Ian Smith: 

[2:28] Ian Smith coming at you from San Francisco California and today I'm here with Jack Wu,
the CEO and co-founder of Nightingale security a robotic Aerial security start up so welcome to the show Jack it's a pleasure to have you.
Yeah thanks for being here first of all I want to draw attention to the way that I introduce you so,
they had the tagline was a robotic Ariel security start up and so we did chat about this just briefly before we hit the record button,
but can you tell us a little bit about you know this isn't commercial drones FM it's a drone podcast but you made a very nice distinction about the way you refer to yourselves as and maybe you could share that with us to kick ass off.

Jack Wu: 
[3:09] Yeah sure so we call ourselves a robotic aerial Securities because we use robotic technology that we apply that to an aerial platform and we focus the application on security.

Ian Smith: 
[3:21] Okay so it's not just drones those what you're saying like it's just going to be robots in the future you know you were saying how we refer to computers these days as machines instead of a computer machine in.

Jack Wu: 
[3:32] Right shooting machine right just like how computer technology doesn't consider just Hardware there's also software right and there's House of the UI so there's multiple components and I think robotics the same thing so we're just using for security.

Ian Smith: 
[3:47] And so what is Nightingale security then I mean what is this company I know I'd met a couple of your,
colleagues previously must have been at least like a year-and-a-half ago or so in an event here in SF but yet tell us a little bit about the company in and what it does.

Jack Wu: 
[4:03] Okay so we operated physical security space we have about 17 people are product is Shiraz or boticario security.
I consist of a drone and a base station that enables autonomous operations autonomous takeoff Landings at pre-plan missions.
And the software that does the Fleet Management.
Any clues machine learning directly on the base so the space stations are actually xbase parallel Computing Network as well.

Ian Smith: 
[4:35] Gotcha so,
it is kind of so I refer to these the listeners will know as drums in a box kind of for lack of a better term,
so basically this is one of the scenarios where there is essentially like a home base station like you said in the Drone lives inside of it quote on quote and that's just kind of like its base of operations.
Glands in it and it takes off from it.

Jack Wu: 
[4:58] Yeah but you can see it as like bird and its nest.

Ian Smith: 
[5:02] Yeah okay there we got is at the art of the product.

Jack Wu: 
[5:04] That's actually internal phrases we call it Birds to call her drones birds and our bases nests.

Ian Smith: 
[5:11] And so Nightingale is a type of birds.

Jack Wu: 
[5:13] That sings at night.

Ian Smith: 
[5:14] Very poignant that sings at night so that's what the Nightingale is okay I don't think I have any of those around me Civic Center over here.

Jack Wu: 
[5:24] She was also a nurse in World War 1 that help heal though out of Allied soldiers.

Ian Smith: 
[5:28] Florence Bingo okay there we go.

Jack Wu: 
[5:32] It's coming together.

Ian Smith: 
[5:34] Great great inspiration for the name there and tell us a little bit more about the company then like how many employees rough roughly in like are you guys pre-revenue post Revenue.

Jack Wu: 
[5:44] Yeah so we're 17 about to be 18 employees we are post Revenue.

Ian Smith: 
[5:50] Nice that's awesome and kind of back up a little bit and what about yourself I mean how did you get into drones.

Jack Wu: 
[5:59] I got two drones because as a kid I grew up in Taiwan until I was nine and I lived right next door to an Air Force Base.
And I happened to be so at I want is the only place outside the United States the operator that you too which is the U-2 spy plane and they used to do spy missions over China.
So I living right next to Air Base I see a lot of aircraft come in and out anyway long story short I meant to Tactical ISR intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance.

Ian Smith: 
[6:29] Okay so what does that mean exactly.

Jack Wu: 
[6:31] It just means that you know.
A lot of time people are spent in the security space or in the military watching thanks.
So I things that you have to be aware of before you can take action and in physical security that it's the same thing that's why they're so many cameras,
so which performing some tasks that existing cameras can't do like patrolling I why'd you know perimeter like a five mile perimeter but that's not challenging to rain.
So the guards may not be able to get there very quickly I or do it efficiently and your cost-effectively so we come in and we still got gas.

Ian Smith: 
[7:13] And so yeah and so that gets into the next kind of question that I had or like what are these security drones used for I mean you can say security drones but is this like a military security drone is this like 4.
Non-military I mean what's the deal here.

