Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Jamaica’s Advanced Integrated Systems (AIS) Ltd, Douglas Halsall, says that a new partnership with India’s Graylogic Technologies Ltd could benefit Jamaica’s crime fighting efforts.
“In terms of crime, I believe that their technology can really address that,” Halsall informed the press after announcing the partnership with Graylogic, a Hyderabad-based firm which has been creating innovative, high-quality custom software solutions since 1999.
He was supported by Sri Bikkumanla, a director of Graylogic, who, along with fellow director, Bhanu Prakash Varla, are both here in Kingston formalising the partnership agreement with AIS.
Bikkumanla acknowledged that crime has a severely negative impact on economies, and also reduces opportunities for young people. However, he believes modern policing requires strong support from technology and insists that it is an area in which Graylogic has the experience and the expertise.
His system uses ticketing for traffic offences as the means by which the police can have immediate access to the background of motorists. It is an integrated system, which links the police into various agencies and systems producing background information on the ticketed person, including criminal records.
“The system looks at the person’s licence and alerts the cop, so that in a very short time he can make a decision. But the offender is led to believe that it is only a normal ticketing system,” he explained.
He said that the system has been used very successfully by Graylogic in several US cities.
The partnership is the latest between AIS and an Indian IT company, following the partnership with Suvarna to deliver what is being touted as one of the most comprehensive hospital information and management systems, at the University Hospital of the West Indies by year-end.
The hospital is going fully digital in six months, as it converts to an electronic hospital management system to overhaul its record-keeping and management functions. The changeover started on May 1.
Halsall says that the partnerships are finally paying off for AIS, which has been seeking a direct route into Indian IT industry via bypassing the United States as the middle man.
He said that the growth options available to his company were: to grow organically and get more customers; mergers or acquisition; or by selecting partnerships and establishing the basis on which the company can expand its product line by teaming with partners with their own platforms.
“We feel that there are a number of platforms that Graylogic has and, after over a year of working together and feeling out each other, we believe it is a good choice as they bring to the table a number of platforms that can get us moving faster,” he stated.
“Ninety per cent of the Fortune 500 companies either had software maintained in India or from India. What we found is that technology is leaving India and going to the US, where it is marked up 10 times and then offered to us at a 25 per cent discount, if we sell in Jamaica. So, our decision was to go directly to India,” he said.
“My own desire is to start an India/Jamaica friendship society, a chamber of commerce type relationship,” he added.
Graylogic’s Varla said that his company would be collaborating with AIS on the technology front, in terms of both hardware and software.
-Jamaica Observer