Azena Announces US Pilot Projects, Continued Expansion in Pittsburgh’s Tech Hub for Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision

Azena is announcing that it is continuing to expand its presence in the US market with a slate of new pilot projects and growing investments in staff and research and development resources to support its innovative IoT platform for smart cameras. Leveraging ongoing advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and computer vision technologies, the Azena platform enables organizations, such as the Pittsburgh Penguins professional hockey team, to deploy new smart camera technologies for enhanced safety, security and operational efficiency to continually improve the fan experience.

A start-up launched in 2018 by Robert Bosch GmbH, Azena opened its Innovation Accelerator facility in Pittsburgh last year to further invest in the development of the platform, comprised of the Azena Application Store with nearly 100 AI-enabled video analytics apps – the world’s largest for open platform cameras – and an Android-based, open operating system for smart cameras that enables the apps to run directly on the camera, much like a smartphone. The company now has more than 120 employees worldwide, housed in its Munich headquarters, a development hub in The Netherlands and the R&D center located in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, home to several AI startups and innovation leaders such as Bosch, ArgoAI, Aurora, and Petuum. Regarded as the epicenter of AI advancement in the US, the city was ranked No. 23 on the 2021 Genome Global Startup Ecosystem Report, released earlier this month.

“The Pittsburgh area’s incubator community, with its high-quality tech talent pool and innovation mindset is an ideal setting as we continue to develop our platform, which is based on a creative new business model for cameras,” said Adam Wynne, director, Innovation Accelerator, Azena. “We’re excited to expand the possibilities of how AI and machine learning can help organizations like the Penguins achieve their safety and customer experience goals using cameras and apps in innovative ways.”

As part of the partnership, the Penguins will be evaluating a variety of innovative solutions from the Azena Application Store. When installed at PPG Paints Arena, the apps enable several potential ways that Penguins’ staff could more efficiently manage the fan journey.

“The Pittsburgh Penguins are excited to partner with Azena,” said Erik Watts, chief technology officer, Pittsburgh Penguins. “Innovation is in our DNA, and partnering with organizations like Azena are a perfect catalyst to continue to enhance our fan experience.”

Azena is providing organizations around the world with applications that can help automate processes such as conformance to mask requirements for retailers or safety equipment in industrial settings, provide business intelligence data to retailers to adjust staffing levels or reconfigure merchandising displays by analyzing customer traffic and increase security by detecting the presence of a weapon in a busy hospital emergency room or a large crowd forming in the parking garage after a sporting event.

Other US pilot customers include an oil drilling company, which is deploying smart cameras running the Azena OS so operations staff can remotely monitor any pumping disruptions in the oil fields and a chemical plant using smart cameras and apps to monitor its locations for the presence of smoke to enhance workplace safety measures.

Learn more about Azena, its Application Store, and the benefits of its platform here: https://www.azena.com.

About Azena 

Azena operates an open IoT platform that connects camera manufacturers, SoC providers, application developers, VMS providers, and systems integrators. Its goal is to accelerate the speed of innovation for security cameras and applications that make use of AI and computer vision. To achieve this, the company offers a free and open operating system for security cameras, a development tool kit for app developers and a device management portal as well as an application store for integrators. Azena is headquartered in Munich, Germany and has been on the market since September 2018.

About Azena and BOSCH

Security and Safety Things GmbH, the legal company behind Azena, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH and is part of Bosch’s strategic development of new digital growth markets. In the future, Azena wants to continuously accelerate the expansion of its global ecosystem through external partners.

About Bosch Group (Robert Bosch GmbH)

As a leading IoT company, the Bosch Group offers innovative solutions for smart homes, smart cities, connected mobility, and connected manufacturing. It uses its expertise in sensor technology, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer its customers connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source. The Bosch Group’s strategic objective is to deliver innovations for a connected life. The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 440 subsidiary and regional companies in 60 countries.