- We've covered personal safety apps before,
but today we've got one designed
by a father and security professional
with decades of experience in national security.
His concerns over violence against the black community,
especially black youth, drove him to do something about it.
- My name is James Allen Samuel, Jr.
and I'm the founder and CEO of Pluribus Inc.
- James's company, Pluribus Data,
originally created ANJEL Tech as a small piece
of a larger product,
but, once they saw the wider use for this tool,
they broke it out into its own app.
ANJEL Tech is like having a personal body cam
for your phone.
It live streams whatever your camera sees
to trusted contacts and stores that footage on the cloud
and, with its consistent location updates,
your loved ones can see where you are
when you recorded the emergency.
But, what inspired the creator of ANJEL Tech?
- Being a child of God and really caring
about my fellow man and woman, just humanity.
So it's a love for people, our safety, our dignity,
and being a father.
I'm a father of two little boys and a husband of, you know,
this remarkable woman that we just talked about,
Dr. Evelyn T. Samuel.
It just happened.
I said, in other places,
you know, like I was compelled.
I had to do something.
I have 30 years, right?
I started when I was three years old,
of federal service in really highly technical fields.
I'm an engineer, I'm a fighter pilot,
and I'm a 20 year veteran
of the U.S. intelligence community,
you know, working in big data
and working in predictive analysis
and all kinds of other things.
So, you know, national security is in my blood
and turning that into personal security
was like a no-brainer.
- Before we get too far,
my conversation with James touches on heavy subjects,
like police brutality and school shootings.
These are tough topics, but they're issues of public safety
and we did not want to shy away from them.
ANJEL Tech aims to protect all families
and give victims a voice and a record
that might otherwise disappear.
After 14 iterations of the app,
we have the latest version that's out today.
So what is ANGEL Tech?
I'll turn it over to James again.
- So, ANJEL Tech is the world's premier
personal security system or service, right?
It is a live streaming body camera.
It's on your cell phone
and I'll be happy to show you how it works
here in just a second.
So if you ever feel yourself in an unsafe situation
or you're unsure about your well-being
or the well-being of someone else around you,
instead of streaming to your social media
or keeping it on your phone,
you use ANJEL Tech to stream, capture,
and share that incident.
- One of the biggest reasons
ANJEL Tech uses the cloud is incidents of police
or others interfering with recording.
With ANJEL Tech streaming right to the cloud,
users don't have to worry about someone
or something interfering with their footage.
After all, even streaming to social media,
isn't totally reliable.
- There's an officer in California,
you can Google it,
and there's another one who's done the same thing.
One plays, like, Disney music and the other
plays just something off their phone.
They knew that the copyright algorithms
on these social media streaming platforms
would block that stream.
It would stop it.
That's, sadly, a defense mechanism some members
of law enforcement, in particular,
have taken to block people's streaming.
- ANJEL Tech was designed with incidents like these in mind
but, it's not limited to interactions with police.
- You can also use it for not just police stops.
You can use it for hostile public interactions.
You can sadly, Katie, use it for school shootings, as well.
As in the case of Uvalde,
there were parents and kids kind of texting
and talking to each other, you know, during that event
and the parents are trying to get in
to save their kids, right?
You know, because we have that mapping feature
and it updates every 10 seconds,
it shows your location every 10 seconds
while you're streaming.
You can know exactly, within a precise GPS coordinate,
where your child is in that school, in that moment, as well.
So, I don't even like to think about
that use case for it, but it does that, too.
- While it's hard to think about,
an app like this could keep parents and kids
connected during the unthinkable.
It could also help during robberies in progress,
traffic accidents, or in situations of domestic violence.
These scary scenarios might not be something
we want to dwell on, but for James and ANJEL Tech,
it's all about empowerment.
- And, that's the thing, right?
That's really the crux of what ANJEL Tech does
is it captures the perspective of the victim.
It captures the perspective of the person using it.
God forbid they become a victim, right?
It actually empowers them to not really be a victim,
to actually take charge of their safety that moment
and put everyone on notice, like,
"Hey, I am filming this and I'm recording this."
and that happens.
