If you've been to any sort of place offering medical care in Arkansas recently, you've probably seen a sign informing you that harming a health care worker is a felony in the state.
OSHA reports overall workplace violence in the United States in 2023 resulted in 740 fatalities. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 20,000 American workers reported trauma from nonfatal workplace violence in 2020.
An effort behind reducing incidents of workplace violence is based in Bentonville.
"I'll keep this in the box. Check this out."
Ali Al Jabry is the founder of Kwema. The company recently was honored with this year's Outstanding New Security Product at last month's Outstanding Security Performance Awards in Atlanta.
"We created this simple way to call for help without escalating a situation."
Last week, Ali Al Jabry sat at a booth in Bentonville with examples of the Smart Badge Reel on the table in front of him. The badge looks pretty much like any badge you might wear that would allow you entry into a workplace. Ali says he and his team were thinking about those badges, especially those worn by health care professionals.
"As their badges and their badge reels. So we created the world's first smart badge reel that has a little button. It's a badge that you use to badge in of buildings as many times you have to, but it has a little lifeline next to it. So when you press it, it vibrates, letting you know that an alert has been triggered and then it sends your exact location."
Ali says the premise behind the Smart Badge Reel is simple enough: de-escalate a potentially dangerous situation with a quick, unnoticeable press of a button.
His background is in communications, but he says his passion is solving problems through tech, and he became aware of the need for this invention when somebody he knew was kidnapped in South America. She made it home safely, and the reason she was saved is what stuck with him.
"She had asked her parents to pay for her cab on her way home from the airport. So while her parents were waiting for her to pay for her cab, she got kidnapped. So they were waiting for her and they realized she never made it home, obviously. So they started asking around, sharing the news. It became viral. And that viral moment is what saved her life, because the kidnappers got scared when they heard that they were looking for her.
"So Kwema's inception was like, what if you can replicate that? What if we can mobilize a task force, family members, whoever that is best suited to get you help?
"And across the years, we realized that most people who are buying our first version of our product, which is a smart jewelry piece that had a button on it, were buying it for their day-to-day. Like their commutes, they had two-, three-hour commutes in big cities and small cities and rural areas and different types of professions, from social workers to judicial people to home health care workers.
"And that's when we had that aha moment of like, 'Hey, maybe we should be working with organizations that employ people who are the ones facing this risk.' And it's really unknown how bad workplace violence is."
He says the Smart Badge Reel can be used inside a big building with in-house security, like a hospital, or out in the field. Imagine, he says, he's working as a home health professional and finds himself in some kind of scenario that could be dangerous.
"My GPS coordinates would then be sent to my supervisor, most likely. And the police, so the police would know, 'Ali is a worker with Acme Health and he needs help.'
"Another scenario is like, I'm in a big hospital or a retail store and there's a problem. Somebody is being agitated in aisle 25. You press a button. Whoever that shift supervisor for security would know, 'Hey, Ali presses buttons in aisle 25. Go help him,' or, 'He's in room 305 and go help him.'"
The Smart Badge Reel won the Outstanding New Security Product at last month's awards ceremony hosted by the Global Security Exchange. Ali Al Jabry says there were about 150 products nominated and eight finalists. The badge was judged the winner by a panel of industry experts. The judges praised the clever, user-centered design and strong evidence of real-world adoption of the badge.
As with any new device, there have been modifications. The current product is the second generation, improved after the first model had slight issues with accidental triggering. The current version comes with a recessed button.
"So even against a flat surface, it does not trigger. You have to use a digit, one of your fingers, to actually trigger the alert. So that's 100% what we did. And because we make our product in the U.S., we actually have a lot of ease of iterations and also customization capabilities."
Winning this award will certainly raise the company's profile, though Ali says he hasn't really considered what this kind of recognition will mean for the company over the next few years.
"I don't think I am thinking that far, to be honest, just yet, but it definitely means that we have validation that fuels our growth across the next three to five years."
Ali is Kenyan American and moved to Bentonville from St. Louis earlier this year. He says he had traveled to the region several times and slowly began to appreciate how Northwest Arkansas could be beneficial for an entrepreneur.
"I realized how much people are willing to roll up their sleeves to make connections, to meet up for coffee, and we're generally interested in helping you and follow up with you too. So that was one of the pieces.
"But then it's also the hockey saying where you go where the puck is going, not where it is. So I see a huge future for Bentonville even today. Like, just where it is and where it was and where it's going. It's just, that trajectory is going to explode. And also the quality of life here is pretty good."
The company name is a Swahili word that roughly translates to "I'm safe" or "I'm OK" or can be used to ask, "Everything OK?" Ali says the Smart Badge Reel is more than just a link to help.
"It's not just about being safe, it's also about feeling safe, which is a big problem because if you wear your HR hat, there's a saying that says all high-performing teams have something in common, and that thing in common is high psychological safety.
"So psychological safety is unspoken and it's something that really needs to be addressed more. Because if people go to work and they feel like there's a risk of something going south frequent, they take that silent hit. It doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in your organization. It just means that it's being absorbed by somebody. And most likely it's your front line that's absorbing that hit.
"So increasing psychological safety is a North Star that most organizations should have. And it should not be like an item that is seen as a negative. It should definitely be seen as a positive. Because the more people feel psychologically safe, the more they perform, the happier they are, the more they thrive in life, which is really important.
"And then on the flip side, that in itself is a big win for me. But on the flip side, we've actually prevented incidents where somebody was about to get stabbed, attacked. And that for me is a true North Star because when we have incidents where a customer calls me and says, 'Hey, by the way, one of my people arrested yesterday and we got there and it happened in seconds. It was in the parking lot. Patient was waiting for them near their car.' Stuff like that happens.
"And they said they actually, 'When we got there and we prevented it. So I'm really happy. I just wanted to let you know my CEO is summoning a meeting with all of us and I'm going to talk about this to him. And he's really impressed with what we've managed to do with it.'"
You can read more about the company and the Smart Badge Reel atkwema.co. Our conversation took place in Bentonville late last week.
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