Geoff Kohl, Senior Director of Marketing, Security Industry Association (SIA) speaks to SJA about the themes for this year’s Securing New Ground (SNG) conference, taking place 8 – 9 October in New York City.

Can you tell me about your role in organizing Securing New Ground?

As the Conference Manager of Securing New Ground (SNG), I work with an incredible team, including our CEO, Don Erickson, to gather insights from SIA’s members and Executive Advisory Board about what is impacting business leaders each year.

These help to form the key themes for our one and a half day event.

I also have the pleasure of working with the speakers every year.

At Securing New Ground, we hold numerous panels that cover the most pressing topics within security and we also conduct exclusive interviews.

It’s a fantastic chance to deep dive into trending business sectors with top executives.

What can attendees expect on the day?

Our tagline is the “business of security”.

SNG is designed for approximately 250 to 300 executive attendees from the industry, representing companies that are vendors and manufacturers of solutions, integrators and top-level practitioners who have a focus on technology.

There will also be a mixture of business and security consultants at SNG.

All attendees will be able to learn about and contribute their thoughts on top line trends, business opportunities and any challenges they foresee.

It’s a chance for executives to connect and share how they are looking at the business of security.

What are the main themes of this year’s Securing New Ground conference?

If it matters to the business of security, we’ll cover it.

One theme to highlight in particular is AI – in the 2024 SIA Megatrends report, AI was identified as a crucial part of the top four trends.

Over the course of this year, the world of generative AI has unfolded, so a lot of the discussion will likely center on how this technology will continue to play out in terms of products and solutions, as well as the impact of this on integrators.

Another focus will be on the real intelligence being derived from AI, versus what may have initially been overpromised.

Most of the AI in our industry is unique in that it’s not generative AI, it’s typically computer vision or deep learning to analyze data.

It doesn’t include that creative aspect, but there may be some applications for this further down the road – for example, perhaps generative AI could be applied to create sample video clips that can even be fed back to train other AI algorithms.

Another topic we will highlight is mobile credentials.

Using your phone as your identification badge is arguably one of the biggest shifts of the access industry in 20 years.

With this progress have considerations about cybersecurity and interoperability, which will be highlighted at Securing New Ground.

The digital transformation of security data will also be a key theme for this year’s SNG.

Security data is often locked away, in the platforms of security vendors, while other data in a company such as performance or operational data is becoming more transparent and shared.

We’ll be having conversations about how to unlock the security data that has typically been in a number of siloed systems, for wider use.

Lastly, we’ll be highlighting the theme of return on investment (ROI).

So much money is spent on security every year, and we are seeing technology being used for multiple purposes.

While a security camera might help to detect an intruder, it can also inform the owner whether a package has been delivered or if a family member returned home.

We have to replicate this in the commercial sector, so that’s a major piece of the conversation.

Why is it important to bring the industry together in-person?

You can’t make the kind of connections you can make at SNG in a virtual world.

Also, a lot of our members tell us they like coming to Securing New Ground because it’s the right size.

One of the things we do is to try and cap the attendance to 300 to cultivate that intimate feeling and allow people to network fully.

What are you personally most excited about for SNG?

For me, the whole Securing New Ground program is thrilling.

I’m really excited to see Former NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who will be the Keynote speaker on Day One, and Nasdaq Chief Economist and Senior Vice President Phil Mackintosh will be returning to SNG for the Day Two Keynote.

Sewell is now the Senior Vice President of Security and Guest Experience at the Mets at Citi Field, meaning she has moved from the public safety space into crowd safety within a commercial context.

She’ll be discussing some really interesting points about risk, including how to manage security at stadiums.

We really try to bring Securing New Ground to a peak and keep it at that level throughout.

But, if I had to pick one thing that I absolutely can’t wait to see, this is the first year that the SIA SPARC community of technical end users will be joining us.

They’ll be discussing their roles as security practitioners and how they come together to share information on how they take advantage of technology to solve their challenges.

On the panel are practitioners from big tech firms like Meta, Salesforce, Apple and TikTok USDS.

I’m really excited about that.

Any other comments?

I would say to any executive in the security industry, whether you’re regional, national or global in nature, that your network is your net worth.

That’s something Securing New Ground really embodies; the connections made here can really help to shape your company’s fortunes and your personal growth.

This article was originally published in the October edition of Security Journal Americas. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.