Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo is the Co-founder and CEO of Gaze Technology, an intelligent video analytics startup that builds intelligence capabilities for CCTV cameras that could be used to solve a long list of securities, attendance monitoring, analytics, optimization challenges, and much more. Founded in 2017, the company has grown to a team of 20 people within a short period of time and aims to build “a global leader in AI, serving customers across the world and making intelligent video analytics accessible and affordable for all.”
We recently caught up with Mr. Shehzad Noor, to learn about his path to entrepreneurship (cue: Shehzad has been trying to build companies since seventh grade. We covered his Incogmito a few years ago), how Gaze Technology came into being, what is Gaze Technology and what it does, how Gaze operates, the state of Gaze Technology’s business today, its ambition going forward, lessons he has learned from his journey so far and much more.
Future Startup
Could you please tell us about your background and what you are working on now?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
I’ve been a computer programmer for as long as I can remember. I completed my schooling in Dhaka and then continued my quest for computer science education at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. I learned more and more about the high tech industry there, and then went on to work with IBM Research to develop an obstacle avoidance system for self-driving cars - now a pending patent at the US Patents & Trademarks Office.
It was my time at IBM that taught me about computer vision and artificial intelligence. Subsequently, I worked for NVIDIA in Santa Clara, California in their Intelligent Video Analytics team that focused on building AI that could power smart cities.
Less than a year after I joined NVIDIA, I moved back to Bangladesh to start Gaze Technology with my long-time friend and co-founder Motasim.
Gaze is a startup that builds intelligence capabilities for CCTV cameras that are otherwise dumb. We have been working on this for a year now and we grew from a team of three to 20 over that time.
Future Startup
Could you please elaborate your path to entrepreneurship?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
I have been trying to build startups since seventh grade. I built SearchW3, a metasearch engine, back in 2009, hoping to attract local users. After that, I spent a lot of time trying to build multiple local social networking websites with different themes - Boundule, Prithbi Net, Xpressers and EduReto.
In high school, Motasim and I co-founded Incogmito, an anonymous social networking app similar to YikYak.
After Motasim and I moved to different countries (Canada and Malaysia), I took a break at trying to build companies and started working for them instead to gain the first-hand experience. I worked for a Vancouver based e-ticketing startup called Picatic, which later got acquired by Eventbrite. After that, I went on to work for IBM and NVIDIA. As I mentioned before, less than a year after joining NVIDIA, Motasim and I co-founded Gaze.
Future Startup
When and how did get started with Gaze Technology? What motivated you to start Gaze Technology? Why did you start a business in this sector?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
Motasim and I were discussing ideas when I was in Toronto working for IBM and he was in Malaysia studying at MMU. Despite all the brainstorming, we could not start working on anything at the time since we were both busy with our lives and very far away from each other (plus the time zone difference didn’t help).
In 2017, he moved to Canada. At the time, however, I was in California working for NVIDIA, so it was still difficult for us to work together. So, we recruited two other friends from Vancouver to work on an idea and then applied to Y Combinator - the world’s largest startup accelerator. We were among the top 5-10% applicants that year from around the world who got invited for an in-person interview but it didn’t work out because we were building a product without a market at the time (a wearable AI camera) which our interviewers rightly pointed out.
We then realized the biggest market for computer vision and AI is actually back home - South Asia (and perhaps other emerging economies). That’s when we decided to start Gaze Technology Ltd in Bangladesh. Obviously, our ideas were shaped by our expertise and experience in computer vision and AI, which is why Gaze is an intelligent video analytics startup.
Future Startup
What went into building the initial operation of Gaze Technology? How did you put together initial investment and other things to get started? Please walk us through what the first few months of your journey were like and the challenges you faced.
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
We had a lot of help! I put in some money for our servers, email, etc. when we had nothing. BetterStories provided us with office space initially. Eventually, we had one additional partner (Mohammad Maaz) join us, now one of the co-founders, who helped us with some funding and connections to build our business.
We had to deal with lawyers for the first time when incorporating in Bangladesh - that was a challenge for us since we were engineers, not really trained CXOs. Once we got a bit bigger we moved to Hishab’s office (another AI startup in Dhaka) followed by a co-working space and in the end - our very own HQ.
Our journey has been very exciting and we definitely wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for our supporters and mentors who believed in us when all we had was an idea.
Future Startup
Could you please give us an overview of Gaze Technology in terms of services you offer, the size of your business, number of users, how your operation works, etc?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
We offer software that can understand videos or images through technologies like face recognition, license plate reading (even in Bengali), vehicle recognition, object detection, etc.
We are a team of 20 now, growing by the month. We are working with quite a few organizations now, deploying our solutions for purposes like security, attendance monitoring, analytics and more.
We work in a very agile environment - we are always building and improving our technologies. We also try to work closely with academia, staying connected with professors and students in Bangladesh doing great work in our field, sometimes also supporting them with funding.
Future Startup
Could please explain Gaze as a product and how your technology works? You also have a software platform called Alavya, could you please tell us more about it?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
Gaze is an intelligent video analytics company focused around building software that adds intelligence capabilities to cameras. Alavya is our primary product that serves as a smart Network Video Recorder (sNVR) that can record videos from CCTV cameras while also analyzing the footage in real-time using our proprietary computer vision technologies including face recognition, license plate recognition, vehicle detection, person-counting and more.
Future Startup
How big is your team? Could you tell us about your culture at Gaze Technology?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
We are now a team of 20, all based in Dhaka. Our team is agile and flat. We build things, move fast and solve problems that none of us ever encountered before on a daily basis.
Future Startup
What are some lessons you’ve learned in terms of growing a business? What other entrepreneurs can learn from your growth journey?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
Building a startup takes time, sleepless nights, a super dedicated team, supportive friends & family and a sustainable never-ending drive. From the outside, these things might not be as visible but they end up playing the biggest role in making a startup successful.
Future Startup
What is your business model? How have you grown your revenue?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
We used to be a service-focused company, building custom computer vision technologies for giants like Meghna Group of Industries. Our revenue came from billing our services and recurring subscription for our software. However, now we are switching to a product-focused approach with our sNVR devices.
We hope to connect with existing CCTV/NVR/DVR resellers to scale our sales throughout South Asia, while making it a lot easier to buy our technologies from anywhere in the world.
Our goal is to replace dumb video recorders with our AI-powered supercharged sNVRs globally.
Future Startup
Have you raised any investment?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
Yes, a few hundred thousand dollars. The exact figures are undisclosed, so I’ll stop at that.
Future Startup
What are the goals for the future?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
Turn Gaze into a global leader in AI, serving customers across the world and making intelligent video analytics accessible and affordable for all.
Future Startup
Where could our readers go to learn more about Gaze?
Shehzad Noor Taus Priyo
You could go to: https://www.gaze.technology/ learn more.
