ExclusiveA Price Worth Paying: David Gray's Quest for School #Safety | David Gray

Welcome to Bay Area Innovators. Our innovator today is David Gray. David spent his life savings and a huge amount of time and energy on an innovation that is dear to his heart. This is a horrific American problem and both sides should be trying to solve it. One will take years. I mean how many kids have to die between now and then? And we can bring a technology that can make a dramatic national change. We have to. I don't care whose platform it is. We have to use that to protect our kids. After he experienced a tragedy, he decided to make schools safer. So he developed a product and technology for this purpose. We will talk to David about this platform, his dedication to it, why he did it. I will fight and I will continue to push to get this done. I will push for legislation that protects our kids until my last breath. This is Bay Area Innovators and I'm your host, Steve Espas. David, it's a pleasure to have you on our program. Thank you for having me on. Glad you're here. So you know you spend a lot of energy and effort on this technology that protects kids and it's hard to argue pretty much with anyone, you know, how important it is to protect kids in schools. Please give us a bit of background, how you got involved in this. What was the factor that got you started into creating this product? Well, I've been in video for decades, four and a half decades now and television and video to me was the most powerful element that man had ever created. I mean it, you create the ability to influence millions and millions of people, you know, from a set or from one environment. So I've been, you know, that's why I got into what I do for a living as a day job and I was at home in Palm Springs and I got a call. There was a busload of little girls, the Girl Scouts, that had gone off of a cliff. I'm one of the very first people that get to the scene. You were the first responder? I was not, no, I was for the media, so television news. I lived right there so they called me to come up and and I would often help with live shots and stuff like that for the station anyway. But when I got there it was, it was horrific, you know, and these are things people don't want to think about and that's what makes people uncomfortable. But imagine a bus going off a cliff with a bunch of little girls. What's that going to look like? There were seven killed and I still see this little girl's face. I still see her. It was absolute chaos. And sometimes from the outside you don't realize it's chaos, right? You think everything's under control but when you're on the on the spot you see what's happening. Oh just the communications with the emergency rooms, you know, I've talked to them and they didn't know what they were getting, you know, and and where these guys were going because they were overrunning the hospital in Palm Springs. So they were going to different hospitals and different aircraft coming in and different ambulances going out. I've been involved in a lot of like aerial helicopter footage for fires and stuff like that and just the communications between sheriffs and police and fire department, you know, all of those guys, they can't communicate. You think in today's world with our technology you could. Why they couldn't communicate? That the channels? They're on different radios with different frequencies with different codes. So one can't talk to the other. You got to put this radio down to pick up this radio like that. I mean it's archaic. It's like from the 50s. When there was a school shooting and my my wife and I had taken a huge risk in our business because I had my own company and we took a huge risk and we had money in the bank and our we were going to go buy a boat. She's from Panama. We were going to go sail the Caribbean for a few years, right? And there was a school shooting and it just ripped my heart out. That little girl's face came back and I couldn't, you know, I couldn't buy a boat. You know, I moped around and I struggled for a while and she just took me and said, just stop. Just fix this. This is what you do. So from that point on I didn't have a choice and we were at dinner and I saw a family that was eating. There were three daughters, the mom and dad, and they were on their phone and the light went off. You know, that technology, we have that. I can use that. I can use what they're holding in their hands to stop school shootings so that kids don't have to go through, you know, that horrific experience that towns don't have to go through, that families don't go through. I mean, we can make such a dramatic improvement to humanity just by using that technology in the right way. So explain to us briefly how that works, how that your technology works in a school that potentially has an emergency. Like I talked about the chaos. You imagine the chaos that was in that one bus crash and then when somebody's shooting. What the technology does is it, one, it gives the teacher a little button so if she gets into an emergency in her classroom, somebody has a heart attack, she can hit that button. We have artificial intelligence that can identify a weapon. So somebody takes out a weapon. So Parkland, we identified that rifle in one second. Yovaldi, we could have identified it before the guy even got on campus because he fired his gun off campus. And that exists a lot now, weapons