SEATTLE, Oct. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the
death of George Floyd and this
summer's social unrest, Axon (Nasdaq: AAXN), the global leader in
connected law enforcement technologies, was one of the first
companies to announce its action plan, including a
commitment to help public safety agencies in their work to
address systemic inequity, racism, and injustice. As part of this
commitment, Axon added a new strategic goal to its mission —
centering racial equity, diversity, and inclusion. Today, Axon is
announcing its first eight product features developed in direct
support of this goal, which the company built through a unique
company-wide initiative called Sprint for Justice.
Sprint for Justice was driven by Axon employees' passion to do
even more in service of Axon's mission to protect life. This
initiative required Axon engineers to find a way to meet existing
customer commitments and make room to build new features
tied to the new goal. As a result, more than 200 engineers from
across nearly every team in the company came together to build
eight new features from start to finish. This intensive two-week
sprint offers Axon's public safety customers even more tools to
increase transparency, capture truth and support officer
development. Learn more about Sprint for Justice, here.
"Everything we build is already focused on protecting life and
using technology as a force for good, but our product teams were
particularly inspired by the events of this summer to do more and
do it faster," says Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice
President of Software, Jeff Kunins.
"We're incredibly proud of how this engineering experiment came
together, and we're excited about these first eight new features to
directly support our new strategic goal centering racial equity,
diversity, and inclusion. We're here to support and put more tools
in the hands of our public safety customers who are working hard
amid incredible challenges — and we're committed to helping
everyone continue to move forward and achieve better outcomes for
communities."
"At Axon, our mission has always been to protect life and we are
emboldened by the opportunity to continue to re-imagine public
safety and support our customers and communities," says Axon CEO
and founder, Rick Smith. "Technology
is not a panacea but it can have an outsized impact on creating a
world where everyone feels safe. We have the privilege to imagine
how the world can and should be different and we have the
capability to create and drive that change."
Sprint for Justice features include:
- Priority-Ranked Video Audit - Automatically ranks videos
for supervisor review based on keywords that are transcribed from
the audio of body camera videos, such as offensive or
agency-selected keywords, as well as on events such as unholstering
a firearm or arming a TASER device.
- Use of Force Dashboard - Allows agencies to access
interactive reports on use of force incidents in real time within
Axon Standards to drive compliance and empower better
training.
- VR Peer Intervention Training - Helps prepare officers
with VR training to intervene and handle high-stakes, challenging
situations with colleagues.
- Hypermedia Markers - Automatically flags key events
captured on body camera for review in Axon Evidence, such as when a
TASER device was armed or when a firearm was removed from its
holster.
- Replay Coaching - Enables officers to request
feedback on any incident captured on body camera from
agency-designated coaches to help promote a culture of ongoing
learning and development.
- LED Auto Brightness - Auto-adjusts the body camera's LED
brightness using ambient light conditions to help keep officers
safe at night and still provide transparency by showing when an
officer is recording.
- Publish to Social Media - Allows police agencies to
easily publish approved body camera videos to their social media
pages and channels for increased speed and transparency.
- Social Media and Webpage Evidence - Allows police and
communities to submit digital evidence captured from webpages,
including social media, to help get to the truth faster and save
valuable time in an investigation.
"We're looking forward to testing the new Priority-Ranked Video
Audit feature to help give our supervisors the ability to find the
needles in the haystack of body-worn camera footage," said
Cherry Hill, NJ Police
Department's Chief of Police, William
Monaghan. "Not only will it save us time, but by surfacing
issues that need attention, it will support our ability to uphold
the individual rights and dignity for all people in our
community."
As part of Sprint for Justice, as with all product development,
Axon leveraged its ethics framework established by the Axon AI and
Policing Technology Ethics Board to ensure the new products were
developed responsibly. In addition to working with its AI Ethics
Board, Axon has committed to listening to community members by
launching a forthcoming Community Coalition. With this group, Axon
will conduct voice of customer sessions with community members to
ensure that products reflect the needs of the public.
"Axon has a responsibility to support racial justice efforts,
and we are proud to help build a bridge between communities and
police," said Axon VP of Community Impact Regina Holloway. "We are
committed to listening to the individuals who are impacted by our
products, and are looking forward to announcing the members of our
coalition."
About Axon
Axon is a network of devices, apps, and people that helps public
safety personnel become smarter and safer. With a mission of
protecting life, our technologies give customers the confidence,
focus and time they need to keep their communities safe. Our
products impact every aspect of a public safety officer's
day-to-day experience with the goal of helping everyone get home
safe.
We work hard for those who put themselves in harm's way for all
of us. To date, more than 240,000 lives and countless dollars
have been saved with the Axon network of devices, apps, and people.
Learn more at axon.com or by calling (800) 978-2737. Axon is a
global company with headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz. and global software
engineering hub in Seattle, Wash.,
as well as additional offices in Australia, Canada, Finland, Vietnam, the UK, and the Netherlands.
Facebook is a trademark of Facebook, Inc. and Twitter is a
trademark of Twitter, Inc. Axon, Axon Evidence, Axon Standards,
TASER, and the "Delta Logo" are trademarks of Axon Enterprise,
Inc., some of which are registered in the US and other countries.
For more information, visit axon.com/legal. All rights
reserved.
Follow Axon here:
- Axon on Twitter: twitter.com/axon_us
- Axon on Facebook: facebook.com/Axon.ProtectLife/
Note to Investors
Please visit investor.axon.com, axon.com/press,
twitter.com/axon_us and facebook.com/Axon.ProtectLife/ where Axon
discloses information about the company, its financial information
and its business.
CONTACT:
Sydney Siegmeth
VP, Global Communications
Press@Axon.com
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