How connected video technology lies at the heart of safe cities
We can no longer count on the comforting assumption that the future will resemble the past. Cities are growing faster than at any time in history.
Today, 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. This will increase to 70 percent by 2050. Ensuring a better quality of life in the future means we must act now.
The explosive growth in urban populations will continue to put pressure on cities. Rising populations will lead to an increase in traffic and the issues that come with it – more vehicles, strained public transport systems, and inevitable gridlock.
And, of course, the more people, the more pollution and emissions, and the more pressure on necessities such as fresh water and fresh air. Public safety will become a primary concern.
These are tough challenges that cities will face. Governments, policy makers, urban planners and citizens’ groups can plan for these issues and manage them. As a starting point, they must collectively rethink how cities operate. And they can turn to digital tools, data, and intelligent video technology to successfully address these concerns.
Milestone is uniquely poised to help rethink city living.
We offer video management solutions to cities – ranging from surveillance and threat detection to solutions that bridge the communication gap between public functions.
We have more than two decades of experience in producing world-leading video solutions for organizations and deployments of all sizes, including cities. Our purpose is to ‘Make the World See’. For many city leaders, video solutions can be the key to greater insight and clarity when it comes to the areas they manage.
There are three distinct components that make up a safe city – safety, mobility, and sustainability. They must all work in unison for a city to be truly considered a safe city.
1
Public safety is required at multiple levels to ensure a safe city. Safety can include everything from citywide crime prevention and risk analysis to crowd management and COVID-19 mitigation.
2
A smoothly running city infrastructure uses a combination of devices and analytics to ease traffic flow, reduce congestion and parking issues, and speed up emergency response and incident management.
3
A cleaner, healthier city is the result of reduced environmental pressures through new approaches to energy, waste, noise, and air quality management and control.
XProtect is our market-leading VMS that supports over 11,000 devices, from over 11,000 resellers worldwide. It is an open, scalable VMS platform that can adapt to all the needs and demands of a city today, as well as future-proofing it for emerging technologies tomorrow.
Our connected video technology helps city leaders, urban planners and citizens keep their cities safe. It creates an integrated system of connected cameras, mobile devices, and sensors, and helps analyze all the real-time data generated from them. This generates actionable intelligence to make cities secure, efficient, and more sustainable. XProtect helps make cities great to live in and great to work in.
MIPS 2021
When COVID-19 threatened to end the 15-year run of our flagship MIPS event, we decided to take it online. The result? MIPS 2021 was the most successful MIPS yet.
The Milestone MIPS Conference originally started up in the U.S. with only 20 attendees. It has since been picked up in all our markets, becoming a major annual fixture for the Milestone community.
Then came COVID
The onset of COVID-19 shut down events everywhere. We had to decide whether to cancel the 16th MIPS or take it online. Naturally, we didn’t want to disappoint our partners, but we also did not want to put them at risk.
Could MIPS work in a virtual format? We decided to give it a shot.
MIPS 2021 was held under the theme Shaping the New Next. All its sessions focused on how video technology is helping to revolutionize and improve how people live and work, both in and beyond security.
The event was hosted in a virtual cityscape that attendees could navigate around. The two-day agenda took the form of main sessions supplemented by on-demand tracks — 37 sessions in all.
All of this had to be pre-recorded, creating even tighter deadlines than would be experienced with a physical event. Three film sets were created in Copenhagen, Singapore, and Portland so our regional audiences could enjoy localized content. The Copenhagen set grew into one of the biggest green screen productions ever staged in Denmark.
A real-world hit
More than 6,000 joined the event, making the attendance rate well above the average for virtual events. The feedback more than justified the monumental effort the MIPS team put in to overcome pandemic limitations — and ensure our annual event kept going strong.
Every day our customers’ needs evolve. Through Milestone Marketplace, we present them with VMS products and services that can help them meet their challenges.
With so many options, our customers are looking for guidance. Milestone’s Marketplace continues to showcase the strength of open platform integrations. This enables collaborative solutions and creates connections between Milestone’s customers and partners.
Enabling collaborative solutions
On Marketplace, XProtect users are shown a wide range of video management solution products and services and are offered inspiration on how to best address their needs. Marketplace also provides the opportunity to download supporting documentation or to reach out for further dialogue.
Engaging with companies promoting their proven technologies and services on Marketplace gives XProtect users and Milestone partners the freedom to build customized video solutions and explore the possibilities offered by XProtect’s open platform.
Addressing business needs
To meet emerging business opportunities and drive collaboration between partners and Milestone’s sales teams, initiatives that drive both traffic and awareness are increasingly aligned across sales, marketing and communications activities. This is done to make sure that we match the most pressing customer needs with new partners and new solutions.
Innovative partner solutions
At the end of 2021, traffic on Marketplace represented a 50/50 split between Milestone partners and XProtect users.
Users could choose between more than 451 products and 286 solution services demonstrating not only the breadth of available solutions and installations but also the exponential growth in both areas.