detection, but what doesn't exist is the unification of all resources at the end. Seeing a weapon, triggering an alarm is one thing, but instantly being able to create that kind of bi-directional video and audio with all responders into every single classroom in an entire campus or any, you know, even in the courtyards or wherever you have cameras, instantly and being able to provide that to every single first responder is just, it's a game changer. That's going to change our world. A change 9-1-1 is going to change our response. It's going to make it very difficult for anybody to do anything wrong inside of a classroom because everything is going to be captured for to be used to prove the truth. So basically you have a tablet or a camera in each classroom and then when an emergency happens, the responders, the teachers, your company is able to live see what happens in each situation. Correct. There's tablets and then we can interface with IP cameras, so existing security systems in the halls and stuff like that, which is obviously one direction only, but in the classroom it's bi-directional. So you have a tablet that's running in the classroom and whether it's the teacher pushing her button or it's the weapon detection or gunshot detection, it triggers the alarm. And then you imagine this, you know, multiple zoom windows opening up. So you'll have different zoom calls. Everybody, every first responder, all the administrators can see every single solitary classroom, even the guy on a mobile phone can see every classroom. And then we can route medical into classrooms where we might have injured students or people. We could route your SROs in classrooms that you need to evacuate. We had an incident happen in one of our pilots where a kid had a gun. Unfortunately it was in a classroom next to the one we had in our pilot, so there was no cameras and it was chaos. Even though, you know, he didn't, he wasn't shooting, but he was in a classroom and it took a huge effort to keep quiet and get that school evacuated around that classroom. And now you would be able to see. For an example, everybody is horrified by what happened in Uvalde. Imagine if those officers could see him come across that campus, track his movements, identify which doors were open and locked. They could see inside the halls. They could see inside the classroom. How different would that have been? That's really the question I ask people is how different would have been if you had eyes everywhere instantly. Explain to us one more time how the system is different than the regular security cameras that are already present in this classroom. Is it that they connect out dramatically with all these responders? Well, there's a couple things. Security cameras are passive devices. People have to look at a wall full of cameras to see anything and they can't tell what's happening where. This is, and they have to have people to do it. Our system, you don't have to have anybody. It's the teachers that are actually in control or artificial intelligence is in control. So that they trigger automatically. So, for example, you know, we've all heard, you know, defund police and the reductions that have happened in the police department. They don't need anybody monitoring. They literally have two laptops in that 911 call center. That's it. There's monitors on the wall. Nothing's going on. It's very boring until an alarm comes off and as soon as that alarm comes off, they can see every single classroom on that campus or every system on that campus without investing in more officers, without investing in a lot of equipment. What's been the response so far from the schools or the organizations you talked to in adopting this system? It was interesting because the very first thing that somebody said was the union rep and she said it'll be a cold day in hell before you put that in our classroom. When we got done with the demonstration and they all understood that the teachers in control, that nobody can spy on them. That was their concern is somebody being able to be big brother. You can't do that. The only way that could ever happen and it could be in contract is by a court order. During an emergency. Well, a court order. No, even in an emergency we would not be allowed to do that if it's written into a contract that way based on what the union wants. It could take a court order for us to turn those things on because it's completely configurable. We could turn different things on and off. So Apple went through, right? They wanted to crack the phones. Well, the same thing for us. We would have to protect those kids and their information and we would have to protect their rights. By contract it would have to take a court order for us to turn those things on to where we could connect to them automatically. Now you mentioned earlier to me your granddaughter one time asked you for a bulletproof vest. Tell us about the experience. She was eight turning nine and she asked her grandpa for a bulletproof vest for her birthday and she knows nothing about what I do. She knows nothing about safe schools. She knows nothing about what, you know, I'm all about. She just knows that she is afraid to go to school. She's afraid of being, you know, a victim of a school shooting. And I think we have a whole generation of kids that are growing up with that. That's their normal now. And we have to stop it. I mean we have to stop it. It's our