Jack Wu: 
[7:29] It's well it's it's it's like paramilitary I would say that type of mission that it conducts are tactical is our missions over a fixed location.
So its perimeter security rapid response and two drones they talk to each other via R 2 d 2 d a relay to drum to drum so it's a communication it's a homage to RTD2.

Ian Smith: 
[7:55] Okay I'm like R 2 d 2 D relay 2.

Jack Wu: 
[7:58] Relay Drone 2 drone.

Ian Smith: 
[8:00] Okay see if you can get all the cool names night and Gale an RTD2 going on.

Jack Wu: 
[8:05] That's part of our patent we actually have a patent on the entire system so your your drone in the box where that drum in a box for security pack.

Ian Smith: 
[8:17] Okay.
That's the first one that we've had on this show so yeah you just deny you like the second kind of a quote-unquote drone in a box company to be a guest here so that's really cool because I think that is,
take the future of drones they're just going to fly themselves and so how is this going to change the security industry though like if you look at,
the current method of doing security for your types of clients like what is the big,
efficiency gained or safety gain or like security game that we're really seeing here and how is that changing the game.

Jack Wu: 
[8:51] Yeah so going back to what I was mentioning about patrolling a large perimeter eye there are specific missions that simply cannot be done with a human guards.
I humans can only walk we can't fly even if we're in a vehicle there are trains that we simply can't pass.
So I drone is being trained insensitive.
I almost if you fly high enough you able to see more and provide a different vantage point and cover large areas very quickly.
So we see ourselves as a force multiplier where we come in and we augment the existing unit human guards,
and give them new capabilities and so they can be at multiple place at once and also don't have to labor with false alarms,
cuz the Drone is just as enthusiastic on the 1,000 false alarm as it is with the first one.

Ian Smith: 
[9:42] That's a great point it's look like as far as potential clients go are we talking like Elon Musk Bill Gates,
dr. evil kind of stuff like what industries are using this in are there any like deployments kind of just like super generalize cuz obviously.

Jack Wu: 
[10:01] What makes you think they're not already my customers.

Ian Smith: 
[10:04] Well I don't know I'll let the let them answer that.

Jack Wu: 
[10:06] Yeah.

Ian Smith: 
[10:08] Any any that you can share just like a general like a setup like yeah you know I'm imagining like are there a bunch of these nests kind of,
located all around a large area like a sensitive piece of infrastructure or could this be at someone's house and you know they have like a compound of a house and they wanted to just fly around if they send something.

Jack Wu: 
[10:30] So it's it's funny that you use those two examples cuz they're like right on cuz I was not in your I mean I'm not in my head while I was listening to you so large Industrial and Commercial facilities where.
Again it's difficult for humans to cover that large area and words to dangerous where you want to make sure you know what's going on you have situational awareness prior to an aging. Potential Threat.

Ian Smith: 
[10:58] Could be like a power plant.

Jack Wu: 
[11:00] Critical infrastructure.

Ian Smith: 
[11:02] What are your something.

Jack Wu: 
[11:02] You know we could have the energy exploration extraction in transmission.
You could have a manufacturing you know sometimes you have data centers you have you know essentially the critical infrastructures.
On the commercial side and on the military side a military bases or for operating bases at Hobee's.

Ian Smith: 
[11:32] And what about what about Bill Gates's house or are you on.

Jack Wu: 
[11:39] Right.

Ian Smith: 
[11:40] Must house I mean I could this is what about the residential side of this I mean like I am.

Jack Wu: 
[11:45] I mean if they pay us will you know we'll be happy to be there right and there's no reason not to so you know especially if we can use them as a reference but we we are in fact in a Eastern European country and a light up United States.
Where there is an oligarch that we are.
There's it's a it's a great compound or the compound has its own telescope to like one of those things where people can look up in the sky like late at night.

Ian Smith: 
[12:15] Telescope Observer.

Jack Wu: 
[12:17] Observe no it's like a real Observatory.

Ian Smith: 
[12:19] Wow.

Jack Wu: 
[12:21] Yeah it was pretty cool helicopter pads for the helicopter hangers it's actually really cool I've been there.

Ian Smith: 
[12:30] Perks of the job.

