THE HAGUE–A new public private partnership here is being formed by 19 small and medium-size companies, including several U.S. firms, to improve technology integration and interoperability and also to give these firms access to expertise to better manage their businesses and at the same time serve as a showcase and test bed for potential customers of these companies’ products, according to the project director.
“The value of the Public Security Innovation Center of the Netherlands (PSIC-NL) to public security is bringing together hundreds of companies to embrace consistent information sharing architecture and open data exchange formats to produce a true public security system,” the partnership says. “The PSIC-NL is where integration, interoperability, and networking are understood, designed, implemented, trained, exercised and standardized.”
Many of the technologies in development and for sale in the public security space today, whether thy be for biometric access control, wireless data sharing, biological sensors, are “isolated” rather than integrated, PSIC-NL says.
The center will include a test bed and demonstration center in The Hague.
Taking the various technologies offered by its member companies will enable PSIC-NL to create solutions for customers that can also be demonstrated.
“In introducing solutions to potential clients, the PSIC serves as an independent, vendor-neutral location where purchasers can ‘test drive’ solutions to make certain that their purchases meet the needs for information sharing to achieve a complete system to support public security,” the partnership says.
The new partnership will be funded for three years by the city and the Netherlands national government to encourage open standards. After that point the goal is for PSIC-NL to be self-sustaining, Leon Bruijn, project director for the partnership, tells reporters here.
There is U.S. interest in the PSIC-NL, Bruijn says. Virginia-based SPADAC, one of the founding companies and a spin off of Science Applications International Corp. [SAI], is an intermediary between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and PSIC-NL, he says. In particular, DHS wants to get the concept for the Unified Incident Command and Decision Support information management system for incident commanders and emergency responders “landed” outside the U.S., he says.
SPADAC will bring in products to the PSIC-NL to work on integration and interoperability and for demonstration purposes, Bruijn says.
SPADAC develops solutions based on the fusing of spatial intelligence and predictive analytics. The other U.S. firms that belong to PSIC-NL are Collexis Holdings [CLXS], which develops semantic search and knowledge discovery software, and Interact Public Safety Systems.