Ukraine IT to help NY firefighters communicate inside skyscrapers

By: Segiy Sergienko, 4 Sep 2017
2 minutes

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Written by Vitalii Dubenskyi
Published on March 31, 2017, UBJ

Sirin Software, a Kyiv software development company, is devising a radio system to help New York City firefighters communicate inside tall buildings, still a technological obstacle 16 years after the World Trade Center disaster.

“Right now our company is working on the software/firmware package for the in‐built  radio system for firefighters in New York,” Alex Nikitenko, Sirin’s CEO said in an interview. “It should allow them to communicate freely, even if the team is distributed across a high‐rise building.”

The goal is to surpass traditional radio systems, which only work properly only if a building rises less than six stories.

“For taller buildings, the signal just doesn’t come through the concrete,” Nikitenko said. “And we help to build an embedded solution that solves this problem.”

Internet of Things

By embedding standardized equipment in the walls of highrises, Sirin is using ‘Internet of Things’ to create smarter modernized buildings.

Founded in 2014, Sirin started with vending machine projects, then progressively moved to more complex ‘Internet of Things,’ officially defined as the internetworking

of devices and locations embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and connectivity in order to exchange data.

With ‘Internet of Things,’ Sirin is riding a worldwide trend. According to the Gartner Research Group, in 2016, more than 60% of organizations in North America, Latin America, EMEA, and the Asia/Pacific region were implementing IoT solutions.

From Central Ukraine to Central Florida

Sirin’s R&D office is located in Kyiv. The company has a representative in Sanford, Florida, near Orlando. Looking ahead, Sirin plans to open sales offices in the U.S. and in Europe.

“Eighty‐five percent of our clients are American companies,” Nikitenko said from Sirin’s office at Yaroslavskaya St. 56a, in Podil. “We also have clients from Sweden, Japan and the UK and plan to expand our presence in Western Europe.”

Last year, Sirin expanded by merging with Lampa Studio, a firm specialized in web and mobile development.

Grow the People

Before starting his own company, Nikitenko worked for several big software companies, an experience that led him to believe that things can be done differently.

Focus on profit, he said, has to be nuanced to take account of motivation of employees and opportunities to grow professionally. ”We decided to do things in a different way,” he maintained. “We hire only productive and motivated individuals and provide them with the best working environment we can so they stay constantly involved in challenging projects.”

“We don’t plan to extensively grow our team,” he said. “We concentrate on the quality of engineering services, not on growing staff to get more paid manhours.”