roboGaze: Devoted to Saving Lives by Delivering Innovative Facial Recognition Solution

RoboGaze is working towards eliminating road fatalities, by leveraging disruptive technologies and developing solutions for accurate driver monitoring. A tech startup located in Budapest, Hungary, roboGaze was launched in 2019 with a team of automotive experts who have been collaborating for 5-10 years. Interestingly, the team members are former employees of another startup, NNG, which became a successful global automotive software tier 2 in the last 15 years. This motivates the team since it presses on the fact that a Central-European company can reach the global stages with hard work.

Almost 1.3 million people die in car accidents every year and most of the fatal accidents are caused by human distraction or drowsiness. RoboGaze focuses to pin down the top three leading causes for death through developing an AI-powered driver-monitoring solution. The company is ensuring that this life-saving tech is available and accessible for the market and desires to collaborate with global OEMs or Tiers 1 in order to make it reachable to a wider audience.

Recognition at Each Step

In the past one and a half years, roboGaze has achieved a considerable amount of awards and recognitions. The company made it to the finals after it was nominated for the Central European Startup Award in both the best newcomer and best mobility startup category. RoboGaze won the regional Urban Mobility Startup Competition in 2020, organized by EIT, the Innovation Authority of the European Union. RoboGaze's solution was introduced to the Embassy of Israel Hungary following their successful participation at the international World Hackathon Day.

A Pool of Expertise and Energy

Four experienced professionals, Ábel Gábor, CEO, Gergely Tóth, CTO, Zoltán Csaba, CIO, and Árpád Földesi, Head of Product and Quality, formed RoboGaze. Abel has twenty years of software development expertise and has led the team that developed NNG's flagship product, iGO Primo. He has contributed to several different automotive software standardization consortia and took part in releasing ADASIS v3, contributed to NDS (a navigation map standard), and led workgroups in SENSORIS when it released its first version of the standard. Gergely, previously worked for CERN in Zurich and has great expertise and talent.

The founders and team members also possess significant international experience and had a great impact on the company and its growth. Chantal Lefranc, the Key Accounts Manager in the company is originally an expert aerospace engineer and has worked in the automotive industry for the last 15 years. It is significant to mention that the other two founders have already built a successful consulting agency aiming for the global markets, which proves that they have the experience of building up a company from scratch.

A Simple Solution for A Safe Drive

RoboGaze is actively contributing to the facial recognition and AI industry through its state-of-the-art solution. With a developed learning algorithm the monitoring device can authenticate the drivers in real-time, authorize them to drive, and alert them in case of fatigue or drowsiness. With different implementation methods, roboGaze aims to make sure everyone can benefit from a safer driving experience. RoboGaze's solution does not demand a sophisticated platform or application to embed itself. Instead, it is very simple, and the application can be installed on smartphones as well.

Zoltan, CIO and Co-Founder of roboGaze says, "It is important for us to make life-saving tech available and accessible for all, and driver monitoring should be an integral part of every car as a break or a rear mirror." According to Zoltan, the solution does not require expensive hardware and it is affordable for mid-range or low-cost car segments as well.

Holding on to Friends and Partners

In the automotive sector, it becomes difficult to stand and win as a lone warrior. Hence, the company believes that partnerships and partner ecosystems are the keys to success. RoboGaze joined the AI Coalition, an expert and consultation forum of the AI ecosystem, and is accepted by NVIDA Inception Program. The company was also invited to Startup Grind, one of the most recognized startup communities in the world. RoboGaze is collaborating strongly with Budapest University of Technology and Economics, the leading Tech University of Hungary, to give birth to groundbreaking AI innovations.

RoboGaze is a part of the Microsoft Startup Program, an important initiative that supports the company with expertise and consultation to reach global markets.

Ease and Pace is the New Tech Strategy

The company states that accelerating the development of AI and ML technologies allows innovation that was impossible yesterday. These technologies mature at an incredibly fast pace, replacing traditional image processing algorithms. When asked what differentiates old tech from the modern ones, Abel, CEO, and Co-Founder of the company responds, "Old methods required high-resolution camera images and high processing capacity. AI approaches the problem from a completely different perspective. Reduced hardware requirements allow cost reduction, further expanding the range of those for whom this life-saving technology becomes available."

Data: The Problem and Solution

The world today is not very easy. It consistently poses new challenges and startups these days are very confident about their approach towards these hindrances. RoboGaze mentions that to create cutting-edge AI solutions, it becomes crucial to gather a significant amount of relevant and good quality data. The CIO and Co-founder of roboGaze, Zoltan reiterates that the pivotal role played by data makes it important for the company to collaborate with industry partners to run PoC projects to gather enough specific data and make the solution working and reliable even in edge-case scenarios.