New York, Feb 9, 2021: Workplace safety and technology are wholly intertwined. From Excel spreadsheets to full-blown EHS (Environment, Health & Safety) software, most EHS system now use advance technology to save time and effort while ensuring workplace safety. Now, AI has become the technology which is playing an important part in advancing the employee health and safety software platform. With an intent to acknowledge and admire some exceptional business leaders who recognize the potential of AI, Insights Success is coming up with its edition “Top 10 AI Leaders to follow in 2021.”
One of the avid entrepreneurs featuring in this edition is Sercan Esen, the Co-founder and CEO of Intenseye.
On his career with Sercan Esen and the Potential of Artificial Intelligence
Entrepreneurship is a long journey and every entrepreneur writes different stories on this journey. We asked Sercan Esen, the inventor and founding partner of the artificial intelligence initiative Intenseye, which stages he went through in this journey, who he was and how he achieved success.
How did your career start?
Before I finished school, I started working at Sony with the title of “Application Support Specialist”. After completing my undergraduate education at Boğaziçi University Management Information Systems Department in 2015, I continued to work in the same position at Sony Electronics Istanbul. I was in the software team for two years as an “Expert Software Developer” in May of the same year. My interest in artificial intelligence technology has actually started with concept studies within the scope of R&D projects we have done at Sony.
Have you worked especially on artificial intelligence within Sony?
Of course. While on the software team, we developed marketing websites that are used in more than 140 countries around the world and consolidated Sony’s technological expertise globally. Later, I took on the role of “Artificial Intelligence Consultant” at Sony. In this process, I took part in the establishment and management of teams that develop a brain-computer interface, AR / VR, and artificial intelligence concept projects to solve the problems faced by different business units such as retail and marketing in Tokyo and Singapore.
So how was your startup idea born?
Our interest in image processing with my partner was born in a coding competition we participated in in 2017. Together with my teammates with whom I participated in the competition, we developed glasses to make life easier for visually impaired people in 24 hours. These glasses, scenes to detect objects in the environment as the people who use an innovative, we construct a comprehensive solution that converts sentences describing the media from the camera and entered the competition with this system we won the first across Turkey. Later, we decided to leave our corporate careers and carry out R&D studies in this field. Together with my partner Serhat, we were very excited to make real-time artificial intelligence analyzes by using cameras as data providers and to contribute to the solution of the problems that affect human life so much. Thus, the foundations of Intenseye were laid.
In which sectors are Intenseye used for what purpose, how does it work?
As a result of our R&D studies after the idea stage, we wanted to focus on occupational accidents, one of the most serious problems of the global production world. Basically, Intenseye is an artificial intelligence platform that operates using the latest artificial intelligence technologies and can provide uninterrupted workplace security at any time of the day, every day of the week. By connecting to cameras that exist in production facilities and warehouses, we conduct real-time artificial intelligence analyzes, so that we can detect dangerous situations and security violations that may occur in the production facility with artificial intelligence notifications. The system that can perform body pose analysis and limb tracking along with the age, gender, and mood changes of the employees is of course in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK) and the European Union Data Protection Directive (GDPR). I can say that Intenseye is suitable for every sector, especially in sectors such as heavy industry, automobile production, energy, and food sectors where work accidents are intense.
What would you consider as a success in the Intenseye journey?
I think we have solved a very acute problem for workplaces in Intenseye, I think this is an important achievement. Because it was very important for businesses that faced difficulties during COVID-19, especially to get real-time notification of security breaches and to make rapid response procedures operational. Many large-scale organizations, both in the United States and internationally, have relied on Intenseye to maintain workplace efficiency and safety throughout our journey, and this success continues to grow.