COBOURG, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Honorable Sylvia Jones, Solicitor General visited Cobourg’s Venture13 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre on Friday November 27th with David Piccini - MPP for Northumberland-Peterborough South, to announce that Cobourg Police Service (CPS) has received $200,000 from the Province through the Ontario Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) grant program. This funding will support a project to implement a mesh network paired with an advanced analytical solution and will set the foundation for a scalable mesh ecosystem aimed at prevention, interdiction and enforcement for enhanced community well-being.
Driven by V13 Policetech Accelerator [a joint venture of CPS and Northumberland Futures Community Development Corporation (CFDC) with the support of FedDev Ontario’s Rural Innovation Initiative], this project and funding is a direct demonstration of the accelerator’s mandate to provide smart policing and safety solutions. The demonstration project is at the forefront of emerging technologies and innovations that will drive operational excellence, enabling the interventions that will continue to keep the community and officers safe now and in the future.
Launched in February of this year, the V13 Policetech Accelerator set out with a commitment to drive policing innovation and entrepreneurship to improve community safety, and in just shy of 10 months it is exciting to see the momentum of the Accelerator and the adoption of next generation technology like this with the support of the Provincial government within our local community.
“As I have said before, Innovation is a core value of our Police Service. We are excited to see this investment from the Province of Ontario which will allow Cobourg Police to transform the foundation for community safety. When we joined this partnership with Northumberland CFDC and created the V13 Policetech Accelerator our goal was to have this as a police technology test bed for rural and small-town communities dedicated to adopting novel technologies and new solutions for enhanced community safety and operational excellence. Implementing a scalable mesh video network will enforce the overall well-being of the community and at the same time we will be testing and leading with a first of its kind technology within Canada,” said Paul VandeGraaf, Chief of Police, Cobourg Police Service.
The total project amounting to almost $500,000 will be funded through the CCTV grant, the Policetech Accelerator, Northumberland CFDC and CPS. This Community Safety strategy embraces next generation technology and leverages the best of business, technology, communications and community partnerships to drive community safety through transformative police technologies. The scope of the project will merge hardware (CCTV cameras) with advanced analytical capabilities that will integrate a Community Safety Network enabling rapid post-event response for victim identification and crime prevention. This first phase will lay the groundwork for a comprehensive solution that will look to eventually include data from a multitude of sources including Police, Municipal and Private.
“Through the V13 Policetech Accelerator we have the ability in-house to connect, create, augment and accelerate new concepts for innovation in community safety and smart policing. We are very excited to see this CCTV grant project come to fruition and demonstrate the work this accelerator partnership has done to bridge the gap with Next Generation technology, collaborate intellect and scalable safety solutions,” said Wendy Curtis, Executive Director, Northumberland CFDC.
Venture13 Policetech Accelerator
The Policetech Accelerator at Venture13 (V13 Policetech Accelerator) is a joint initiative of the Cobourg Police Service (CPS) and Northumberland CFDC that is actively developing a pipeline (from idea to implementation) of innovative policing technologies and best practices for community safety in Ontario and around the world. Founded on the existing reputation of the CPS as a leading police service innovator, while creating an ecosystem for startups and a soft landing zone for innovative law enforcement companies into the Northumberland region. The V13 Policetech Accelerator project will encourage innovation along a continuum from ideation to early-stage R&D to validation stage with collaborations and demonstration projects through both start-up and scale-up streams. For more information visit www.policetechaccelerator.com.