Homeland Security Show | Episode 19

American Technology Innovations: Alex Backer of QLess, Inc.

This was my first show to focus on American technology innovations with applications in homeland security. Alex Backerof QLess joined me. Alex has been personally awarded the “40 under 40” award for his QLess innovation and entrepreneurship in 2010, and his company has won both “Best Technology Company with less than 100 employees” in 2010 and “Fastest Growing Company with less than 100 employees” in 2012, all from the American Business Awards. Nearly 3,000 companies compete annually for these awards. So what is QLess? With offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, QLess offers mobile wait management solutions for retail, government, colleges, health-care, theme parks, casinos, services, restaurants, hotels and anywhere where people stand in line or wait for service. QLess, the world’s first and only provider of mobile queuing solutions, eliminates standing in line by letting users get in a virtual line from their cell phones, roam freely while they wait, then receive an automated call or text message when their turn approaches. QLess even lets users push themselves back in line or notify the establishment they are leaving the line.

So what does this have to do with homeland security? Alex talked about all the benefits of applying QLess in the security realm. We chatted about a queue in a public location such as an embassy, government building, or the Olympics, for example, as a standing (literally) soft target for a terrorist attack. In an airport setting, eliminating a TSA queue de-stresses the entire atmosphere, allowing passengers to control better their access to jetway and allow TSA personnel to better focus on their job of preventing potential safety concerns on the jetway, as well as provide analytics as to how many staff they need where and when. In a pandemic disease situation, you may need to provide vaccinations quickly, but do not want a queue where disease can multiply. And at DMVs, improved and more secure issuance processes can take place more seamlessly when both client and counter clerk are not worried about the length of the queue and time waste of waiting. Lastly, there is the voting issue… what if you could enfranchise more people to show up to vote if the queue were eliminated? I can’t imagine the polling that would take place to see if the Democrats or Republicans would benefit more from that change!

Oct. 1: the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, retired United States Army Lieutenant General Harry Edward Soyster.

Oct. 8: the CEO of Animetrics, Paul Scheupp.

Homeland Security Show