Also, to tell them, "My family's watching this right now
and they know exactly where I am
and, I'm sorry, what's your name?
Oh, it's Katie.
Okay and, Katie, they know exactly who you are.
Right and they have a record of this
that is not on this phone so they can see this now,
and it's in the cloud,
and they have a copy of it as well."
ANJEL Tech is designed to lessen these events
and to provide the perspective and the voice
of the person who is being attacked
so we know what happened.
We know what precipitated that encounter,
because what we often see is, oh, the result was
they got shot and a person was standing their ground.
Yeah? Well, what happened?
Did you pick the fight?
Did you instigate it?
Did you first, you know, infringe upon their human rights
to put them into a position?
Did you back them into a corner where they had
to fight for their lives and then you took it, you know?
All of that needs to come out, as well,
and ANJEL Tech is designed to capture that
and hopefully prevent it
and certainly ensure accountability after it.
- Basically, ANJEL Tech provides an untouched live recording
of what's happening in real time for people closest to you.
So if you're harmed in a situation or fear for your life,
you still have a voice.
During our conversation,
James gave me a quick demo of ANJEL Tech in action.
- And so, you know, you open it up
and it goes right to the camera.
It's fast. It goes right there to the camera.
So that's the first thing that it does, right?
There's other features on there, but when you open it,
you know, you need to be able to stream right away.
So, one button to open it
and then down here, in the bottom, it says "Start Stream."
So, I'm just gonna hit "Start Stream".
You're seeing my bookcase here
and then there's gonna be notification that comes through.
There is the in-app notification.
Then, there will be another notification.
There's a text message.
There's the text message that just came through
and I just got an email.
So there's three different ways
that I was just notified this stream started
and my family, who's watching this right now,
also received that same in-app notification.
They got the text message and they got the email.
They now know that I am live. It says "live" there.
At some point they're liable to start interacting with you.
So I'm on an interview with SafeWise, right now, with Katie.
So that's how it works.
That video is now stored in the cloud
and it's gonna pull all my videos down
from the cloud here in just a second.
My family has access to this same library.
We all have a shared library.
So, when we're all on that one account,
we all have a library of all these videos
and if they, and when they stream,
I get a copy of your video.
It goes into our shared video library
and then they can watch it.
They see exactly where it is
and there's a map that shows you the location, where I am.
When I go back, there are these three little dots
that say "Share", "Location", and "Download"
and they can hit "Download", which I'll hit right now.
I hit "Download" and it spins around
and it's pulling that video now out of the cloud
and it's putting it on my phone.
- Is there a way to adjust, say, for example,
my dad doesn't check his email
or my mom isn't good at texting,
is there a way to kind of customize
which notification goes to who?
- No. Right now, all three go to every one.
- [Katie] Great. And so that way...
That's why we did it three different ways, essentially,
to make sure that they get notified, you know,
from the app, if it's on and working, if they have it.
If they don't have the app, that's okay.
We send them a text
and if they, you know, are in a place
where they can't have their cell phone,
in like the national security kind of a framework
where they can't have their phone and work,
then we also send them an email.
That way we try three different ways
to make sure your family knows that you need them
right then and there
and we're updating it.
We're actually coming out with an audible
and a vibration kind of a thing
where it actually sends an audible alarm, as well,
so if the phone's across the room then their phone chirps
and says, "Hey, you have an ANJEL stream that just started."
We're working on that now.
Oh, there's my brother.
Now he says, "See you bro!"
- Oh, hi Uncle Keith.
- [James] Yeah.
- Say, I want to get to your location.
Does it pull it up in a different app
or is all the mapping within ANJEL Tech?
- It uses the device's resident mapping.
So if you have an iPhone, it uses the Apple maps.
If you have an Android, it uses Google maps
and it ties together through their, you know,
those APIs that those developers allow you to use
to basically use the mapping device on that phone.
- All of these powers combined gives you, your kids,
and other loved ones the ability to stay updated
in emergencies.
With the live stream sent to the cloud in real time,
anything you record will remain untouched
and available to your loved ones
long after the incident occurs.
