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VANCOUVER, B.C. June 13, 2024 – BC Tech is proud to announce the 38 finalists across 9 Technology Impact Award categories who achieved exceptional success in the past year.

The Company of the Year Anchor category was a highlight of the evening, with five impressive local anchors honoured as finalists. “Blakes is proud to support B.C.’s startups, scale-ups and anchors with the legal solutions they need to keep pushing the boundaries,” shared Emma Costante, Partner at Blakes, “As a sponsor of the Technology Impact Awards, we celebrate the success of local innovators.”

“The Technology Impact Awards recognize the very best companies in BC and the accomplishments of the leaders and teams in the BC economy’s fastest growing sector.” shared Rich Osborn, Chair of the BC Tech Board, “It is impossible to over-state the importance of technology and innovation to a thriving economy.”

AquaEye Ambassador Bill Bolton of ATTSAR joined the Mike Farwell Show from CityRadio in Kitchener, Ontario. The two talk about the importance of providing closure to families, how difficult and prolonged a water search can become, and how AquaEye is a game changer for searching the water.

NOTE
Interview starts at 1hr 11 min.

William Bolton is used to the long gruelling hours that come with his work in search and rescue in the Waterloo Region area.

With several years under his belt as a senior trainer in advanced tactical search and rescue, Bolton has taken on plenty of daunting tasks including the search and recovery of human remains.

“We’re more than happy to attend anything and help anyone to bring closure to the families,” Bolton told CTV News.

The hours-long searches are common for rescue teams, but thanks to a new device, those lengthy search times have been cut down significantly.

“This is the type of equipment we’re looking at to be able to advance the searches for the families,” he said….

With the “Aqua-Eye”, the fire department relies on artificial intelligence to rescue people who may have drowned. What the device can do – observed at the Hamburg fire department.

Hamburg – In 2023, 21 people died in Hamburg’s waters. At least 375 people across Germany. This emerges from statistics from the German Life Saving Society, or DLRG for short. In 2022 there were “only” ten people who lost their lives in Hamburg waters. For Hamburg, this is an increase of more than double.

Hamburg divers rehearse the first case – AI helps with quick rescue
The Hamburg diving team is active all year round and is increasing its training, especially now that warmer days are approaching and people are increasingly seeking refreshment in the waters. With forecasts of temperatures well over 20 degrees, May 1st is expected to be the ideal day for trips to the lakes.

However, the Hamburg fire department warns of the dangers of the water…

The UK’s only volunteer missing-persons dive-team has been gifted a £6,000 AquaEye handheld sonar scanner by the device’s Canadian manufacturer VodaSafe.

The divers have also taken on the role of AquaEye ambassadors in the UK, and are on a new mission to show that the unit can not only enable faster recovery of bodies but potentially save lives too.

The handover took place at Gartmorn Dam, Alloa in Scotland, where the Beneath The Surface (BTS) divers located the body of missing angler Greig Stoddard earlier this year.

Starting from New Year’s Day the Lancashire-based divers made three successive weekend journeys to the Scottish site before they eventually managed to locate Stoddard.

LIFE SAVING diving tech was trialled for the first time at Gartmorn Dam, in memory of a man who lost his life there before Christmas.

Search-and-recovery diving team, Beneath the Surface, were awarded the position of first British Ambassadors for the new tech.

The tech, called AquaEye and owned by VodaSafe, is a mobile search-and-rescue device. It uses sonar and AI to locate people in bodies of water, trimming down recovery times considerably.

Gartmorn Dam was chosen to showcase the AquaEye in action as Beneath the Surface helped demonstrate how it works.

Only a couple of month ago, Beneath the Surface helped in the search-and-recovery of Greig Stoddart, who sadly lost his life in the dam on Christmas Eve.

As reported by the Advertiser, Greig had been fishing alongside Ian McBurney before the two encountered difficulties and were lost in the water.

The Stoddart family reached out to Beneath the Surface…

The family of Greig Stoddart, who died on Christmas Eve, gathered at Gartmorn Dam, Alloa, on Saturday to watch as the AquaEye kit was formally presented to Beneath the Surface.

A team of volunteers who helped find the body of a Scots dad killed in a fishing accident have received a ‘game-changing’ search device. The family of Greig Stoddart, who died on Christmas Eve, gathered at Gartmorn Dam, Alloa, on Saturday to watch as the AquaEye kit was formally presented to Beneath the Surface.

The Lancashire-based dive team were drafted in at New Year after police spent several weeks searching for the 44-year-old’s body. Greig was eventually found by the volunteers on January 14 after they spent just two hours searching the water using a borrowed AquaEye….

BBC Tech Life – Rescue Tech – VodaSafe CEO Carlyn Loncaric talks about the device that can save lives in water and bring comfort to relatives. Sonar and AI have been brought together in a hand-held device that can find humans underwater. We speak to its inventor and an underwater search team leader…

A volunteer search team located the body of a missing dad in just two hours after his family suffered an agonising three-week ordeal over Christmas.

The Stoddart family are now calling for a key piece of search equipment, called an AquaEye, to be made available to other families desperate to recover the bodies of their loved ones from the water….

(TNS) — CLARK COUNTY — This new piece of equipment will be available to all emergency services agencies in the county, specifically divers from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office and the Clarksville Fire Department.

After receiving a grant for new technology, the Clark County Emergency Management Agency was able to purchase new sonar equipment to help in searching for bodies under water.

Greater North Clark Health Foundation gave the agency a $5,000 grant so it could buy the AquaEye. It is an advanced underwater scanner that uses ultrasound and artificial intelligence technologies to identify human bodies under water…