Ep. 43: Kirk Farra of In-Synch Systems

One of the coolest trends I've been seeing, as you've been telling these 50 Summer Stories of Pittsburgh Tech with Comcast has been some of the great companies here in Pittsburgh. They're developing really powerful solutions, to get us back to work to be able to track what's going on with the virus able to ensure that when we're going back to work that we can all be safe. And today I'm talking to Kirk Farra. He is from In-Synch Systems. And they got a really cool system called the Sentinel responder that we're going to talk about today. Very powerful technology. I think everyone needs to know about this stuff, because there's so many options out there. We're looking at some of the best. And Kirk thanks for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate being part of our storytelling summit. This has been a major theme for us. Of course, it's been going through COVID-19

Well, thanks. Thanks for inviting me and I'm happy to you know, discuss our product and our company and in doing Yeah, well, let's just before we get into the product, I would like people to know a little bit about the company and everything like that and tells me you do with the company. What's your role Kirk With In-Synch Systems?

I'm the president of In-Synch Systems. We've been we've been around for over 20 years. I was involved in the startup of the company, okay. Which was always fun because, you know, start companies, you know, hiring, hiring people and trying to get things accomplished and occasionally going home once in a while, occasionally, from time now you're home all the time, right?

Yeah. Now we're home all the time. But so I grew up I'm local. I grew up in Beaver Falls. So we've we've been around developing software for over 20 years and love it. See, that's it's so cool. Like, you're one of these quiet companies just quietly kicking butt in the background up there in Zelienople. I think it's so cool. Yep. As you say here in Pittsburgh in Zeli right? Absolutely. Very cool. Very cool. So yes, it helps us to keep things in sync does like to build software well, so you got to do what's what's your your specialty.

Well, Our specialty is basically building safety software. I mean, our insync RMS product is made for law enforcement. So it's a public safety product, a sentinel responder as a community safety product that we're that we're building, hopefully, you know, deal. You know, have businesses and organizations deal with this pandemic and back to work safely.

Absolutely. So you know, it's kind of like walk through it because I think this is really asking you since you cover all the major aspects that you need to cover, when it comes to getting people back to work that from from from tracing, you know, to notifications, and the idea of keeping this safe and secure and anonymous and so forth. Maybe kind of like walk us through like, the inspiration of creating this and how it works.

Well, kind of the inspiration was sitting at home when this whole pandemic started. Yeah, your wheels start turning and you know, I was talking to our CTO and we're like a, you know, what's like, if there's some thing we can do to deal with this. Okay. So we kind of started brainstorming, you know, together. And then basically when they started putting out reopening guidance, we looked at that and looked at, hey, this is a perfect fit for for a software solution. So, you know, we started, you know, sketching out the modules that we thought would, you know, be needed and we're trying to be comprehensive, right? Not just focus on you know, one small piece of the pie, but we're trying to cut a hole. Yeah, you kind of give it that umbrella because you need all the pieces Exactly. Someone else to put multiple solutions in the path one nice, powerful solution you can put right on top.

Yeah, and then we're trying to, you know, try to interface with the devices and the other systems that are, you know, being more prevalent out there. So that's, that's pretty cool. So what was the time I always love when people are like, I'm gonna start sketching this thing out, right? That's so cool. How long from sketching it out to testing it to saying this thing Ready to go on the marketplace? Oh, we spent a good two or three months just kind of sketching out capabilities and, and, you know, doing proof of concept. I know my development team is busy, you know, doing some internal QA and getting a MVP product, you know, out there and we've got, we think we have one one cup Well, actually one organization that may be a beta tester and that's all right, see that you need the beta testers, get it in action, see what works, see what doesn't work and start dialing it in. Right?

Yeah. So we're, we're trying to we're going to do that and we would like to, you know, get a few more, you know, beta testers because, you know, one solution doesn't quite, you know, won't fit everybody. I mean, you get somebody in a different organizations and different markets that are that are going to have, you know, completely, not completely different needs, but somewhat different needs. So we're trying to get as much coverage as we can after that, but the product basically has four modules, Sentinel responder has a policy policy management, where the organizations will put in their policies, which kind of drives everything, okay? You know, when they, when they input the those they can, you know, have everybody sign off on the policies, they can update policies and people get notifications, of changes. So the policies kind of drive everything. And that's, you know, anything from health policies to cleaning policies to, you know, all that kind of stuff.

You could basically impact the workplace and how it runs every day. So people know that, like, you got to wear masks this day, or now they've seen you play this part of the kitchen or something like that. So that's added then people get notified through the to the application, right.

Yeah. And then we've got a monitoring application. We're dealing with you see a lot of those temperatures, scanners and facial recognition devices, we're working with some manufacturers of those to do some integration, we're looking to do some integration work with manufacturers of door, automated door locking systems and security systems. And so that, you know, gets gets to a little bit of interfacing with the product. And then we've got the health monitor that that will monitor all of your policies and they can also monitor your, your employees or people that are in your organization.

