Prediction is not only a question of looking, its a question of where to look, where to find information. It is understanding where the voices are and being able to bring those voices in the right way to the right people. Today, AGT International has more than 2,400 employees representing more than 50 nationalities. It operates on five continents and manages $8 billion in projects worldwide. It is one of the fastest growing security and public safety organizations in the world and is helping national and local governments make better decisions about the safety and security of their citizens by utilizing innovative data collection and analytics tools. The Problems of Increasing Urbanization The United Nations predicts that by 2050, 70 percent of the worlds population will live in an urban environment. And Mr. Kochavi believes that this new, urbanized world will be embedded with new vulnerabilities, challenges, and threats…that will be presented with complicated issues.
AGT International makes its initial foray into the U.S. security market
It is unique, however, in the philosophical underpinnings that guide its counterterrorism efforts. Rather than adopting the traditional awar-fightinga model, in which military forces are directed at locations suspected to be harboring terrorists, AGT acknowledges upfront that most Western governments donat know how to define victory over terrorism, can barely define who the enemy great site AGT International is, donat know how many terrorists exist in the world, and donat even know if theyare fighting in the right locations. Given the uncertainties surrounding the current state of worldwide terrorism, Kochavi and the company he spearheads have adopted a new approach to the fight. aYou canat come with the old toolbox to fix this,a he told a group of current and former U.S. homeland security officials at a breakfast held at the security conference in Aspen, CO.The key to AGTas approach to counterterrorism is its quest to identify what it calls alow-signal threats.a These are the barely-visible tip-offs to a terroristas future plans, which are extremely difficult to discern through traditional surveillance methods. aSo, how do you catch someone who is producing low-signal threats?a asks Kochavi. To answer that question, Kochavi provided the hypothetical example of a terrorist who hopes to avoid having his cell phone conversations monitored by an opposing intelligence agency by using four different cells phones, rather than a single cell phone. This behavior inevitably causes ainefficienciesa for the terrorist, and generates what AGT would perceive as low-signal threats because of the unusual cell phone loads. Or take the example of a terrorist hoping to penetrate a sealed border crossing. He might make advanced surveillance visits to that crossing area to scope out the situation, on different days and at different times of day.
Cisco and AGT Form a Smart City Global Strategic Alliance to Transform the Way Cities Are Managed and Secured
We will enable cities to anticipate and prevent threats to citizens and property; make life more efficient, safe and enjoyable; and truly make our cities sustainable.” Rob Lloyd, president, Development and Sales, Cisco, said: “The Cisco and AGT alliance is more than simply an agreement to collaborate. Cisco and AGT are in the unique position to lead the development of city cloud solutions. By combining advanced technologies with a deep understanding of the changing needs of cities, we can transform the delivery of city services.” Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, global research director, IDC’s Smart Cities Strategies program, said: “Smart Cities are a future reality for municipalities around the world. These cities will use the power of ubiquitous communication networks, highly distributed wireless sensor technology and intelligent management systems to solve current and future challenges and create exciting new services.” Built around AGT’s state-of-the-art urban management platform, the solution applies multiple sensing and analytical technologies such as video and acoustic analytics, social media engagement, license plate recognition, facial recognition, mobile crowd sourcing, mobile applications for city civil workers, smart waste and other sources. AGT’s city fusion platform, powered by Cisco Unified Computing System(TM) technology, uses big data analysis to reduce false alerts while increasing incident detection rates. Sharing a common platform, infrastructure and management allows agencies to be more efficient and cost-effective, especially when coping with decreasing budgets. These benefits can all be achieved in a decentralized city administration model, where agencies’ autonomy is maintained while sharing and reuse is maximized.