Hawk Slane moved to Eureka Springs nine years ago when he was nine years-old because his parents wanted him to attend Clear Spring School. At public schools, he was being misunderstood by teachers for things like sitting quietly and meditating outside the principal’s office while waiting to be seen.
“The teacher walked up, grabbed my arm and said, ‘We don’t do that here’,” Hawk said. “I didn’t connect well with any of my teachers and they didn’t think I was right for that school. My parents had been coming to Eureka Springs for a real long time and eventually we moved here from Florida to enroll me in Clear Spring School. At Clear Spring it is very hands on, and they really let you move at your own pace and do your own thing. Of course, they monitor and make sure you are actually doing the work and it is beneficial to you. But they kind of let you decide what you want to study.”
When Hawk was 14, he started developing video games, publishing them to independent development sites where people share projects, and get reviews and suggestions how to improve their games. Out of 30,000 games on one site, Hawk’s rose to number six.
“That really made me realize that I’m actually pretty decent at doing this development and programming thing,” Hawk, the son of Rod and Jill Slane, said. “I decided I didn’t want to do video games but wanted to move onto something a little more serious. When I was sixteen, the Clear Spring educational model allowed me to go to California to intern with a tech company and a film production company.
“When I was 17, I went out and interned with an artificial intelligence (AI) firm in Philadelphia which also has offices in L.A. and Canada. They didn’t really know what I could do, but they had interest in me because they had seen previous projects and potential.”
Hawk got involved in AI for electronic screens in pharmacies and supermarkets. The displays have facial recognition that look at age, gender and mood, and advertises and provides product placement based on those variables. He came up with solutions that helped solve problems for the company. Then he launched his own company, Avian Industries, and his Eureka-based company provides monitoring for hundreds of cameras, soon to be expanded to thousands.
“We monitor the data inflow of those cameras,” he said. “It is pretty neat stuff. The stores get a ton of data-based customer information including what times and dates people walk in, gender, age and seeing what this person is purchasing or interested in. They can use this to place a product where it is most convenient to customers.”
Is this a bit too much like Big Brother, a term from George Orwell’s novel 1984? Hawk doesn’t see it that way.
“The information is being used to market you the right product and I don’t see where that hurts,” he said. “It just helps me in my day in the supermarket.”
The same technology can be used for security to recognize the imprints of firearms under clothing and even the mood of subjects. That kind of technology is deployed by cameras in Times Square, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Georgia and other places.
“It is in all of our best interest to prevent violence,” he said. “They just had a deployment of this technology in Mexico in one of the highest crime rate areas. They installed cameras on streetlamps and it brought crime rate down by 60-70 percent, really nearly to zero.”
While Hawk has enjoyed working with people on the East and West Coasts, he wanted to have a business he could control right here in Eureka Springs. So, he started Agency 12 (agency12.net), a marketing team that provides digital creative business, ad campaigns, social media management, 3D modeling, 3D printing and web development.
“A couple of local businesses are already using our services,” he said. “That just went live.”
So, what does an 18-year-old entrepreneur do for fun?
“Work is really fun,” he said. “I enjoy what I do. What is fun to me is knowing I’m working towards ultimately being able to do whatever I want to do. I’m currently building a small home right outside of the city to have as my base of operation so I can go out, do my own thing, and always have a safety net to fall back on.”
He and his girlfriend are foodies who love eating out. They go out to lunch and dinner nearly every day. And that has led to another company launch, Eureka Delivery, which delivers meals from several local restaurants, including Grotto and Sauced, owned by his brother, Rod Slane, Jr., and his wife, Autumn. Hawk developed the app being used for the deliveries.
He and his team are also working on a music streaming app with a company with a number of Grammy-winning producers.
Another project is developing an AI receptionist. “As you walk into a building, it uses facial recognition to let you in,” Hawk said. “If it doesn’t recognize you, it asks you questions to take you into the database. This could help with a lot of security concerns. Some of the most advanced companies in the world like Google or Apple have had people walk in who really don’t like those companies. The AI receptionist is not meant to take away jobs but work along with everything else and make it really easy track anyone going in and out of your building. It could also be used for checking into hotels and public transport.”