Robots: the next big thing? They'll be at PSA-TEC

PSA-TEC will have some new attendees this year: Robots.

There will be drones and ground-based robots at PSA Security's annual education and training event PSA-TEC, which will takes place May 8-13 in Westminster, Colo.

Bill Bozeman, PSA Security CEO, believes security robotics is the next big opportunity—and challenge—for the security industry.

“We'll have three sessions [related to robotics] at TEC,” Bozeman said. He noted that PSA Security led the industry on the cybersecurity front, holding its Cyber Security Congress early in 2015.

“We like to start the conversation at TEC about what the future will look like [in terms of technology],” he said.

In the days leading up to PSA-TEC, Bozeman will be attending a drone conference in New Orleans, where he'll get a close look at aerial, ground and marine-based drones.

Bozeman said that he expects Security Robotics to be the next committee created by PSA Security.

PSA currently has five committees, relatively recently created, that explore topics of interest to security integrators. The committees are tasked with sharing information at PSA-TEC, through the PSA website and elsewhere, coming up “playbooks” for integrators and developing best practices and standards to save integrators time, money and resources.

The five committees are: Project Management Committee, Sales & Marketing Committee, Technical Committee, Leadership Committee, and the� Cyber Committee.

It seemed like everyone was talking about cybersecurity at ISC West. I had a chance to speak to Andrew Lanning, co-founder of integration firm IST, and chairman of the PSA Security Cyber Committee, at the show. Lanning's group plans to share its preliminary cybersecurity playbook with integrators at PSA-TEC in May.

Lanning's group is looking at processes and products with the goal of helping integrators, from the super IT-savvy integrators, to those who are just starting to educate themselves about IT best practices and cybersecurity, he said.

Anthony Berticelli, PSA director of education, oversees all of the committees. “There will be nine committee-led session at TEC,” Berticelli said. “There will be peer-to-peer sessions and roundtable sessions and several of the sessions will overlap [committee jurisdiction],” he said.

PSA-TEC is open to everyone in the security industry. One does not have to be a PSA member to attend PSA-TEC. Here's a link to information about the conference.