Incidents of children drowning in swimming pools have been on an alarming rise in the recent past. According to recent statistics, in the USA alone around 6,000 cases of people drowning in residential swimming pools have been reported each year. Official records also state that more than 50% of all swimming pools drownings are of children less than 10 years old.

Several pieces of research have been initiated to tackle this issue and prevent these unfortunate incidents. Coral Drowning Detection came up with an AI based technology that can help reduce these statistics dramatically. The company developed the first drowning detection system for private swimming pools, through its signature product Coral Manta 3000, which is touted as the system’s breakthrough in solar-powered Artificial Intelligence technology.

The product, a plug and play system, is a self-installed device that sends smartphone notifications when anyone first enters the pool and more importantly, when it detects risk of drowning. Says Eyal Golan, Co-Founder & CEO Coral Drowning Detection Systems that the device is a game-changer, as drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for infants and toddlers in the USA and other countries around the globe. “The system is the first of its kind to detect drowning and sends alerts within seconds while operating 24/7. In the case that the system detects an unmoving human body underwater for 15 seconds, it also sounds an alarm in the pool, in the home and in the parents’ smartphones to allow for immediate response.”

The Journey

Eyal notes that he started working on the Coral Manta 3000 in 2014, out of a personal need for increased pool safety. “I joined hands with Dr. Tamar Avraham, who is also a computer wizard and set out to create this product as the leading pool safety system, utilizing the latest Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence technology, applying the emerging Deep Learning algorithms”.

The development was inspired by the latest HLS, Defense, and Self Driving Cars applications,” he notes explaining that the company and the product were named after two young girls who drowned to death about two months after the duo started working on developing the product. “The two girls, age 12, drown together in a backyard pool. Their names were Coral and Or (which in Hebrew means “light”) and we decided to name the product after them.”

AI – The future

Eyal possesses more than 30 years of experience in software development and has worked in an array of industries including embedded systems, defense systems, financial, and Internet-based systems as well as in large scale project management as well as an entrepreneur. “It was very clear that AI, based on deep Learning based algorithms is the future, not only with regard to safety, but in general.” Noting that AI is the future, Eyal notes that AI is still not magic, in the sense that a lot of adjustments as per the specific applications are needed to make it perform in the expected commercial standards.

The Visionary

Quip him on the issues faced as a startup company, Eyal adds that an entrepreneur should expect ups and downs during the start-up journey. “Once the product was ready, it required much more effort and sophistication to get the message across, both in terms of awareness (to the existence of the product) as well as in terms of education (what is the value proposition compared to other products people are familiar with).” “As a CEO of a small and relatively resourceless company, every day is like a battle, but it is also about what make this journey so enjoyable and rejoicing. The goal keeps the entire team very motivated despite the hardships on the way” adds Eyal.