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BETHESDA, Md. — A new pilot program using artificial intelligence to bolster school security is set to launch in three Montgomery County high schools for 30 days starting the first week of March.
The company behind the technology, Volt AI, is based locally and already operates in 28 states, eight countries and hundreds of schools. Locally, the system is already in use in all Loudoun County high schools.
“So we’re essentially a software that plugs into your existing set of cameras,” said Dmitry Sokolowski. He’s the CEO and founder of Volt AI, and described the technology as an add-on to existing security systems.
“We’re turning those cameras that you’ve already invested money into, into proactive, basically a pair of eyes that are looking for things that could go wrong and notifying the right personnel when it happens,” he said.
The idea for the company emerged after the 2018 shooting at YouTube headquarters in California. Sokolowski, an engineer at the time, was headed to a meeting at the facility.
“We were on the way to the cafeteria when it happened,” Sokolowski said.
Luckily, he was not there yet when it happened, but he said the experience got him thinking.
“It started as a conversation of like how can a company like Google not prevent that from happening to what would we do about it and then eventually coming up with some ideas on what we can actually do to improve the physical security of the world and building this company as an outcome,” he said.
The AI system looks for fights, medical emergencies and weapons. Using a fake gun during the demonstration, Sokolowski showed how the system flags a potential threat and alerts personnel.
Still, some parents during a meeting in Montgomery County last week, raised concerns about privacy.
RELATED: AI security pilot coming to three Montgomery County High Schools
“So it’s actually safer than what a historical security cameras would do. Here there’s no human watching the cameras,” Sokolowski said.
He said human review only occurs after the AI flags a possible risk.
“But once it identifies a certain risk it puts it in front of a human being. At that point the human gets to decide what to do next,” he said.
Sokolowski emphasized that the system does not use facial recognition.
“We actually don’t use facial recognition and we don’t identify individuals, so we can’t tell Timmy from Johnny,” he said.
When asked whether the technology can distinguish between race or gender, Sokolowski responded: “It does not, no. We don’t even classify. We can’t even tell the the part of the humans and, um, because we’re looking at the human body as a whole rather than an individual with different characteristics of the person.”
He said the data collected is owned by the customer, such as school districts.
For Sokolowski, a father himself, the mission is personal.
“For me, there’s nothing better that I can do with my time than protect kids,” he said.
The pilot program will run for 30 days beginning in March in three Montgomery County high schools.
