HookMotion and Société des casinos du Québec have done it! What if it were possible to improve customer satisfaction through user experience combined with data collection? Or make it easier for humans and software to work together? HookMotion and the Société des casinos du Québec are innovating together on this subject.
In this interview, Dominic Morin-Proulx, COO, introduces us to HookMotion. This company specializes in computer vision. HookMotion enhances surveillance tools with autonomous, real-time analysis of existing cameras.
Tell us about your collaboration with Société des casinos du Québec. How did you get to this point?
“The company began as a result of a reverse pitch from the Société des Casinos du Québec as part of a university course in entrepreneurship at ETS taught by Luc Giguère.
I met Matthieu (co-founder/CEO) during the team-building process and Matthieu contacted Samy (co-founder/CTO), who was working at IBM at the time, to join us.
In our minds, this was more than just an academic project, and we were determined to rise to the challenge. The initial challenges presented by the Société des casinos du Québec concerned the monitoring of gaming tables and the complexity of the process.
The table/player performance monitoring process needed to be modernized to meet the Casino’s high standards. When we heard the reverse pitch at the time, we felt very privileged to have the chance to discover a world that was unknown to us. Once we understood how the casino business really worked and sensed the opportunity, we all quit our jobs (Samy, who was working in Toronto, moved to Montreal) and founded HookMotion to devote ourselves 100% to building the company.”
Explain your solution in detail?
HookMotion offers a solution designed to meet the challenges of casino surveillance. Its solution, TableMotion, uses machine learning and computer vision to simplify monitoring and data collection processes. In the case of the Casino, we help monitor gaming tables by collecting information on their performance, as well as detecting any potential anomalies.
Do you have any advice for a young entrepreneur who’s just starting out and is hesitant about going into business with a partner?
“It’s imperative to find a potential buyer of the solution in order to create a feedback loop when developing a product. There’s nothing worse than developing in the shadows for several months and then realizing after just as long that the solution developed doesn’t really meet the initial need.”
If we had to sum it up in one sentence, working with a partner allows us to validate the market’s needs through constant feedback.
What are your next projects and what else is in store for you in the coming months?
“We are currently running four pilot projects, three of which are international. The aim of these pilots is to validate the solution in several different markets.
At the same time, we are preparing our “seed round” to expand the team to ensure our ability to install several contracts generated by our international distributors.”
A two-voice collaboration
On the partner side, Loto-Québec is proud to be involved in the Quebec innovation ecosystem with Montreal incubators such as MT Lab and Centech. These incubators will propel innovative companies like HookMotion. Supporting this Montreal-based company specializing in artificial intelligence is a great opportunity for Loto-Québec to promote local creativity and know-how.
” The entrepreneurs behind HookMotion have a great deal of potential and demonstrate a strong spirit of innovation. What’s more, their company actively contributes to the Quebec economy by creating quality jobs. The HookMotion collaboration involves innovation teams from Loto-Québec and the Société des casinos du Québec. The pooling of complementary expertise has contributed to TableMotion, an innovative artificial intelligence solution for casinos based on computer vision. ” – Dany Sirois, Strategic Innovation Advisor, Loto-Québec.
This innovative solution enables the software monitoring of card games in real time, using the cameras already present in the establishments. By using artificial intelligence to recognize activity at gaming tables from video sources, this unique and innovative development represents a major asset in gaming table management.
By modernizing monitoring tools, TableMotion helps maintain the integrity of the games, enabling casinos to focus on customer satisfaction.
Originally published on Tourisme Express on May 31, 2021
