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FindBiometrics (FB) Interview with: Jose Luque, President/CEO and Founder of Merkatum
| By Peter O’Neill | | May 15, 2010 |
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| FB: Mr. Luque, would you please provide our readers with a brief background of the company? |
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Merkatum: Certainly, Peter. Merkatum is a company that was formed almost 10 years ago, a few months prior to the 9/11 terrorist events, with the chartered objective to research and understand multiple types of identity recognition and transactional platform technologies. A couple of years later, as a pure play R&D company, we expressly started concentrating on developing a multi-modal biometrics platform and identity management system that would address identity-fraud and security/safety problems for government agencies. We submitted our system for patent in 2004.
Since then and over the past number of years, we’ve seen an evolving market trend for biometric technologies prompted by end-users with increasing requirements for more specialized, process-oriented, vertical solutions for different applications. We see this trend continuing and deepening in other market segments and for a wider end-user base across the world.
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| FB: Would you please tell us about the features of your multi biometric identity management solution, I believe it’s called the “emfiva”? |
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Merkatum: “emfiva F/FRSŪ,” absolutely. The emfiva F/FRSŪ platform is a self-contained, SOA-based, biometric resolution and identity management system...”out-of-the-box”. Merkatum has productized the benefits of multi-biometric and biographic resolution technologies while substantially decreasing the complexities, risks, and costs associated of deploying these types of systems. We have “pre-packaged” emfiva F/FRS as an appliance, with built-in business processes and best practices for vertical sectors such as public safety and justice, civil identification, and healthcare. The “emfiva box” is shipped to the end-user with a pre-determined configuration based on vertical application, database size, required matching technologies, and number of provisioned users, so that it can be quickly and effortlessly deployed on the field.
In its back-end, emfiva F/FRS processes different biometric (fingerprint, facial, iris, signature) and biographic (name recognition, phonetic, key edit distance, fuzzy match) recognition algorithms to determine identity relationships in the database or in the field. Our patent-pending fusion engine can effectively and efficiently interpret responses from single modality matchers (COTS and proprietary) in order to maximize precision and throughput parameters, by adapting to the specific nature of the available data in the targeted database. Our middle layer enables the provisioning of users, activities, and entities, in accordance to specific roles and authorizations, in a quick and secure manner. The system’s work flow engine provides the flexibility to adapt and integrate to the specific business process needs of the end-user’s operations. Its front-end provides an open-API layer that facilitates the communications and integration to multiple types of devices and third-party systems. All of this is within a very robust, scalable, secure, and modular browser-based, SOA architecture.
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| FB: So, that’s an interesting evolution of your product; you started out with a multi-biometrics solution and then you added in biographical data and from there you tailored it to fit specific industry needs; do I have that correct? |
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| Merkatum:Yes, that’s correct. And we’ve taken-out risk, complexity, and cost for end-users by productizing our system as an appliance. |
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| FB: Thank you; so then, with each one of these out-of-the-box units, as you mentioned, they are configured for either law enforcement, healthcare or for finances, etc.; therefore, each one is specifically suited for that vertical? |
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Merkatum:That’s right; over the past number of years, we have been successful in closing and deploying a number of very key reference accounts in different verticals that have enabled us to recognize and to codify best practices within each one of these specific vertical industries in such a way that the system can easily relate to the best practices that each vertical has in place.
For instance, we can talk about a few deployments including our vertical for justice and public safety. We’ve been involved in the deployment of emfiva F/FRS as the core system that enables Mexico’s Department of Justice’s “National Parolee ID Management System”, simultaneously operating throughout the whole country (hundreds of federal courthouses in over 60 cities). This biometric IDM System, functioning on a rules- and exceptions-based approach, validates the identity of people under conditional liberty arrangements using fingerprinting and facial determinants when checking-in with judges in courthouses at a local, regional, and federal entity level. If the identity of the parolee does not match with the one on record, a series of alarms and procedures are triggered for subsequent administrative action by authorized justice or law enforcement personnel.