responsibility, right? And it's our government's responsibility. They're, you know, they're responsible for protecting us, especially our kids. They're the most vulnerable group of people in our country. How did you feel when she asked you that? It broke my heart. It really upset me. It really made me mad because I'm not there. I'm not there to make her feel safe. I'm not there to stop these things. Every time there's a school shooting it just, it just rips my heart out and it makes me, you know, very upset because we can stop it. We can. We have the technology. It's right here. It's ready to go. And it's not there yet. So you mentioned about the response from the teachers union on your technology. What was the response? Did you talk to individual teachers or to police or to the law enforcement agencies? Oh, well the police were all for it. First responders were all for it. The teachers were kind of mixed because they were still afraid of Big Brother. But the union rep was supporting us by the time we got done. And the the superintendent of this, of the district, there's a funny story behind it, but he's like, yeah, we got, we have to do this. And everybody, you know, all these people in the room is like, oh my god, this is amazing. You know, we may have to change some things. Can we do that? Yes, of course. But we have to go down this road. And it was, and that was a pilot program. So we were in a pilot with them for from 2017 to 2019. And then, you know, we finally got to a point of the end of the the pilot and we were going into contracts. And the contracts were written when COVID hit and the superintendent got COVID. So he barely survived. Everything got shut down. So, so for example, a child walks in and slaps a teacher and walks out. Well, it's his word against her word. Teacher hits that button. There's a record of him walking in the door two minutes before she hit the button. So he can't lie. A fight breaks out. She hits the button and, and you, the alarm could be to 911 or it can be for school security. So if she just triggers a school security alarm, she's capturing that two minute window before she hit the button. So that means nobody can lie. Who started the fight? Who was the bully? Which is always the case in a fight in a classroom, right? Well, he did it. He started it. You know, he or she, he said, she said, and the same goes with teachers when they're accused of things. You know, they can protect themselves even from that. So this is what I wanted to get to other than, than school shootings or these huge emergencies, if there are other uses for the technology and it seems like there are for other smaller events. Well, there are a lot. Number one, this isn't just for school shootings. So a teacher has a heart attack. I mean, to have 911, to have the emergency room doctors, to have paramedics have eyes and ears on that classroom in eight seconds, it's going to save lives. The violence in the classrooms. I mean, I spent time in these classrooms and it's brutal what these teachers go through. I mean, to hear these kids talk to the teachers and to get physically in their face and, and threatening. The teachers are just, they got no defense and it's all they got to do is push that button and that no more. He said, she said, no more. Here's a, it's right there. Exactly what that, exactly what happened. And if they don't hit the button, it goes away. So there's no risk. Samsung back in 2019 was going to, we have a free app called Hero Eyes Free, and it's a, it's an application that uses the same background technology, all that horsepower, and it's free to the public. And Samsung was going to put it in every one of their mobile devices. And it's basically all this horsepower for you and your family. So you can, you can track your kids going to school. You can, you know, you can see if your son is driving over the speed limit. And when, when your student goes across the geofence of the school, the personality of that app changes. So they could actually trigger a school alarm from their phone. So if they see something, they could send an anonymous video or they can trigger a security alarm and get security involved. You mentioned some teachers were not supportive of this. Why, why would they not be supportive? I think, and this was pre COVID. Everybody's afraid of big brother. Everybody's afraid of being spied on. I have a lot of experience in schools. My wife was a teacher forever and an administrator forever. So, you know, and she was Title IX. So she knew all those rules and all their concerns. So this was built around protecting teachers, not just for school shootings, but from any threats, including kids or, you know, wrong threats or accusations against them. Now, I want to ask you about gun control. All this debate about gun control, you know, having less guns available would help in school shootings. I want to know your thoughts about it. You know, because you can have gun control, you can have more guns that the schools have to be able to fight back, right, if there's an issue. What are your thoughts? What's the best solution on that? Timothy McVeigh comes to mind. How many people did he kill? It took nothing. Give us a bit of background. Timothy McVeigh was Oklahoma City. Literally, you know, fertilizer and diesel fuel. That's all it took to take down that building and kill all of those people. How did some people die? Yeah, he blew up the whole