For Carlton Vreen, attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas over the past few days has been "absolutely critical" for him and his Pittsburgh-based startup, Make It Home Safe.
With over 100,000 people expected to attend the multi-day event, Vreen said he's been keen to take advantage of all the global publicity offered to him as one of the hundreds of exhibitors taking up a booth on the showroom floor. He said he has spoken with people from Japan, South Korea, France and elsewhere who have all expressed interest in learning about how his mobile application is trying to improve the safety of motorists and law enforcement officers during traffic stops.
Equipped with an iPad and two smartphones loaded up with the application for demonstration purposes as well as hundreds of brochures to show how the app works, Vreen is ready to share his company's story with anyone who will listen. Unfortunately for his vocal cords but at the benefit of his startup, Vreen hasn't found much time where he isn't speaking with someone during the event.
"[CES] gives us the ability to market our product on a global scale," Vreen said. "There's been a huge amount of interest and responses because safety is everyone's concern, and it's really eye-opening to see that there are a lot of problems, not just here in the U.S. with police, but also in other parts of the world. … The biggest thing is, No. 1, that the exposure you get to other countries, to venture capitalists, which allows you to No. 2; increase your footprint, and it will also, No. 3, allow you to be introduced to investors and other technologies. For a startup, this is just absolutely critical."
Vreen said he expects the event, which runs from Jan. 5-8, will greatly impact the development of the startup throughout the year given the domestic and international connections he's made.
"It is absolutely wonderful that we'll be able to connect with other people; we're setting up meetings to follow up with all of these contacts that we're making to make the software available here in the United States and around the world," Vreen said. "[CES] is so big, and it can be a little overwhelming, but it is absolutely just fabulous the amount of exposure startups can get at this event."
But it's not just startups that can benefit from such an event.
O'Hara-based Powercast Corp. has been attending CES for over a decade to showcase its radio frequency-based wireless charging technology that's designed to seamlessly charge electronics like smartwatches, video game controllers and other low-energy-consuming items. The company's Ubiquity RF wireless power transmitter, which Powercast is touting as a new low-cost product in this space, has been named a CES Innovation Award honoree in three categories: Smart home, embedded technologies and sustainability, eco-design & smart energy.
And despite being an attendee for multiple years in a row, meeting new customers always seems to be a possibility during the event.
"That's what's interesting for us is we find these folks who sometimes don't even know that we exist or what our technology is capable of, and then you find a good fit to a problem that they're looking to solve, and that's how we've obtained some of our biggest customers is through this show," Eric Biehl, director of strategic partnerships at Powercast, said before noting that this year's show is also a lot closer to how the event felt before the pandemic. "It's much, much closer to back to normal, and I think that's a really fun thing to see, especially for the exhibitors here. It keeps us busy, much more fun than standing around. That's kind of the theme I've seen that I really like; it's crowded."
Other Pittsburgh-based tech companies that have an exhibit booth this year include Canonsburg-based software simulation company Ansys Inc.; Covestro, which has its North American headquarters based out of the Robinson area; and downtown-based Intromark Inc.