Jack Wu: 
[12:31] Yeah so individuals yes but I would say those are exceptions is because he actually has a factory that's right next door so we ended up also patrolling his private residence.

Ian Smith: 
[12:44] Key could you walk us through like the scenario here like let's pretend I'm a criminal and I'm like okay you know I want to let you know I'm going to go and I'm going to find a big mansion break in through the.
Side door because I know maybe no one's home or they're sleeping and I'm going to go and I'm going to steal all the jewels and I'm going to make off like a bandit and then you sell it later on like what is happening in maybe like a.
Totally hypothetical security setup that that this the system would would how would the Drone be deployed in this scenario.

Jack Wu: 
[13:18] Would ya have a good drone so so that so the type of criminal activities or the threat level that our customers are facing are much greater than that because these are in a large.

Ian Smith: 
[13:31] You're so you're saying I'm an intimidating as a.

Jack Wu: 
[13:34] Well well I'm just saying that I think God Jewels is a personal problem whereas if you have a publicly traded company.
And you have a security breach. Cause damage just to restart your plant Kakashi millions of dollars and not not counting the cost of post operation.
So I'll give you an example so if either was an open pit mining operation.
We have a scene potential threats coming in fully armed.
You know in other parts of the world where are these big mines these guys will come in and if it's cold there still gold if it's Platinum is still Platinum.

Ian Smith: 
[14:16] Could be diamonds.

Jack Wu: 
[14:17] They ruled out a piece of carpet they cut open to pressurize pipes they get the slush mix with the minerals.
And that you know sometimes people die because the pressurized pipe explodes and it hits the person that's cutting.
Yeah these are all real and.
The company has to make sure that they can Patrol the entire area but the areas Mass it's like five six square miles is sometimes like a quarter the size of San Francisco.
So you're you're looking at areas that I just can't do it with people you can't hire enough people and economics it doesn't work.

Ian Smith: 
[14:59] And I'm sure these criminals are also attempting this probably not.
On a sunny you know cloudless day it's probably at night where it's very dark,
and that brings me to my next question what kind of sensor is any what do you equip these drones with and so am I really lame scenario that I had played out in my head before this,
I'm Elon Musk and of course what am I going to have to stick a few of my flamethrowers on it and then I'm just going to make sure that it let you know.
Blast someone with some hot air at.

Jack Wu: 
[15:32] Will be awesome to be able to raise money like you on selling flamethrower.

Ian Smith: 
[15:36] Yeah.

Jack Wu: 
[15:37] That's dope.

Ian Smith: 
[15:39] It is no but are you guys like I mean is there going to be like an infrared camera on this is going to be maybe like a spotlight on the Drone that's going to like.

Jack Wu: 
[15:46] Yeah so.
So when it comes to pelo types it really is based on the type of mission we want to going to be able to execute.
And because we are an early stage company that we want to make sure we standardize our product.
So this way we don't have a very complicated product to support with limited resources we have so it includes thermal camera.
And includes a daytime RGB.
And I we have other enough sensors on there for our next Generation that's coming up that's going to be able to provide since that avoid dynamically.

Ian Smith: 
[16:25] Excellent and so you know that like okay so in in the scenario then so the criminals are there I mean,
right now like is this fully automated obviously this depends on regulation heavily and so one of my next question was going to try to cover the okay what if the Drone is flying at night and it's beyond visual line-of-sight of course because,
the truth fish in sea games in my opinion here or when this is a fully automated system maybe it patrols like.
Constantly you're randomly at random intervals or,
triggered by something else that it integrates with like maybe a security camera and then the Drone will take off and investigating area so maybe you can talk about the potential ways of like integrating with systems there and then,
then we'll talk about the whole regulatory.

Jack Wu: 
[17:13] Assurant share of course we all have to deal with that so on the integration side we integrate with two classes of Technology one is sensors so like perimeter sensors.
It could be Optical it could be kinetic you know.

Ian Smith: 
[17:31] So interesting so like.

Jack Wu: 
[17:32] Yeah yeah it could be RS based.

Ian Smith: 
[17:34] Something that gets stripped.

Jack Wu: 
[17:35] Yea yea or.

Ian Smith: 
[17:36] Laser like Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Jack Wu: 
[17:38] Or radar right there's a ground-based radar. Could help you detect you know people and yeah oh yeah.

Ian Smith: 
[17:43] Interesting I'm not privy to that kind of cool.

