Benji Hutchinson
President & Chief Operating Officer, Paravision
Benji Hutchinson was named president and chief operating officer of Paravision in July. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Paravision is a Silicon Valley startup focused on computer vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Hutchinson has 18 years of experience in the biometrics and identity technology industry. Before joining Paravision, he led the creation of a federal technology practice within NEC Corporation of America. In that role on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, he managed the team that rolled out the nation’s first facial recognition-based biometric entry/exit program across the U.S.
In addition, Hutchinson led the creation of and served as the first president of NEC National Security Systems. Before NEC, he held senior positions in the biometrics industry with MorphoTrust (now IDEMIA), Booz Allen Hamilton, Six3 Systems (acquired by CACI) and Harris Corp. (now L3 Harris).
The addition of Hutchinson “is both a signal of our level of maturity as a company and our commitment to growing the business with a heavy emphasis on customer success and industry expertise,” said Doug Aley, CEO of Paravision.
“We are also committed to the ethical development and sale of our computer vision and AI,” Aley said. “Benji’s background as an adjunct professor of privacy, policy, ethics and law, along with his involvement in various industry privacy advocacy efforts over the years contributes to our overall commitment to an ethical approach to building our business.”
Why Watch
Facial recognition technology has seen an explosive growth period. Over the past three years, Paravision’s facial recognition technology consistently ranked by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the top 10 globally in performance and accuracy. Computer vision and AI technology is on the precipice of enormous growth as the global economy emerges from the pandemic.
Hutchinson and the Paravision team are poised to capitalize on this growth, by focusing on the revolution promised by these technologies in hot areas such as contactless physical and logical access, travel identification, border management, remote identity proofing for on-boarding/off-boarding, frictionless payments and fraud prevention for benefits administration.
Paravision closed a series C round of funding of $23 million in April, and Hutchinson said the focus will be on growing the business through increased sales and headcount as the computer vision and AI market segments take off.
“We’re scaling up our business operations to take advantage of growth in these hot sectors,” he added. “We are excited and confident that our people, technology and business model will meet the global demand for increased automation.”