Tim Nelson – Be Safe and Be Seen

www.beseenbesafe.ca

I have always worked for myself and always in agriculture for farmers and farmer groups. The last 25 years I have specialized in managing research organizations. During one contract the problem of controlling disease spread in poultry industry seemed an impossible task. The problem is that we don’t see disease on a farm until it’s too late. People are the most significant carrier of disease pathogens. If it was possible to monitor people movements we could potentially track disease movement and predict spread and stop it before it gets out of hand.

In 2013 at the age of 58 I started the company because after a lifetime in livestock research I was tired of seeing animals suffer and die because of the speed of response to disease outbreaks hampered by an old paradigm of diagnose and treat. This cost livestock their lives and farmers their livelihoods and we can do better through observation and prevention (always better than cure). Also the new technologies being available on smart phones finally made what we do possible. It was an opportunity and also a solution to a very costly problem.

All we needed was a way to track people that protected their privacy and was non-intrusive. Be Seen Be Safe provides that solution.

At Be Seen Be Safe, we have an ambitious goal — to help build a better biosecurity surveillance ecosystem. We believe that with our talented team, innovative technology, and engaged clients we can solve some of the biggest biosecurity problems that everyday farmers encounter. Our identification, surveillance and monitoring tools can help remediate these problems.

Sales growth has doubled over the last 12 months and we now employ 5 people. We have also won a Eureka grant which is a grant for cross jurisdictional enterprise – our partners in this program are in Spain.

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