Interview with Alasdair Field, CEO at Wearable Camera Company: Reveal

Reveal is an award-winning tech company – we design and manufacture body worn camera and video systems that are designed to support and protect frontline workers. Our revolutionary tech is used by police forces, prison employees, local government organisations, private security firms, healthcare facilities and retail outlets globally. 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

I had a somewhat unconventional start to my career. I turned down a place at university in favour of pursuing work in the music industry, and at the age of 18, started as a tea boy at a well-known recording studio in London. My passion for music meant I was quickly promoted to sound engineer where I was fortunate enough to work with musical legends such as Tina Turner, Paul McCartney and Take That. 

Because I have always been so interested in audio and computing, I’ve often turned my hand to inventing various devices – one of which was a highly successful software system that allowed users to digitally store videos on the web and search through it at speed to identify specific sections of footage. A first-of-its-kind, the software was incredibly popular with TV and video editors and was used heavily by the Channel 4 Big Brother production team.

I then spotted an opportunity to build on this software platform and address the lack of real-time digital evidence management within the police force. Together with my other co-founders, we began approaching police constabularies to educate them on why such systems could revolutionise their approach to evidence management. 

However, my true lightbulb moment came when I saw the first body-worn camera used by police – a pretty basic design that I knew could be improved. Despite having no idea how to actually build a better version, I wasn’t deterred so I jumped on a flight to Hong Kong where I started working with manufacturers to build my first batch of 200 cameras. The rest is history!

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

The pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the lives of key workers.  Now, more than ever, it’s crucial that their protection from abuse is a top priority. We recently carried out some research that showed two thirds of UK shop workers fear abuse from customers if they try to implement Covid-19-related regulations. That’s a really worrying statistic, so we’ve been working really hard to ensure our partners in the retail space have enough of our technology to support their teams.

What can we hope to see from Reveal in the future?

Building our presence in new industries is very important. We know that the retail sector is a space where we see a lot of opportunities for Reveal – aggression towards retail staff has risen dramatically over recent years so our body worn cameras have massive potential to address this and protect key workers. Likewise, healthcare workers experience an unacceptable level of aggression and we’re seeing strong growth in this sector too.

International expansion is also very much a part of our plan. We currently have clients in more than 40 countries worldwide, as well as offices in the USA, Germany, China and Hong Kong – and there’s definitely opportunities for us to grow this.