Faceter CEO Chats Presale Success and Saving Lives. Exclusive Interview
Faceter CEO, Robert Pothier, sits down with CryptoCurrencyNews.com for an exclusive chat.
Faceter is the first decentralized surveillance system for consumers, powered by facial recognition software that’s been proven to work. From safety and security to marketing and beyond, Faceter is among the top rated ICOs on the market.
The presale ICO broke records yesterday and Faceter continues to be high in demand going into its token sale on February 15th. We got to chat with Faceter CEO Robert Pothier for an exclusive interview about how Faceter got its start and where the surveillance system is heading next.
If you’re unfamiliar with Faceter, read here.
So, Robert, tell us about your background and how you got started with Faceter?
After completing Business Management at college, I immediately went to London for 2 years where I worked for a logistics company for the supply of goods (wings up) for London Heathrow airport. It was a great place for me to apply my management skills.
On returning to South Africa, I immediately got into sales of technology. It was soon after that I came into contact with Russians trying to integrate European technologies and solutions for Africa. I was fascinated and immediately got involved, finding myself part of a group of great partners and developers around the world (mostly Russian).
The years of experience in the IT, telecommunication, and payment industries have helped me develop a keen eye for opportunity and a clear understanding of consumer needs.
From payment systems to card scanning and now facial recognition — it’s great to be at the forefront of the latest technology.
Why Faceter? Why focus on a surveillance system for the mass market?
We had already developed a card scanning technology (pay.cards) as a free SDK for developers to increase our global business relations.
Last year (2017), I was mugged by 4 guys at 9 am in the morning on a public street with many people walking by. It was very traumatic and I was shocked that there were CCTV EVERYWHERE, and the police could not do anything — even with complete fingerprints on my car which they mugged me up against. I was shocked that even the police could not utilize images to help people. I approached my team and now we laugh about “you got mugged so started a recognition company.” At this point, we had members like Vladimir Tchernitski who quickly shared their expertise. They could contribute to offering a solution of computer vision starting with facial recognition stepping the game up from pay.cards. We knew what we could develop but we also knew we needed a solution that goes beyond what is already there. This is where we tackled the issues of computer vision needing heavy computer resources to process the algorithms. On concluding that Fog computing with data mining would make the solution affordable, we researched the market and realized that nobody was doing it. Faceter was born, and we can offer it to the mass market at affordable rates.
How long has Faceter been in development?
Pay.cards was the first computer vision technology we developed about 3 years ago. As per the story above, we only recently developed facial recognition. I am incredibly proud of how quickly my team managed to develop a facial recognition MVP that hits 99.78% accuracy.
Not everyone immediately connects blockchain with surveillance, so what made you choose to use blockchain for the system?
We already needed miners to process our Proof of Recognition algorithms. It made perfect sense to develop a token that could reward them for their processes. Quickly the synergy was put together by utilizing a smart contract to burn a token from the market to generate a license for the customer. We then got ICO advisers involved who loved our concept immediately. Our whitepaper has a full description explaining why blockchain is essential for our business.
Why did you choose the Ethereum platform for Faceter?
Ethereum simply works for us right now and our product does not require high volumes of transactions either. This means that a more efficient platform can easily be considered later. Some considerations are already underway.
Why did you decide to do an ICO? What are your thoughts on ICOs?
It was clear to us to run an ICO. ICO’s are a quick way to raise funds to take our working solution many levels and quickly. We already need to use our own token to complement the token burning and issuing of the license. I believe the old days are gone where people could come up with an idea, open a website and raise millions for their ICO and the bad investments of the past is a good thing — it has taught investors to research their considerations and hence encourage more mature investments in projects that can really make a difference in the world which to most is the ideology of blockchain.
There have been concerns about scam ICOs in the past. What are you doing to gain people’s trust and ensure that Faceter rises above the paranoia?
I believe my team’s reputation on past projects and success stories speak for themselves. Secondly, it makes it easier when you have a working project. Even software has added tangibility when a customer can get a look and feel for how your solution works.
Faceter’s pre-ICO sale just ended. How did it go?
It is the most exciting part of our journey! We are so pleased to announce that we closed our presale at $10.8 Million USD. The whitelisting exceeded our expectations by 15 times what we originally were offering. Each of Faceter’s contributors is valuable to us, we aim for transparent and fair rules for all participants, so we took tranches of our token sale bonuses to allow more people to benefit from the presale.
Do you have any predictions for how the token sale will go?
Our Token Sale starts 15 February and there are still some bonuses. Immediately after the presale closed we saw a huge interest in the main Token Sale as of this morning (07Feb); we have already received over 5000 registrations for the main Token Sale.
What are your main long-term goals for Faceter beyond what we can see on the roadmap for 2019?
What we have learned so quickly from doing this ICO is that many retailers have contributed and we have gained a lot of international interest from corporates. Being heavily focused on an affordable, decentralized, mass consumer product, it was surprising to us but it is also shaping what we do. We are building a platform for a boutique of services and applications to build on. As millions of applications were built for mobile phones when Android launched, we can expect thousands of possibilities for surveillance solutions all working on Faceter platform.
What makes Faceter stand out from all the other ICOs out there? Why should people choose Faceter?
We are rated by many trackers as one of the top ICO’s and these sites (like icobench.com) are not controlled by us. We are the first to offer Proof of Recognition (POR), the first to be combining facial recognition with fog computing and data mining, have received incredible online support from the public that superseded our expectations and no other facial recognition company is offering an affordable solution for the mass market with open source. If you do a little reading (whitepaper, youtube searches) you will quickly learn why so many like what we are doing. It is also worth noting that during Presale activities, 83 corporate businesses from 52 countries have shown an interest in the product and have approached our company, seeking partnership opportunities.
What’s been the most challenging aspect of the project so far?
I am sure my development team would love to answer this, but for me, it was convincing people that Faceter is about offering convenience to an already strong network of surveillance around the world when many still have the mindset that it is about losing privacy. We take privacy very seriously but until now, this kind of technology has not been made available to the public…now it is and it is nothing to be scared of.
What are you most excited about for Faceter?
I am truly excited to see Faceter make a change in the world. When people will see the positive impact we can make by improving privacy and making our lives safer. Not (a safer world) for our children, but now and for us to live in; so that our children can grow up in a better one. I have so many scenarios of great things we will do, but the most rewarding will be when I see Faceter save lives.
Faceter is just getting started. The success of the presale shows how interested people are in this technology. The most important thing is that Faceter is not about eliminating privacy. It is about making the world a safer place to live in. For anyone still interested in participating in the Faceter token sale, check out the website for how to get involved.
Big thanks to Faceter CEO Robert Pothier for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat with CryptoCurrencyNews.com.