front of the building. You know, box cutters and evil hearts took down the World Trade Center. You know, it takes nothing. It's so easy to cause damage. It's so difficult to build something positive and beneficial to humanity. It's so easy to take it away. Look at 9-1-1. You know, they took box cutters and they took down what took, you know, millions and millions of man hours to design and build, and it was taken away with 3,000 some lies. It's easy to do that. Protecting against that's difficult. And that's where this technology took so much thought and input, because we have to protect their rights, and we have to be able to provide our first responders the ability to serve and protect those guys inside those classrooms. And I got to tell you, you know, I don't think there is a more vulnerable group of people than our kids, 35 in a little, little tiny room with one door. You know, there's lots of ways to hurt people. We need solutions and technology is that. As far as, you know, gun control, I mean, this is bipartisan. It's got, it's not for or against. This is technology based. I personally think that this ought to be something that, you know, school shooting should be something on the political agenda of everybody. This is a horrific American problem, and both sides should be trying to solve it. One will take years. I mean, the agenda, which everybody already knows, will, if it is successful, will take years. How many kids have to die between now and then? That's like saying we don't need airbags because we have seatbelts. No, you need both. And we can, you know, to bring a technology that can make a dramatic national change. Now, we have to. I don't care whose platform it is. We have to use that to protect our kids. So now you invested a lot of time and energy and most of your savings into this. How does your family feel about it? How do you feel about it now that you've pretty much done it and it's ongoing? It's kind of heartbreaking. Honestly, my wife left. We know where we never went sailing. And so that was pretty traumatic. My kids, you know, I neglected my family. I neglected my wife. You know, I was working all day long. I'd come home. I'd work all night. You know, I'd get two or three hours of sleep a day. My developers were in India, so I'd get off work. I'd come home. I'd get something to eat. I'd get meet with my developers. We would work till three or four in the morning. I'd be up at seven. And it was very, very hard on them. And I know my son and I think my daughter understand now. But it's like, if you could stop Adolf Hitler, what would you not do? If you could have stopped Vivaldi, what would you not do? I have to do this. My kids are grown. They don't need me. Right? This is my life. This is what I'm here for. I've been through some things that really kind of put that to the test. I'm here for this. I will fight and I will continue to push to get this done. I will push for legislation that protects our kids until my last breath. And I'll still try to do it from there. Sounds like a very noble cause, and I congratulate you for it. I think everyone should congratulate you for the vision and for doing this. Tell us more. How can people help you? How can our audience, you know, who thinks this is a great idea, what can they do to enable this technology to move forward? Well, to your first point first, I consider myself, even with all the price that I pay, I mean this is such a blessing. I can't think of too many people in modern history that have had the ability to change our world in a positive way. And that's a blessing for me. I mean, I can't see that any other way. And those that are involved in doing this will change the world and make it a better, safer world. We have to do this before the next school shooting. We have to get this deployed. We have to change this legislation so that we have protections for our children. And we don't want to turn them into prisons. We don't, you know, the school's into prisons, and we don't have to. I've been trying to do that for a long, long time, and I've run into people like the one superintendent with the president of the teachers union down in Orange County. She's amazing. She saw the demonstration. It's like, oh my God, what can I do? We need this. The same thing here as a grassroots effort, because every parent wants their kids to have safe schools. Every parent does. And all those parents will vote for people that can bring that to the table, in my opinion. And we can influence our politicians to take notice now, not just take the opportunity to stand behind a podium and say we have to do something. I wonder if potentially, like, teachers or educators or even parents, they see so many other issues in schools, like drugs or kids playing video games or education not being at the level it should be, that they get overwhelmed and they don't even consider the dangers of a school shooting, because it's not that often, fortunately. I mean, it's still much, even one, of course, it's more than it should be. But could there be a reason why they are not able to focus? It is. And I've experienced that within my family, because, you know, there's so much that they have to be focused on. It's really not an excuse, and here's why. We have superintendents, and superintendents are specifically, they have, you know, specific superintendents that are in charge of school safety. We have officers that that's