From Refugee to Tech CEO: David Ly's Incredible Journey

Full transcript

So welcome back to the podcast, guys. Today we're joined by David Ly. David, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much, Nicholas. So David, why don't we start by you telling us a little bit about yourself and what you guys do. Okay, a little bit about myself. I'm based here in Mesa, sunny Mesa, Arizona. And I've you. been in the Iveda, IP video surveillance business since 2003. So that puts us at about two decades, 20 years now. And for that 20 years, it's the same iveda. iVeta was founded a little over 20 years ago. And our company specializes in IP video surveillance technology since 2003. We were one of the first companies here in the United States to actually have customer video from the sites. And All, you know, kind of like the you. stores, the 7 -Elevens of the world. And we would take their video and centralize it at a data center in 2005. So remember, this is when the iPhone was barely beginning to come out. So we were very early in the technology of video management, video storage, video redistribution. And that became big data, right? Big data. And then came cloud.

And then after cloud came leveraging that data, AI. AI. Iveda has been in the business for 20 years. And what Iveda does now is that we are experts in video analytic platform. Along with video data, we also manage other sorts of data from sensors. We call that, you know, the Internet of Things, IoT. Sensors, traditional analog sensors now collected you. over the Internet. With AI, we can make sense of what every activity and movement might mean in a business or in a living situation. So with that said, iveda today is a leading AI video analytic platform, as well as IoT centralization of data. And we make sense of all of that for really smart city solutions across the world. you. when you hear smart cities, it just means that there's a lot of data out there from your streets to your buildings to your neighborhoods to the environment, airports, et. And it all comes together to say, where should traffic flow? Where should I go shopping today? What's the weather going to be like? And should I wear a jacket? There's so many things. That's what Iveda is doing right now after 20 you.

is we're making sense of a lot of data in this world. And we do so you. with our platform without requiring anybody to buy new cameras, buy a lot of new hardware, rip and replace anything they have. The point is, people talk Internet of Things. You got to take existing infrastructure and then make sense of it. Have it now work for you and not you work for it. That's what we do. Thats you. Okay, that's great introduction. And I did some digging, David, and I found that you've actually fled Vietnam at four years old on a boat with your aunt. Yes. If you had to say, did that experience shape if a business, how you think about risk and actually building a company? I to don't if say any a zoom today. business Say, Nicholas, goes, it is so cool that you asked that question. don't I I know. When so a business.

people ask me, please tell us about yourself. I used to start with that and it would take so long to bring people up to comprehension. But I thank you so much for asking me that. And I'll get right to the point. The answer is yes. At four years old, I didn't know what to be afraid of. You know, my parents and my family had to actually lie to me and say that I'm going to school, right, on a special field trip so that I don't make noise. Or if I'm asked by the officials that I don't say anything wrong. When you're a child, you don't know any of that is happening. You're just going on a field trip with some ice cream. And I ended up on, you know, gray mud swamp soil escaping on a fishing boat out to open waters. And you either get rescue or you die back then. I didn't know that.

But we were fortunately rescued by a Norwegian fishing liner that dropped us off in Japan. So I ended up about four, four and a half being a refugee in Japan and then immigrated to the United States just in time for kindergarten in the U .S. So, you know, Vietnamese, a little bit of Japanese as a child, and then English immediately starting from kindergarten. But, yeah, as far as risk, Nicholas, it certainly has because I truly believe, I know That it may sound cliche, but if you put your mind to it, just know that it's possible. Just know. It's not that it might be, it will be possible. And I've always lived for that. Okay. And going back, you were also a top salesman at T -Mobile. So what actually made you leave a successful corporate career to start Evida at 27 years of age? Man, you did do some digging, huh? Yeah, I was winner circle, president's club, you. you know, all the big corporation sales thing. Frankly, again, you. might sound you. cliche. I was looking for you. a challenge.

Not that my job was not hard. Every job is very difficult to succeed at. When you truly succeed, that means you're actually doing something. You're actually hustling. You're actually truly working and you. just praying that something happens, right? I've been there, you. done you. so I'm gonna to speak frankly with you. Yeah, I was a hustler. I was cold calling every morning. I was on the phone. I was driving with the suit on in Arizona, hot as heck. You now, you're sweating. you. Talk you. if you. you don't get out there and you. knock on a door and talk to somebody like you and I are talking now, how the heck are you going to make a sale? How are you going to make money? I did all that I could. But when it came to having an idea, you. how to make my life easier as a sales guy, new tools, new tactics, new style of doing something. My ideas were not heard. My ideas were, get my. you. you. Thank okay, David. It's awesome. We believe it one day. I was you. when that one day might be.

I'm just a sales guy. I might be managing sales team. Okay, all that sounds all cool. But man, Nicholas, I had nowhere to go. What are they going to do? Promote me to vice president? What am I going to do? The same thing? What about the better way of doing something? A cooler way of doing something. Something cool to put to use in the field. I had those ideas even back then, but I was just a sales guy. So I said, the heck with it. Let's go try these ideas somewhere else. Okay. Thank you. I know that Iveda has been around since 2003, you already said that. And kind of the AI boom happened around 20 years ago or 20 years later, sorry. What was it like building AI tech before anyone actually cared about AI? I... Wow. I love your questions and thank you for the due diligence. I'm going to have to be frank. I didn't know what AI was until like 2018. Okay. 2018. That's probably still ahead of the hype, I would have to say. But we built what we have now based on our own hardship.