Jack Wu: 
[17:46] No I had it is it is really cool I mean that's why I really enjoyed you no working on this so when the Primitive sensor goes off we go into a rapid reaction mode so we rapidly respond to the incident.

Ian Smith: 
[18:01] So the bird gets ready.

Jack Wu: 
[18:02] Takes off goes there and then provide situational awareness with a live video to the entire team.

Ian Smith: 
[18:09] Good night so you could just like pull out like I don't know what you think up some type of mobile device that you have on you if you're part of the security team and then get that live you maybe it's infrared wow okay.

Jack Wu: 
[18:20] That's right so we have mobile and we also have PC and in areas where is network challenged we used LTE so so so the system could work solely with LTE.

Ian Smith: 
[18:31] And do you guys do any larger events like like big events like Olympics or things like this at this time I mean you know there's huge televised big things happening all the time now.

Jack Wu: 
[18:42] Now we don't have any plans on dealing with events at work were more of a 6 location type of operation.
So areas where we can be deployed and established there for for a long time that's that's on market.

Ian Smith: 
[19:00] And right now so going back to that the regulatory component of course.
Yeah as I mentioned you most of these criminals I'm sure operating at night or unless they're really sneaky they don't think they think that you're going to be expecting them at night so they go in during the day but.
You still have this you know if this is an automated drone system e.
If this is a fully automated system which you knows I'm sure it is or will be whenever allowed there's Beyond visual line-of-sight regulations to worry about because then there's no human operating the Drone so can you just talk to us a little bit about the.
I'm sure this is a big challenge for you guys you know what are you seeing right now as far as this goes and how much human interaction is there versus like automated currently.

Jack Wu: 
[19:46] Yeah I'm sure you ask the question regarding deep loss on every single podcast.

Ian Smith: 
[19:52] Come up on my 3/4.

Jack Wu: 
[19:53] Yeah.
So so happy obviously a fully autonomous operation was the intent of the system.
But as a business we operate within a specific regulated market.
And that regulated market I have rules that tells us that we can't yet operate completely Beyond visual line of sight.
So we have a critical Ops a concept of operation with our customers and we practice those con-con Ops as part of our operational training.
How to comply with the width and visual line-of-sight.
And still be able to achieve the media tactical objective of Camino getting it there quickly be able to provide live video and you know a lot of our customers are ex-military guys.
Yeah they just end up as security and they're very familiar with drone technology.
Actually more familiar I would say that average civilians and they've seen the benefits of drones first-hand.
So to them the value it doesn't to be proven it's more about the products capabilities.

Ian Smith: 
[21:13] Yeah and I think I will say this like.
If I'm putting myself in the boots of of one of those in a Security Professionals that's tasked with,
making sure an area is secure normal drone if you just think about the normal drones that we think of like I don't have just like grabbing a DJI drone or something the fact that most likely it's not just sitting there ready,
ready to go at a moment's notice like even if there is that human element of control,
they're able to just okay we did okay dispatch the Drone immediately press the button boom it's up and it's flying because it's sitting in his nest.
And then it goes out and then it finds whatever they need to do now all the sudden all these people are aware of no more situational awareness they have that capability.

Jack Wu: 
[21:57] Yeah but it won't be a DJI in the security space because they're a bunch of Chinese security camera manufacturers one is call Hikvision.
H i k e and is publicly known that there's a back door there's no specific evidence that points to actual data.
Being taken that were transferred overseas by the back door that that part is there.
So you know most of our customers they're being in the security business you know they wouldn't want to you no compromise or I can put themself in a situation of using a product are they actually call a hack Vision instead of Hikvision so.

Ian Smith: 
[22:38] The industry slang.

Jack Wu: 
[22:40] Yeah so Chinese drones I would say that in the physical security space it's it's it's going to be challenging.

Ian Smith: 
[22:46] Yeah no I I can.

Jack Wu: 
[22:48] They make a great product.

Ian Smith: 
[22:50] Oh yeah that's this hands down but okay so then all the hardware that you guys are like basically owning like pretty much the full stack for the hardware the software just doing as much as you can in house and using the best.

