Actually, if we were really evolved...

I'm always interested in local companies that make good. 

iRobot: With my new Shark, I'm still in old-fashioned vacuum cleaner mode, but here's a shout out to some local guys: hey: yay!

Moderna: Next time I'm walking in Kendall Square I might just drop by and kiss your doorstep for coming up with the vaccine that's still keeping me from acquiring covid.

And Dunk's: Well, I may not be the donut girl I used to be, and when I do indulge, it's more likely to be with a Blackbird, but America runs on Dunkin. 

So I was naturally happy to learn about Evolv Technology, a Waltham-based company that makes weapons detectors. Actually, the weapons their technology detects are guns, as the Utica, NY, school system learned recently when a high school kid smuggled in a knife and used it to stab a classmate. (As a result, Utica uninstalled all of its scanners they'd purchased just a few months earlier for $4M.)

Ellenbogen, the company’s cofounder and chief innovation officer, acknowledges that the system has trouble identifying knives, but says it has proven successful at detecting guns and reducing the time spent in security lines. Each day, Evolv systems find 400 guns being taken into crowded places — rarely with criminal intent, Ellenbogen said. (Source: Boston Globe)

(As an aside: I don't care if you don't have a "criminal intent" when you're bringing a gun into a place you're not supposed to bring a gun into, you're an idiot, a bad (or at least stupid) actor, and a potential menace.)

Failure to identify a gun aside, if you're worried about school shootings - and, honestly, is there anyone in the United States with a child or grandchild who goes to school (make that anyone in the United States who knows anyone with a child or grandchild who goes to school) who isn't worried about school shootings - the ability to detect guns is a good thing.

No, it wouldn't have saved the kiddos in Uvalde, as the mass murderer there didn't placidly enter the school via a metal detector. Or the students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. Or the little ones at Shady Hook. Mass murders gonna' mass murder.

But it might have saved the lives of the four students in Oxford, Michigan who were killed by a classmate who had a gun in his backpack. 

And not that someone running amok with a knife is a good thing, the probability that the knife-wielder turns into a mass killer is far less than if the killer is carrying a gun.

Still, everyone's not happy with Evolv. The company:

...has come under scrutiny from major media outlets, including National Public Radio and the BBC, and a security industry watchdog organization has charged that Evolv sought to conceal the scanner’s limitations.

But business is good.

In a nation stunned by mass shootings at schools, shopping malls, and workplaces, demand for Evolv’s gear is soaring. Revenues jumped 136 percent last year to $55.2 million, and nearly 300 new customers signed up, compared to just 84 in 2021.

The company is not yet profitable, but is anticipating achieving profitability in 2025. Evolv is public (Nasaq) and "has more than doubled in value in the past year to about $6 a share."

All those schools, malls, and workplaces go with Evolv's machines, even though they're more expensive than other metal detectors, because of their reliability. Evolv machines use standard magnetic field methods, but also deploy AI software to detect objects, figuring out what's a gun and what's not a gun. And Evolv is also a lot faster in terms of throughput than traditional metal detectors, especially important for large scale venues processing tens of thousands of visitors. One scanner can process 4,000 individuals an hour. 

Evolv's customers in this area include Fenway Park and Gillette Stadium. So I've likely been through one of their scanners at Fenway. And I'll be going through another when I head to Gillette to see Springsteen in a few weeks. 

Anyway, Evolv makes for a nice local business success story.

But wouldn't it be a far better world if we were sufficiently evolved that we didn't need to worry about guns everywhere?