ANJEL tech is a paid service,
with free trials available for some of it's family plans.
You can start with an individual plan for $5 a month
or go all the way up to $19 a month for nine people
in your network.
- There is now a tool that goes along with "the talk".
- But, what is "the talk" and does James have any advice
for concerned parents out there?
When we say "the talk", we don't mean the birds, the bees
or sitting down around the latest report card.
"The talk" is something many families of color,
especially black families, have with their kids
about interacting with law enforcement
and this big talk can start long before children
reach their teens.
James suggests adding a tool, like ANJEL Tech,
to spark this conversation,
especially once your kids hit the road on their own.
- You know, especially the African American persuasion,
right, that talk that you have with your kids, like,
"Hey, you're starting to drive now.
You've got your driver's permit."
and, you know, you talk to them about road safety.
You teach them how to drive
or ensure they learn how to drive
and then, of course, at some point you have to tell them,
"Hey, you know, if you get pulled over by a police officer,
here's what you need to do, you know.
You're respectful, you know, be courteous,
get your driver's license, your registration, and
you know, just prepare to interact with that officer.
Make sure, you know, your hands are seen."
This is another thing that's added now into that talk,
into that advice, that counsel that parents
give their children.
"So, you know, you pull over in a safe place,
get your ANJEL stream started as soon as you can,
as soon as you pull over, you know,
not while you're driving, right,
be safe.
But as soon as you pull over,
start that ANJEL stream.
Car goes in park, ANJEL stream's started.
Now, as you're getting your driver's license
and your registration,
you're preparing for the cops to go to the window,
go ahead and start talking about what's happening.
'Hey, I got pulled over. I'm on route three or what not.
I don't know what happened. I wasn't speeding.
I'm a little nervous now.'"
They can just start really narrating their perspective
of that whole stop and their family now has that like,
"Hey, okay, you're nervous."
You know and they can text you, like,
you didn't see what my brother...
they can text you in that moment, like,
"Hey, you're okay" or "Be calm"
or "Remember what we told you" and you go, "Okay"
and you can swipe the text away,
but the stream is still going, right?
- James even had a nugget of wisdom
for us adult drivers, too.
- Call 911,
if you're being followed by a police officer
and you don't feel like you can stop safely,
to let the dispatcher know that,
"Yes, I know that I'm being pulled over.
I'm on a route, whatever."
Now there's a document of that call as well to say,
"Hey, I'm moving over to this safer place.
There's no lights here or
I don't feel like it's a safe place to pull over.
Please tell the officer behind me
that I'm gonna get off at the next exit."
So, you can actually call 911 when the cops
are behind you to let the dispatcher know
to tell that car that this is what's going on.
- So what's next for ANJEL Tech
and where does James see this technology headed?
- Yeah, we have a ton planned.
ANJEL Tech, the version that's out right now,
is version one.
It's version 1.1.4. but it's still that first version.
We have a product roadmap with other features
and other integrations that I can't wait to roll out.
Our R and D department is on fire
and so, yeah, it's only gonna get a lot better.
- Unfortunately, James wasn't able to give any hard details
about ANJEL Tech's product roadmap.
I'll be sure to share any more updates I get
from James and ANJEL Tech here,
on our YouTube channel.
So, be sure to subscribe to get those.
Check our description below to find ANJEL Tech's website,
as well as links to the Apple app and Google Play stores.
We've also linked two sources, in the description,
we used for this video.
Over the last decade and beyond,
we've seen incidents of violence across the nation.
Gun violence, police brutality, domestic violence,
and hate crimes feel like they paint the headlines every day
but, with an app like ANJEL Tech,
you and your loved ones don't have to be victims
and you can feel a little better handing the car keys
over to your kids.
I'd like to thank James A. Samuel, Jr., again,
for sitting down with me and sharing his app
with us on SafeWise.
Be sure to like and subscribe
for more videos from us every week.
Thanks for watching and stay safe.
Thanks for watching
and if you want more safety,
head over to safewise.com and you can find reviews
and our lineups of best home security systems,
best wireless cameras, and more.
Stay safe.
(soft jazz music)