To track you know, different things like when something someone comes down or test positive, then that goes on a system and people know that someone has deposit, they can alert people that were within a proximity to that person that they need to be, and so forth, right? Yep.

So that's those are, you know, and then we're We're building and we're going to try to integrate with some of the contact tracing applications that are that are be being built out there, too. But we're also we're also going to have kind of a manual process for contract tracing for, you know, for people organizations that don't want to deal with, you know, phone applications for right now. Yeah, is there? Is there a suite size for size of a company that would benefit most in this? Is it like, like over 50 people? Or it could be a few 20? Or like, how's that work?

I think it probably could work for, you know, organizations of any size, but we see larger organizations probably having more of a need because it's just so much information, right? That needs to be tracked and people that need to be tracked. And just, it could be overwhelming task to do it with pencil and paper and Excel spreadsheets, right?

So automating, obviously, you can make that all the simpler because there's more people you got to manage and so forth. So how does the app work? Exactly. So what's the experience is it give me some people's phones or desktops Some people kind of connect into this, it's going to be platform independent. So, you know, founds any kind of mobile device application that's going to be hosted, it could be installed on premise if an organization would rather, you know, not be a hosted application. Oh, that's, that's an interesting point.

I'm glad you brought that up. Because Yeah, sometimes people feel better about an application. But being there hosting it themselves may have more control over the data and so forth that's being generated from it. So that's pretty cool. So either you can bring it in house, and you can set it up for them, or they can just use it as you have it set up in the cloud somewhere.

Yeah. So you know, if you have a device, we're gonna have it work on that device. Okay.

Very cool. Very cool. And then as far as is this like a subscription model, or is it like a one time you buy it matures? Or how does that work? That'll be a subscription model. We're still working on the pricing. But yeah, definitely a subscription model.

Very cool. And I mentioned before, so now you're still looking for more beta testers. That's what led to reach out was there a certain kind of beta test that you're looking for right now, that would be your something that you really could use to, to kind of help you qualify and so forth.

We would probably, you know, like to talk to anybody and just kind of see if it's a really good fit, I mean, probably, you know, companies that really do have to, you know, go to a go and work together, you know, manufacturing would probably be, you know, one where we're something where a lot of people do have to come together to actually accomplish things. I'm like, our business, you know, we're software so that we can, we can work remotely, you can kill you, right.

But, you know, some businesses have to get together and, you know, have to, you know, have to, you know, do things and beyond, you know, be on site together, so we think they'd may might be a better target. Absolutely. I think one of the important points to bring up here is I think a lot of people feel like oh, well, at some point, you know, the COVID thing will go away, but I feel like Moving forward, this is a system you want to have in place all the time because something like this could pop up again. And it's also just a great way to kind of keep people in knows what's going on around the office and keeping policy set. I feel like this is something that COVID or no COVID This is a type of technology I think a lot of businesses should really be thinking about.

Yeah, thanks. So, I mean, I think there's been a lot of lessons learned about, you know, personal hygiene and security and you know, things like that. So yeah, we definitely see it's going to have a life, you know, after COVID whenever, whenever it does go away, right? It's just, it's gonna be very flexible. And what what it can do this, I mean, I'm impressed. So in the course of a couple months, you sketch something out and you get so you get your first beta tester kind of going and you're looking to get more people testing. I mean, that's a fast moving work, then indeed, this is an easy system to develop, obviously, and bring this to market as quickly as you has, I think really goes to show you no matter what happens, we've got some great companies out there some great women and men Find the companies that are going to make stuff work. Simple as that.

We're having fun, you know, it's doing new things and doing things that really, you know, make it can make a difference in the community is really what we're all about. Public Safety Community Safety word, that's what we're about is service. And that's, you know, I spent, you know, a number of years working for, for for other organizations. And, you know, I really kind of branched out on on my own, so that, you know, I could be involved in a company that was more service oriented, great stuff. And that's why Kirk, you're a Pittsburgh crowd. So we're glad you're here in the region doing what you're doing because it's companies like yours, thinking Pittsburgh does rise above the rest Simple as that. So glad to have to tell a little bit about your story about what's going on with Sentinel responder. If people want to reach out to you to beta test means email. Yeah, yep. And what's your email and also put in the liner notes too. It's good. Kirk dot fara at I N dash s y n ch dot com.

I tell people reach out if you want to try this out. I think it'd be great to get you guys connected as far as that goes, Kirk, you're the best, Comcast and I thank them of course for allowing me to tell these stories this summer. It's been a great time so far telling stories just like this. This has been Jonathan Kersting with the Pittsburgh tech Council.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai