This IntelliSee example alert demonstrates how the artificial intelligence platform warns users of a weapon in a building. The Coralville-based company, which began selling the AI platform in 2022, monitors existing surveillance cameras 24/7/365 to warn of hazards. (IntelliSee)
CORALVILLE — Is there a way to make schools and hospitals safer?
That was the question that led to the creation of IntelliSee, a real-time platform that uses artificial intelligence to monitor existing surveillance cameras and alert clients to potential problems.
“We have the audacity to think we can make the world safer,” said Scott Ketlinger, the Coralville-based company’s CEO, investor and co-founder. “When we started, it was about how we could protect schools, then hospitals and stores, so they could actually afford it.”
Scott Ketlinger, IntelliSee CEO
IntelliSee, a spinoff from the University of Iowa research, launched in 2020 and began selling its product in 2022. Its clients include the UI, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and private and public schools in Iowa and other states.
The Iowa City Community School District is piloting the program. And the Peoria, Ill., public school system signed up for the risk management platform in August, paying $48,000 for IntelliSee to monitor 64 of the district’s surveillance cameras.
24/7/365
The company’s artificial intelligence software monitors the surveillance cameras a client already has in place, 24/7/365, scanning for threats — weapons, trespassers, unauthorized vehicles — and sending alerts when it spots a potential problem.
“The vast majority of surveillance systems don’t have a human eye that watches the cameras because most places can’t afford to have someone there to watch the screens,” Ketlinger said.
“Organizations that do have human monitoring — it’s a tough job. Most of the video doesn’t matter, our brains are wired to zone in — tunnel vision — or we eventually zone out, we all have bias, we call in sick, and we can even panic or freeze in a crisis.”
IntelliSee provides backup to that human monitoring or works on its own.
‘Ethical’ AI
Ketlinger said the company has invested more than $4 million in its “ethical approach” to artificial intelligence monitoring that does not use facial recognition technology, which would present concerns for schools and hospitals.
For schools, Ketlinger said, the system scans for weapons outside the building to prevent an armed person from entering the school. If the weapon is inside the building, the goal is to stop it from being fired; and if the weapon is being fired, to “let the good guys know where the shooter is during the chaos of the situation.”
“If we could prevent another Uvalde, Texas, or Michigan State situation, it would have been worth it,” Ketlinger said, referring to recent school shootings.
“As part of our safer-world mission, we continuously expand our platform at no additional cost to our customers,” Ketlinger said. “We added vehicle and loitering detection with our last release and will be adding sudden crowd formation alerts this year.”
The company, which has 10.5 full-time-equivalent employees, also works with the insurance industry to mitigate risks that have nothing to do with guns, such as spills that could lead to a fall. In that case, the custodial staff alerts and, if the spill is still there 10 minutes later, reminds the custodial staff with a copy to the boss.
The new technology is catching people’s attention. IntelliSee won the 2022 Excellence in Product Innovation from the National Systems Contractor Association. “We’re very proud of this as we were competing against large, multibillion-dollar companies that have been around for decades,” Ketlinger said.
The Iowa Economic Development Authority loaned the startup $100,000 in 2020 — which it has repaid — and OK’d a $500,000 innovation loan this month to scale up operations.
Marion HS grad
Ketlinger, 55, a Marion High School and Iowa State University graduate, was a business executive in Chicago and Wisconsin before moving back to the Des Moines area when he and his wife, Jeanette, started their family.
He left a corporate job in the Des Moines area to invest in and run IntelliSee.
“I love the pace of startups,” Ketlinger said. “We’re mission-based. That’s the reason we’ve put in all the blood, sweat and tears and 90-hour workweeks.”
The startup received key help came from Greg Carstensen of Asymmetria Group and Ballast Capital; Richard Ferguson, the former CEO of ACT in Iowa City; and Daniel Clay, dean of the UI College of Education — all now members of IntelliSee’s board.
“We have deep Iowa roots,” Ketlinger said, with national ambitions for “smarter surveillance for a safer world.”
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MYBIZ
what: IntelliSee
Where: 808 Fifth St., Suite 5, Coralville 52241
Phone: (866) 222-6530
E-mail: [email protected]
Websites: https://intellisee.com/
This IntelliSee example alert shows a person has fallen in an icy parking lot. The Coralville startup, using artificial intelligence to monitor existing surveillance cameras, alerts clients to hazards before an accident occurs and, if someone is injured, to get them help quickly. (IntelliSee)
This IntelliSee example alert shows a slipping hazard at the bottom of stairs. The Coralville startup uses artificial intelligence to monitor existing surveillance cameras to warn of problems before an accident. (IntelliSee)
This IntelliSee example alert pinpoints a weapon carried by a person in a school parking lot and will send an alert about the hazard. The Coralville startup monitors existing surveillance cameras 24/7/365 to alert clients — schools, hospitals, stores — of hazards. (IntelliSee)