Towntalk Solutions and Amarante Nigeria: Using A.I and data to deliver much-needed security solutions to Africans.

“We are on a mission to democratise security information and offer access to information needed to make smart and proactive decisions about safety and security to individual and businesses” — Folake Edun

Folake Edun is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of TownTalk Solutions; a data intelligence company that captures “hard to collect” data using our suite of integrated technology tools. This data is used to improve safety and security for individuals, businesses and governments.

In this interview with Business Insider, she speaks on the impact of the partnership with Amarante Nigeria, the adoption of A.I tech in Africa, and how it can be used to procure data-driven solutions that help mitigate any form of business collapse.

Q: Kindly brief us about Towntalk Solutions, its specialization, and the products/platforms that your company offers.

- Towntalk is a data intelligence company that uses a range of inhouse tools to gather location-based and behavioural data across Africa, beginning with Nigeria. We analyse this data using advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, in order to protect businesses from disruptive events.

- Our clients access this real-time data and insights through our 3 main tools: (1) Area! Mobile, which is our free-to-user mobile safety app which is accessed via the mobile app (available on the Apple AppStore and Google PlayStore) and WhatsApp and it provides users with a real time feed of incidents near them, the ability to report incidents themselves and access to our emergency support database of over 10,000 verified contacts and counting, which are organised by location. All that is needed to access these is for the client to have a phone number.

- (2) Area! Insights is our dynamic and interactive incident reporting dashboard. It includes a live, daily, weekly and monthly reporting view where clients get punchy and effective insights on incidents reported over a period, with the ability to focus on particular locations across the country.

- (3) The final tool is Area! ERP - a full virtual control room that allows clients to have direct control and oversight of their security environment; including the ability to track individual users; send out messages to groups of users; receive alerts based on location of assets and individuals; and so much more.

- Both Area! Insights and Area! ERP are cloud-based solutions, so they are easy to implement. Access is just via dedicated login credentials - which includes users’ email address and password.

- The offerings of all of these products are enhanced with our partnership with Amarante Nigeria.

Q: Security data intelligence is largely seen as a male dominated sector, what stirred your interest in launching Towntalk Solutions?

- Security is everyone’s business, not just men. Our ultimate mission at Towntalk is to democratise security information - this means making it possible for everyone, no matter who you are or how much money you have, to have access to the information you need to make smart and proactive decisions about the safety and security of yourself as an individual or that of your business. For example, a young woman who usually walks home from work every night, may avoid being caught out in a robbery, if she gets an alert about an armed robbery incident on her route; by deciding to instead take a taxi or arrange to stay closer to the office for the night.

Q: How would you describe your approach to business? What do you think is the key to providing successful solutions for Towntalk Solutions?

- We are a data company and so we let the data and information inform how we prioritise business. We have worked very closely with people who understand what information is the most useful to our end users and how they want to engage with it in order to design our technology interfaces. This approach is iterative and we will continue to use feedback from our clients to ensure our solutions are always delivering what they need; and sometimes even before they know they need it.

Q: How has Towntalk Solutions evolved during your time working with the leading platform?

- As we are focussed on Africa, a lot of the data that we require is not online. We do not have the luxury of just scraping the internet, including social media, in order to understand what is going on on the ground as soon as it happens. We do do online scraping, however, most of the time by the time this information makes its way online it is already too late.

- So we have spent the last few years building a robust data gathering approach and process that looks at gathering data from both online and offline sources. We are also building partnerships with organisations that have networks, including Amarante, to directly contribute to our ecosystem.

- Now we are in a strong position to start selling this data and insights. Our focus is now shifting. We are able to provide our security data and insights to clients to help them make better informed and proactive decisions about their safety. We can also provide this data to insurance companies, to better understand, price and monitor the risk of providing insurance to a client in a particular location, or travelling a particular route. It’s a very interesting time for the company.

Q: What are some of the challenges faced by the industry today?

- Resistance to technology. I think this has been one of our biggest challenges as organisations, although becoming more and more interested, when it comes to their security, are still sceptical about the use of technology. This is why we have not rushed to market and have been on a journey to get clients to test and get comfortable with our tools, building trust and gaining a few initial champions, before we provide access to the market.

Q: Can you tell us more about your work with Amarante Nigeria and why you became a strategic partner?

Specifically, these are the reasons this partnership has come about:

- (1) Despite the economic crisis in Nigeria, investors are still very much interested in the economic potential of the country. However, insecurity remains a challenge and a genuine fear for most investors, particularly foreign investors, who now require more support to take care of their security needs.

- (2) Despite the threat and economic context, market solutions are pretty much the same - slow, analog and human-dependent, where information is being provided in static reports, hours and, sometimes, days after the event has occurred. Basically clients’ needs are currently not being directly met by what is available on the market.

- This partnership allows us to directly plug this gap. The partnership allows both parties to focus on their own expertise whilst delivering maximum value to Amarante’s clients. With this partnership, Amarante continues to provide world-class operational security advisory services to corporations and individuals, whilst Towntalk’s technology and tools enables them to do so quicker, more effectively and with better response capabilities.

- Amarante will be providing access to Towntalk’s tools, with enhanced features specifically for Amarante’s clients. Specifically: Area! Mobile (accessed via mobile app or WhatsApp) will include access to a curated list of emergency support from Amarante, as well as a curated list of verified incidents only viewable by Amarante’s clients. Amarante’s clients will also be able to push an SOS alert directly from the app to Amarante’s security control room.

- All reports available on Area! Insights will include additional detailed insights from Amarante’s experienced intelligence team.

- And lastly, Area! ERP, will be managed by Amarante’s security professionals with direct access to a panic button and support from Amarante.

- All these tools will be available to clients through three packages - Basic, Medium and Gold.

Q: What insights/predictions can you give us about the partnership, and what effect will this have on African businesses?

- There is a general trend in traditional industries, where traditional companies are choosing to partner with technology companies to help improve the efficiency and overall service delivery of their solutions to their clients - this is not unique to the security industry. This partnership is mutually beneficial for both parties - Amarante and Towntalk. It will really strengthen Amarante Nigeria’s position in the Nigerian market, particularly for foreign investors interested in investing or operating in the country. For Towntalk, it is a way to access clients without losing focus on deploying advanced technologies to proactively protect individuals and businesses. Amarante Nigeria is a local subsidiary of the French headquartered company, Amarante International, and they have operations across 5 continents; this partnership also gives Amarante’s clients outside of Nigeria access to leverage our tools.

Q: What are some of the things Towntalk Solutions has been doing to bridge the data gap problem in Africa?

- We have a community-based approach to gathering data. As mentioned, a lot of the data on the continent is held offline, and hence we use multiple methods and tap into multiple communities to gather data on what’s going on, where it’s happening, who is involved, and other relevant information.

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