Although at the time of writing, the 13th edition of the ASIS European Security Conference in The Hague is still in full swing, Nedap already looks back on a successful event. As Golden Sponsor the company was closely involved in the organisation of the rousing ASIS Welcome Party. Also, CEO Ruben Wegman granted his participation in the plenary panel discussion on ‘The Future of Security Technology’.
Half a year after the decision of ASIS and Nedap to add an informal networking event to the conference program the ASIS Welcome Party powered by Nedap took place at the World Forum on the 1st of April. An incredible number of 350 enthusiastic security professionals could catch up on developments in the field in a casual setting. At the beginning of the evening, multitalented Niek Boes played the role of his spectacular character, which the visitors soon referred to as ‘The Robotic Man’. Once warmed, the visitors enjoyed the musical performance of Keys & Colors, who played requests that were brought to them on countless beer mats.
On the 2nd of April, Nedap CEO Ruben Wegman contributed to the plenary panel discussion on ‘The Future of Security Technology’. This session was moderated by British journalist Brian Sims and also the CEOs of Axis and Tyco cooperated. During the discussion Ruben explained his vision on the role of hardware in physical security, to which he cited the importance of a change in the thinking of ‘traditional’ security suppliers. As Ruben states: “Looking at the current security market, you see that little has changed in the last decades. And that is remarkable, especially when you consider that a security system handles huge amounts of data and functions as one of the major IT systems within a company nowadays. And that’s quite paradoxal. Because, in physical security, hardware is still leading; controllers are often dedicated to perform only one functionality, such as access control. This is rarely beneficial to the client, who often encounter inflexible systems where expansion is unnecessarily expensive. Often with a patchwork of systems as a result. Taking this into consideration, it is important that physical security systems start to behave more similar to IT systems, where generic hardware and open standards have already been a logical concept for many years. For the future of physical security I foresee the same principle. 
Although the event is not over yet, Nedap already positively looks ahead to the future of security, and to the 14th edition of the ASIS European Security Conference in Frankfurt in 2015.
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