacy. Blockchain technology is already being deployed to fight counterfeit vaccines and scams that threaten our long-term stability.

This dilemma extends beyond just vaccines. Reports of fake vaccination certificates in circulation are constantly making the news, alluding to the need for a more trustworthy technology to mitigate these unintended and deadly consequences. The World Health Organization says that fake vaccines and other ill-intended alternatives to bypass our vaccine verification systems "pose a serious risk to global public health". With vaccine inequality also posing as a negative catalyst in our fight against Covid-19, fake vaccines are a more prominent issue in poorer countries, which already have alow supply and vaccination rates.

George Connolly, president OneLedger Technology Inc., oversaw the development of the OnePass vaccine passport, a scalable and secureblockchain-based vaccine passport. He explains in anarticlethat these passports, issued by a medical provider, include a private key individual to the user. To each private key is a corresponding public key, which is stored in the blockchain ledger. Using the ledger, a QR code is generated to confirm the vaccination of an individual. Users of blockchain-based passports have the freedom to decide what information they choose to disclose, such as name, date of birth and or nationality. This reinforces privacy protections and encourages the creation of reliable and accurate vaccination records.

Though blockchain cant solve the questions around the inclusivity and equity of vaccine verification systems, it can provide a platform for success for countries trying to implement their systems safely, securely and with the capacity to manage information flow in real time.

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Blockchain Technology, A Practical Solution To Vaccine Verification Systems - Forbes