Bain & Company tackle street crime with Latin focused startup Base Operations

Personal security startup Base Operations has partnered with Bain & Company in Latin America to pilot its security heat-map application. The pilot will take place in six cities across the region including Mexico City, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

Latin America is one of the most urbanized geographies on earth and its cities are notoriously the most dangerous. In fact, of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world – according to homicide rate per 100,000 citizens – 43 are in Latin America, with the remaining seven split between the US and South Africa. Mexico and Brazil are the two countries with the most ‘dangerous cities’, with Venezuela, Honduras and Colombia also making appearances.

Whilst the high murder rate does not fairly represent the situation on the ground in the majority of Latin cities – with organized crime, poverty and corruption driving the prevalence of violence confined to a minority of citizens – there is still much to be desired from the level of security. Base Operations was created to increase the personal security of citizens via a connected online platform.

Base Enterprise is an AI-powered SaaS platform that helps companies manage the risk inherent in having employees travel internationally for work. Base Operations founders Cory Siskind and Nick Gomez aim to take on this sentiment of insecurity through Industry 4.0 technology. “So much brain power go into solving problems like ‘getting people the exact Amazon product’,” says the duo, “Why can’t we can use those same technologies to solve larger social problems – like chronic violence and insecurity?” 

Co-founder and CEO Siskind is a ex-strategy and risk management consultant who has worked for years across Latin America including with Control Risks as a research analyst and with Booz & Company – now PwC’s Strategy&. Gomez comes from a technical background and has undertaken multiple roles as a full stack developer including with the MIT Media Lab. 

The Base Operations app compiles data from crowdsourcing and police databases and creates a heat map of a city which has experienced high levels of crime. The map – in contrast to Google Maps which shows the fastest route – will instead redirect the user through a safer route.  

“Where in Australia or Europe you generally you have neighbourhoods that are good or a bit rough, in Latin America and other parts of the world this can change entirely between streets,” said Joseph D. Simpson from Consultancy.lat’s editorial team who lived in Bogotá, Colombia. It is an experience that is wildly familiar for those who live or travel in Latin America. Having a map that can divert the path of a known ‘no-go zone’ could add a certain sense of security and mitigate the risks of navigating a Latin city.