Other very relevant projects involving identity resolution and database de-duplication services have been implemented for agencies such as Florida DMV, Austin Police Department, and the Ministry of Education, among others. Merkatum has derived huge experience from these implementations.
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| FB: Outstanding. You’ve just mentioned law enforcement, but would you care to elaborate further on any other vertical markets on which you’re currently focusing your attention? As well, where are you beginning to see the greatest growth? |
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Merkatum: Right, that’s a good question, thank you for asking.
Actually, we’re currently concentrating on three (3) main verticals; and they are, public safety with law enforcement, which is our strongest segment at present, as it’s been the area in which we’ve consistently done the most number of deployments over the past years. We also are involved in civil identification, which is not only associated with national ID card programs and passport agencies, but also for social benefits programs federal and state governments. More recently, we’ve been focusing our attention on the healthcare vertical where we see an enormous opportunity. On an exceptions basis, we also address opportunities in the financial sector. The potential to generate value for our channel partners and end-users is huge.
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| FB: And geographically, when one thinks of the global marketplace, where is Merkatum focusing its energies? |
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| Merkatum: As a general rule, our energies are focused primarily in North America. We have periodically deviated from this norm however; for example, we have gone to certain deployments and engaged in partnerships with others in Europe, Asia and in South America. As a result of our recent launch of our channel partner-program, we’ve solidly expanded in other key emerging markets such as India and Brazil. One of these partnerships has been with IBM worldwide via a joint technology and market development program that is taking us to new geographies and business opportunities. Other similar partner arrangements are underway. We are very excited about our growth prospects.
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| FB: That is very positive, indeed. Now, as I understand it, you also have several other products designed for logical, physical access, time & attendance, --would you care to tell us about those? |
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Merkatum:Well, those are evolutionary products that can be self-contained or configured as a consequence of the proper deployment of EMFIVA F/FRSŪ.
Consequently, we basically have two core products within our portfolio. The most important one being, obviously, the emfiva F/FRSŪ server, which, depending upon the configuration and the capabilities of the requirements, we would configure it with the specific needs of the customers. We have two families of product; we have the emfiva F/FRS Professional server and the emfiva F/FRS Enterprise server. These are configured according to resolution modalities required to the number of users and to the size of the database. So, it’s very modular, very easy to deploy, thus minimizing the total cost of ownership and risks associated with deployment.
Merkatum has also productized and simplified the way in which biometric and biographic data is captured on the field, packaged, and relayed to an emfiva F/FRS server or to any other third-party system. Our “Eagle Kit” is comprised of a number of capture devices, biometric scanners, and laptop computer, all self-contained in a ruggedized briefcase or jump kit. We have Eagle Kit product lines for the military, public safety, and civil identification sectors. These integrated-devices kits are especially useful for data enrolment and identity verification purposes for National ID Card enrolment services, social benefits programs, and military and public safety operations.
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| FB: You’ve been involved in some large scale deployments; what are some of the challenges that you face when working with large scale applications? |
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| Merkatum: Alright; we always have a number of challenges that must be addressed very methodically. There are four different categories of challenges that we consistently analyze and act upon: technical, operational, human, and opportunity management. At the business level, it is of critical importance that both the company that is going to deploy the system and the one requesting and receiving the service or product, are in perfect harmony in terms of the scope of the project, requirements, and expected results. If both parties are on the same frequency and with the same shared project vision and objective, the rest depends on the parties’ capacity to effectively implement.
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| FB: I very much want to thank you, Jose, for describing, so thoroughly, your line-up of solutions. I believe that you are, indeed, on the cutting-edge of where the industry is presently headed and what the end-users are currently in need of, namely, this sort of out-of-the-box, turn-key kind of solution based approach; so, congratulations on that. We also look forward to hearing more about what is happening in the future. |
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| Merkatum: Absolutely, and thanks Peter.
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