Northstar

FEATURE | INNOVATIONS 44 Jul-Aug 2017 MEETINGS & CONVENTIONS • MCMAG-ASIA.COM 4 Biometrics. Your ngers and eyes could make your credit cards, concert tickets and event passes obsolete. Fingerprint and iris scans already are widely used to verify identity and can be used as a form of payment by associating a biometric pro le with a credit card number. CLEAR, the company behind expedited security lanes at airports, seeks to drive biometric innovations in the meetings and travel space. By the end of this month, CLEAR kiosks will be in 22 airports nationally; by the end of the year, expect to see them in many more airports, as well as stadiums, convention centers and other venues. CLEAR is, essentially, a machine that con rms your identity via nger tap or iris scan, notes Caryn Seidman Becker, chairman and CEO of the company. The platform, poised to pass the million-user mark this month, uses biometrics and data analysis to streamline security and improve the customer experience. In airports, CLEAR speeds up the identify-veri cation part of the security process. Instead of waiting for TSA agents to check IDs and boarding passes, CLEAR members step up to touch-and-go kiosks that read ngerprints or iris scans. From there, a CLEAR agent escorts them to the physical screening point, bypassing the line of "regular" passengers. That can easily cut an hour out of a typical airport experience. To maximise the potential bene ts to its members, CLEAR is developing an application-programming interface (API), so that third parties can plug in and take advantage of the same biometric technology. As for privacy concerns, customer data is never shared nor sold, assures Seidman Becker. CLEAR already has successfully piloted its technology for other uses, such as cashless payment for airport purchases. The coming year should be a breakout one for implementation of such features, predicts CLEAR's CEO. For conventions, biometric ID veri cation can add a layer of security, becoming one's registration veri cation, a ticket to related events or access to restricted areas. CLEAR's vision is that any "closed- loop ecosystem," such as airports, theme parks, arenas, convention centers or universities, can bene t from biometrics, improving the user experience and allowing sta to focus on delighting the customer. Delta Air Lines is among suppliers that have embraced the concept. The airline gives free or discounted membership to its frequent yers. – LOREN G. EDELSTEIN Caryn Seidman Becker, chairman and CEO of CLEAR Because the Internet of Things depends on solid network connectivity, venues are investing in infrastructures that can make IoT work. Take, for example, the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre. When the venue was renovated four years ago, the owners rebuilt the infrastructure around an extremely robust Wi-Fi system – one that can accommodate up to 10,000 devices simultaneously. The goal of the venue is to be able to provide a "seamless, connected, immersive experience" to every show organiser, according to the Suntec Centre's CEO, Arun Madhok. Today, the building operations themselves run o of this same interconnected high- bandwidth system available to show organisers. For example, when someone moves dividing walls in the meetings spaces via the building's control center, the AC units and the built-in speaker system separate automatically, recon guring themselves for the new room setup. When a VIP attendee with an RFID badge enters the building, tiny sensors embedded in the ceiling can read the badge and trigger the enormous high-de nition screen covering the wall to display a welcome message to that attendee. "Increasingly, people want to be wowed," says Madhok. Investment in IoT infrastructure is one way to make that happen. 5 Cloud-based solutions. Since seemingly forever, many meeting planners have been heavily reliant on Excel spreadsheets, resisting more automated systems. Granted, this isn't solely about the slow adoption of new technologies; in many cases, meetings-management platforms simply haven't been customisable enough to meet every planner's speci c needs. With each year, though, the latest platforms deliver new

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