I the used to have a room, I think 6 ,000 8 to ,000 square feet office of a bunch of people we call intervention specialists. And these are humans that watch cameras on a screen, Nicholas. Okay. Imagine all the NVR, DVR, the stuff you see on TV, big screens. We had that in 2008 to 2010, 12 -ish. Full -time staff, 24 -7 watching. We were manually typing reports for customers every morning. These reports back in the day, we had to cut and paste and then put in a PDF. mean, I very manual, Thank IT? you. very manual. But it was beautiful for the customer. They got to know what happened on their properties and sites across America every morning through a beautiful PDF in their email. It wasn't even links back then, but in their email. But that operation was quite intensive. Human beings miss things. We frankly are not as aware throughout our eight Hour shift. You know, we go on breaks, we go on lunch, we fall asleep, we get tired. Right? We're not machines. And based on being human, we sucked. It wasn't perfect.

We missed things. And it became a problem. If you're going to scale a good quality business with such risks, it was not viable. But we didn't just give up. We had to do something to improve getting the attention of our human personnel. We had to build technology that focused when the human had the best of energy utilized. Where should it be focused on? That you. And that's what built and spawned into what Iveda AI, all our IoT and cerebral centralized management. All that sounds cool now, but it all derived from problems that we ourselves experience. So this is not about, so, I started something and we had a great idea and we made money. No, that's full of BS. Our company was facing problems in our own operation that we had to fix. And we realized that the things that we were building, the technology and tools that we were putting into place can also help others in the world because we're not alone in having problems. Everybody in the world has the same problems, whether they admit it or not. We just knew that we're going to suck if we don't fix it.

So my technology now fixes all that sucked. I'm speaking frankly with you. And we believe we are the best at it now because from personal experience and a whole company's experience. So yes, machine learning, we had to replicate some of the manual recognition and jobs that we were conducting. And we had to take that data and say, remember all this, anything like this, similar to this ever again shows up from a dog, a cat, a human or whatever. Either dismiss or send an alert so that the human can pay attention. It started in 2013, 14, 15 until we partnered with another organization to really work on technology development to where today it makes sense and where Ayurveda AI, the product, little ad there, is one of the world's best today in AI platform. Right? Right? So we're doing the job of what humans cannot do consistently for a long period of time. And now the AI is doing it. It can be taught to do and recognize and alert on anything out there in the world. And that's where we sit today.

I have a question around the tech that you guys use to actually detect threats in airports and schools. How do you kind of balance the safety benefits with the privacy concerns that people normally have about AI? How Yeah, we deal with that now, especially today. Now know, the privacy concerns now has crossed the oceans over to even America. You know, people in public are like, I personally believe that when you're in public, you're in public. If you pick your nose, you're going to be seen picking your nose. Right? Let's just be real. But yes, in respect to privacy concerns and respect to addressing compliance regulations out there, of course, we see and addressed all of that by design and implementation of our technology. Look, if people are afraid you're going to see what they look like or know who you are, by design within the technology's core, we have privacy measures that is as simple as a click of a button to comply with GDPR compliance in Europe.

You push a button, boom, everything's redacted. The entire data set, metadata, everything's redacted of human faces, license plate, anything that can identify and attach and tie a physical ID to some document. We killed all that. Frankly, it's very easy to meet ethical and privacy requirements in technology. Companies just need to realize that all you got to do is just cut the cord. If people don't want this one and two connected, cut the cord electronically. Bits and bytes, don't let it happen. you. And that's all we did. But yes, we're very well aware as we expand our technology globally, you've got to be able to meet these compliances, earn the respect and trust of your customers, clients, and governments. And I think, frankly, Nicholas, we've been around too long and we're tired. We're tired. So we prepare ourselves to not have to deal with ridiculousness. That's where we stand right now as a company. We get what people are afraid of. We get what misconceptions are out there in the world. you.

why not just address it? And we do that very well with everything from HIPAA compliance to ISO 27001 to SOC 2 compliance to GDPR compliant. We are one of very few U .S. of Department Homeland Security designated company as an anti -terrorism technology. So imagine the due diligence behind that. That just a lot. You just got to be proactive. you. Have the desire to interact with people. And the more people you wish to interact with, you just got to be ready for it. So yeah, Iveda is ready. Thank you. Well, in reality, a year from now, you know how sales process works, right? No. Business -wise, it's fantastic. You know, it takes quality time. Like they said, Rome wasn't built overnight. And Ayurveda certainly was not built overnight. And it takes a lot of quality time to build a great organization. I'm very proud of Ayurveda. I'm proud very of our people. I would have to say after 20 20-something years, a year from now means a lot more than if you me this question, say, 10 years ago.

But a year from now, we look to really have served a whole new era of clientele. What that means, Nicholas, is, you know, AI is new. As much as people think it's taking over, sure. Yeah, it is. Just kind of like cloud, big data, wireless cell phones, a lot of microwaves going way back. But a year from now, we're going to be very successfully leading the efforts with our partners around the world you. that are deploying trusted technologies. We want a year from now to be the company that people call to deploy technology that they can trust. What that means is people shop. I get it. They shop for price. They shop for feature. They shop, look what I can do. You see, I'm very tired in the industry. Just find the right vehicle and drive it. we want to be that vehicle that one can trust without needing to shop. That's my goal for the next year in AI technology. I'm going to love your help with this. Yes. you. .com, Iveda .com, traditional website. Please you. follow us on LinkedIn, iVeda, iVeda Solutions.

Follow us on social media because that's where you're going to learn what we're doing around the world with our partners every day, enabling the technology to do something good, to show some value, not just cool tech, but what is it? What kind of impact are we having in the real world? Follow us on all social media platforms and call us anytime. Great. David, thanks for joining the podcast and we'll see you in the next one. Great questions. Thank you, Nicholas, for the opportunity.