Jack Wu: 
[23:00] Yeah I mean we have Partners we have a partner that's a strategic investor they do a few billion dollars in contract Manufacturing.
And they're out of Taiwan and I we do all the research here we to the development here.
And we work with them on getting a built so they do what they do best and we do what we do best.
They're on the table so you know obviously our interest is a line that we want to develop this market and and they're seeing firsthand just know how many unit that sold so as an investor they have the ultimate metric.

Ian Smith: 
[23:36] So where are you guys seeing the most traction right now as far as like I don't know maybe if you broke it down by either industry or country or like I don't know what kind of idea can you give us right now and how that's going.

Jack Wu: 
[23:48] Yeah it's kind of hard to do cross by industry because security as an application is cross industry.

Ian Smith: 
[23:55] Yeah they could run industry touches everything.

Jack Wu: 
[23:57] Yeah yeah exactly right it's a customer service you know you could be a manufacturer or you could be a software company you both have customer service so security is one of those.
In terms of geography as an American company we're going to focus in North America just because we think it's a great Market first of all.
And also logistically it is just a lot more efficient for us and culturally.
We know our customers really well and are in a customer.
You have all respect so the way we work with them as we work together on developing the concept of operations cuz we don't know everything I mean there the industry professionals,
where are the solutions provider that will bring the technology to the table.

Ian Smith: 
[24:43] And what's the pricing model for this cuz for the other drones in a box turn in the box kind of solutions I've seen a kind of it's like not really a rental I don't want to call it but it's just like a,
I'm going kind of fear it's like I guess for a specific amount of time you know that it's like a lease or something for the.

Jack Wu: 
[25:00] Yeah yeah.

Ian Smith: 
[25:01] How does that work with you guys or do you have different option.

Jack Wu: 
[25:03] It's you know we call it rastro by service there other companies out there with similar similar model it's it's it's it's very akin to sass.
At the idea is we provided technology the customer pay a monthly fee.
And with that feeling clue of the product or service but also the maintenance repair and upgrade.

Ian Smith: 
[25:27] There we go to upgrade that's what I was.

Jack Wu: 
[25:28] Yeah yeah.

Ian Smith: 
[25:30] Looking for the technology advances so.

Jack Wu: 
[25:32] Yes going to be obsolete in couple years right to you really want to invest it like $10,400 thousands of dollars,
you know a lot of the technology once it goes bad it's that thing is worthless no one's going to want to buy it for you know half the price you're going to buy it for I mean it's junk.
So in our customers they don't really want to maintain it it's and it's is an additional expense they much rather not have the headache.
And pay less because if they maintain it themselves they're going to have to have a technician that's qualified to do that so so we take care of it for them.

Ian Smith: 
[26:07] That's awesome that's cool so what do you see it for the future of the.
Ariel robot robotic Ariel security space in for nightingale security what are you guys heading towards in the next couple years what can you give us on that front.

Jack Wu: 
[26:24] Well we think drones are we are going to become more intelligent,
just because more data is going to be collected and the environmental data that that's going to enable us to be more familiar with a specific location will also help us identify anomalies.
So we're going to start seeing some applications specifically eyes.
That's going to start to develop within the physical security space and not not just for drones but just be no robots in general,
this already monitoring software out there and we're very partner friendly as a company you know we're not trying to do things that we are not.
And we know we can't be good at everything so we focus on developing a great.
Platform that's able to perform to Mission as promised to our customers and then.
Applications on top of that we're happy to partner so with video analytics we're currently looking for a video analytics partner when it comes to you know 3D volume metric measurements are we have customers since we're already there.
Our customers can ask us for stuff like that were looking for partners to be able to do that because we want to it's it's tough enough honestly for a company of AT&T.
Tit tit like you take on the challenges you know I'm not going to overestimate our capabilities and end up bailing right so.

Ian Smith: 
[27:54] What's a it's a it's an excellent strategy in a good vision and,
and yeah I really appreciate it Jack Wu that's Jack Wu the CEO and co-founder of Nightingale security if you are a perspective partner potentially baby you got some video analytics or anything like that you guys,
or if you're just curious you can check out the Nightingale Security website at,
www. Nightingale security.com so thanks again jack for joining us I really appreciate your time and it was a pleasure learning about.
Your company Nightingale security.

Jack Wu: 
[28:29] Thank you for the opportunity.

Ian Smith: 
[28:30] Alright thanks everybody we're cutting off the mics cheers.

Jack Wu: 
[28:34] Jr's.