Matt Tolentino is an entrepreneur that was
working with fascinating technologies and ideas, knew they had
applications, but only eventually found the right place for them.
Matt’s research at the University of Washington Tacoma involved
reliably locating and tracking people in large open areas. This had
potential applications for schools, fire departments, law
enforcement, and any company with traffic through large buildings.
Matt was looking for an organization to partner with who could apply
his team’s research to real life situations. Eventually, a single
fire department recognized that location technology could help save
lives in firefighter mayday scenarios where first responders are
stuck in dangerous situations. These partnerships with first
responders quickly formed Namatad’s development niche, locating
firefighters in dynamic and dangerous situations.
Such
location systems are difficult to consistently base off of existing
building infrastructure as any network setup or movement sensors will
be entirely unique with each new building, preventing a universal
solution. For reliable, dynamic location systems, Namatad uses small
edge computing devices that can form a rapid-setup, ad hoc network in
any location.
There
were many additional things that showed Matt’s company cared about
more than simply excelling in the market and becoming profitable:
Namatad started with the goal of leveraging new technologies to
prevent injuries and save lives, Namatad came from somewhat abstract
research that didn’t have obvious and immediate applications, and
Namatad involved many students in designing and prototyping its
products. Additionally, one thing I took away from Matt’s
presentation apart from its actual content was Namatad’s business
plan example in the form of a slide deck.
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