What Matters Most in Times of Crisis? Our Ability to Respond

Samdesk AI software gives us new tools to understand the impact of crisis to enable better management and response.

Disaster, unfortunately, is a fact of life. As much as we’d like to think we can plan and prepare our

way into a future where nothing bad happens, it’s not possible. We will face crises, natural and man-made, small and large scale, financial, reputational and in the worst possible cases, where human health and safety are at risk. Yes, let’s do everything we can to avoid these situations as much as possible.

And…let’s make sure we have the right tools in place to respond appropriately when crisis hits.

Our ability to manage through a crisis is in direct relationship to our understanding the scope and impact – when it hits and as it evolves. This has always been true, whether we’re talking about the Tylenol crisis in the 1980s or the forest fires on the west coast this summer.

What’s different today? The massive opportunity to leverage technology to help us spot, monitor and anticipate where a crisis is headed.

Enter samdesk – a global disruption monitoring platform powered by big data and artificial intelligence (AI). They help you protect your people, assets and brand with real-time crisis alerts.

The world needs this solution. McRock is such a believer that we are leading the $13.5 million oversubscribed Series A financing with co-investment from our strategic partners, EDC and HarbourVest and McRock co-founder, Whitney Rockley, has also joined the board of samdesk.

Most of this earth-shifting news isn’t good. We’re talking about natural disasters, terrorism, civil unrest, and catastrophic accidents. The kind of stuff that can have immediate and long-lasting impacts on brands, be they Fortune 500 companies, NGOs, institutions of higher education or pro sports teams. Samdesk has clients in each of these sectors, and many others. What do they have in common? An awareness that in times of crisis every minute counts.

How does it work?

Samdesk’s AI platform ingests data from more than 100,000 sources across 27 languages to provide alerts and insights accurately and instantaneously. It alerts organizations on how its people, assets, operations, and brand will be impacted. Samdesk intelligence arrives up to 45 minutes faster than traditional media, giving its clients a significant advantage to protect human life and critical assets or provide operation continuity in situations where every second matters.

Sometimes it’s a global event, sometimes it’s more local. The scale doesn’t matter. The tool works the same way providing instantaneous insight into multiple variables beyond the obvious event details, including live local traffic and weather. These are things you may need to know but maybe didn’t factor into your crisis plan. Ingenious, right? Each alert also includes an interactive map that shows you where an event is happening, and if any other incidents–related or not–are occurring nearby.

Samdesk also filters out the irrelevant information making asset monitoring accurate, and curated event summaries meaningful. And because our world moves fast, notifications are delivered across multiple platforms: direct to the app on cell phones, email, via Slack and more. There are also regular live updates supported by on-the-ground images and video.

Who should be paying attention to this technology and samdesk’s service?

In a nutshell, every business that has corporate security interests. Companies with global operations that need to keep an ear to the ground at home and around the world. Companies that need to ensure customer safety. Executive safety. The ability to facilitate employee or customer evacuations in the event of a crisis.

Remember that list of existing samdesk clients? Some of those organizations, like the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, may not be obvious examples of companies that have a need to prioritize corporate security. They are in the sports entertainment business, not transporting hazardous waste or operating heavy duty equipment in underground mines. But to their credit, they recognized their obligation to make safety a top priority for the fans, their employees and the communities in which they operate. They recognize the potential risk of everything from weather-related incidents (floods, hurricanes, tornadoes) to threats to infrastructure (bridge collapses, power outages) and even potential criminal activity (riots, neighbourhood lockdowns). Samdesk’s AI technology is trained to recognize 47 different types of security threats.

Read more here about how Freddrick Richardson, Vice President of Arena Security and Public Safety for the Hornets, keeps a host of people and assets safe at home and on the road.

This isn’t a doom-and-gloom story, despite its title. We like to think it speaks to the incredible potential of AI technology. Technology that can help prevent or minimize the impacts of emergencies is a good news story worth sharing.