OpenEye hosts Bike Build event for Washington schoolchildren

LIBERTY LAKE, Wash. – Dec. 6 marked the twelfth year that the OpenEye cloud managed video surveillance company held its holiday Bike Build event.

OpenEye hosted more than 100 schoolchildren from the Central Valley School District, where it worked together with OpenEye staff members to build new bicycles at the company's Washington headquarters. The event also featured a presentation and hands-on labs where students could build a PC and use a surveillance camera to search for characters. 

“The bike building event is an amazing opportunity to inspire curiosity for technology in the youth of our community at the same time as bringing joy to some amazing kids,” said Matt Bolster, OpenEye’s director of software engineering. “The impact of this event was really captured by my student in one sentence: ‘This is the best birthday of my entire life!!!’ I love being part of a company that places so much value in people.”

Security Systems News reached out to OpenEye to learn more about the history of its bike building event. “I participated in a small charitable bike building event through the leadership organization YPO over a decade ago,” OpenEye CEO Rick Sheppard said. “I liked the idea, so we evolved it into the program we run today.” The Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) is an American-based worldwide leadership community of chief executives with nearly 29,000 members.

The Bike Build rewards students selected by the district who display positive character traits and hard work. "We are trying to positively reinforce their behavior and draw a clear link between their hard work in school and the opportunity to work for OpenEye or another exciting technology company someday," Sheppard added.

OpenEye gave special thanks to the Central Valley School District for its help in coordinating the charity event. “This was an awesome event and I had a fantastic time. It was really great seeing the smiling faces and excitement from the kids,” said Technical Product Manager Chris Davis.

OpenEye is a video surveillance company offering cloud-based solutions for business intelligence and loss prevention. Its 20-year commitment to developing an easy-to-use, comprehensive video management system is backed by the company's Heroic Customer Support. For more information about OpenEye’s products and services please visit www.openeye.net.