their job, so there's no excuse. In addition, you mentioned that the technology can be used for other reasons, for any kind of conflict or even an emergency a teacher has. Oh, absolutely. You have an earthquake. I mean, we live in California, you know, you have an earthquake. These tablets are battery powered. They have 5G or 4G, and they have hardwire, so you could have communications within a school or, you know, in a collapsed building, even if in an earthquake, and you lose shore power. That technology can still, as long as the towers are available, and, you know, we could use Skynet. Well, Skynet's a different thing. The satellite system from Elon Musk. Yeah. Skylink. Those kind of technologies to provide those IP connections. So it could be used for anything. I mean, we all know what earthquakes can do, but, you know, my family just went through hurricanes in Houston. You know, a huge tree almost landed. I mean, it hit the house, my son's house. They're going without electricity. You know, this, especially the free app, gives us the ability to unite your families in those emergencies where they can, will be able to communicate within your, what I call, what the system calls the hero group. So it's not just the schools. You know, this free app is also there for the communities. I mean, I would have loved to seen this, you know, this technology in Israel when they got invaded. It would have been a, it would have changed so much when those communities, those families could have been actually, you know, uniting, you know, and could help each other, could see each other. That's the whole idea behind this is, you know, unite everyone, empower them to protect them. Unite, empower, and protect is what we do. Other than the concern of people spying on them, can you think of other reasons why a superintendent or schools would be hesitant to enable this thing, to adopt this technology? Not from the technology standpoint, and the cost is nothing. I mean, it's, you know, people think it's the cost. It's not. I mean, the federal monies to make our schools safe is huge. You know, I didn't, I didn't do this for money. I mean, I wouldn't put, you know, 1.6 million dollars into this out of my pocket, you know. That's the worst business move that you could make, but, you know, the cost on this is like 16 cents per child. That's crazy. You know, that's less than a pint of milk. You know, it wasn't for business. It was for changing humanity and doing, doing the right thing. So why do you think then it's not being adopted more? Is it just people are just one track minded and they don't have time to think about it? I tell, I gotta tell you, I, every time I, first off, you can't reach politicians. I don't know politicians. You know, it's not what you know. It's not what you have. It's who you know. And, you know, they don't return calls that you can't get to them. I've become more involved, you know, in the political world so that I can make contacts because I need them. The superintendents, you know, I just think they're so wrapped up in their, in what they know that they're not gonna listen. And I, and I, I mean, the feeling I get a lot of the time is that I'm trying to sell them snake oil. I mean, that's really what it, the attitude I get. I mean, I went into our local police department and I wanted to meet, I live in Simi Valley. I wanted to talk to the police chief just to share this with him. Saugus was next door. That's a school shooting. That's a, that's a town where we had a school shooting. Because I want feedback. I want to know what people think. And they wouldn't even let me talk to them. Literally accused me of wanting to sell. And there's, it doesn't cost the police department anything. Nothing. You know, to have those capabilities is nothing at all. It was, and I never did get to meet him. It's just really frustrating. And that's where this grassroots support, it's not going to be just my voice. It's going to be the vote, the voters choice. It's going to be the parents. It's going to be the grandparents, right? And that'll motivate the teachers. And that'll motivate the superintendents. And that'll motivate, you know, unions and the politicians. Number one, to know that there is a solution. And take action. Put a stop to this. And it's not like, it's not just school shooting. It's the violence. It's the way teachers are treated. You know, if a kid is walking up cussing a teacher upside down one, you know, and the other, and in their face and getting physical, they don't have a defense. They do now. So it's really just getting people's attention and letting them see what this, what power lies in that little button. Well David, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I'm glad you bring this up to us and talk to us about your technology. Any concluding thoughts for our audience? We can make the world better. It really is. That's what this whole thing was about. You know, I'm trying to do this on my own at this point. And I turned down money at the beginning because I didn't want this about money. I want this about humanity. And if we can create that grassroots movement, we can make it happen. And it will make the world a better, safer world. Not just for our kids, but for our teachers, our first responders, everybody. Thank you so much for your dedication and passion. This is amazing. Thank you again and best of luck to you. Thank you very, very much.