Nigerian startup innovation, Chiniki Guard, has won the prize for the best product/application at the ongoing 2019 Golf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX) in Dubai. Chiniki Guard won the prize under the Futurestars category in Artificial Intelligence.
What is Chiniki Guard?
Chiniki Guard, developed by Abdulhakim Bashir, is an artificial intelligence software that has been enabled to monitor human motions and activities while shopping.
The sweet spot of Chiniki guard is that it can detect suspicious movements that are pointers to an impending theft or shoplifting episode.
The software package has a video analysis program that helps it to classify what kinds of actions the shopper is taking. It reports the motions it flags as suspicious the minute it detects them.
What Nigerian Government Agencies Think of Chiniki Guard
It is quite obvious that the security of Nigeria could use a little beefing up. The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has recognised the potential that Chiniki Guard holds for the security of the nation.
NITDA sponsored the AI startup as one of its top six innovators selected to compete in the GITEX Awards for this year. The agency has expressed its support for ICT startups in the country and has been putting moves in place to attract investors to the ICT sector of the Nigerian economy.
Getting selected as the best Artificial Intelligence Startup at the GITEX Awards means that Chiniki Guard gets the prize of $10,000.
This development is a good one for the startup and Nigeria. Innovations like this that can help to solve security-related problems will help in curbing criminal activities. This includes small scale criminal activities and perhaps, insurgency.
How?
Since Chiniki Guard is particularly developed for stores, malls and public shopping places that attract a lot of people on a daily basis, it is not a stretch to expect that it could alert security agencies to strange movements.
