The World Economic Forum today announced its selection of the 56 most promising Technology Pioneers of 2019, and Drishti Technologies, Inc. (Drishti) was named among them for its innovative “action recognition” technology. Drishti uses deep learning and computer vision to create data from human activities for the benefit of factory line operators and the entire ecosystem around them.
Drishti’s technology is capable of recognizing human actions as they’re performed, automatically creating heretofore unmeasurable data and translating that data into insights. The technology replaces outdated, biased and inaccurate time and motion studies and, for the first time, helps people benefit from factory analytics at scale. Manufacturers use this data to make better decisions, while line operators use it to achieve greater productivity and quality output and thus remain more competitive against automation.
The World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers are early to growth-stage companies from around the world that are involved in the design, development and deployment of new technologies and innovations, and are poised to have a significant impact on business and society. The full list of technology pioneers can be found here.
“Companies that were selected as Technology Pioneers demonstrated a clear potential to transform their industries and improve society for years to come,” said Fulvia Montresor, Head of Technology Pioneers at the World Economic Forum. “Drishti and its fellow pioneers are leaders in using novel technologies and driving innovation across industries.”
Drishti’s technology fills a significant gap that has existed in the manufacturing industry for more than 100 years by making actions performed by people visible to analytics. While most Industry 4.0 technologies are focused on leveraging datastreams created by machines, Drishti’s joint research with AT Kearney found that 72% of tasks in the factory are performed by human operators. With Drishti, manufacturers can replace intermittent and unreliable time and motion studies with continuous streams of data on these manual tasks.
Manufacturers are using this kind of data for the first time to uncover significant new opportunities to increase productivity, improve quality, and help their workers break through their perceived limits of value creation.
“Good data drives good decisions. But manufacturers have historically lacked sufficient data on human actions. Consequently, they have traded people for robots, giving up flexibility. Drishti’s approach allows manufacturers to instead invest in their human workforce by augmenting the strengths of people with the benefits of digital technology,”said Drishti’s Founder and CEO, Dr. Prasad Akella. “This recognition from World Economic Forum validates the potential for our action recognition technology to help manufacturers realize true digital transformation around the globe.”
The Technology Pioneers were selected by a selection committee of more than 59 academics, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and corporate executives. The committee based its decisions on criteria including innovation, potential impact and leadership. Past recipients include Airbnb, Google, Kickstarter, Mozilla, Palantir Technologies, Spotify, TransferWise, Twitter and Wikimedia.
All info on this year’s Technology Pioneers can be found here: http://wef.ch/techpioneers19
To view the original post, please click here.
