Winnipeg roots deep in 911 non-emergency call AI startup Hyper’s success

Winnipeg-based entrepreneur Ben Sanders is probably too humble to think about his professional accomplishments this way, but he has the kind of resumé people fantasize about impressing former classmates with at a high school reunion.

The University of Waterloo-educated engineer has contributed to BlackBerry, NASA’s Canadarm and the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

He’s also helped launch four venture-backed tech startups, including Clearco, an online financial platform that at one point achieved unicorn status (a privately held startup valued at more than US$1 billion).

Sanders added to his list of accomplishments last month, when Chicago-based communications tech giant Motorola Solutions Inc., acquired HyperYou Inc., a startup he co-founded and led as CEO.

Founded in 2023, Hyper uses artificial intelligence to screen out non-emergency 911 calls. Motorola Solutions announced in a release the acquisition will expand the company’s use of agentic AI across Command Center, its public safety platform. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Hyper’s 18 employees, including Sanders and co-founder Damian McCabe, joined Motorola.

“It’s been really cool,” Sanders said.

“When we thought about ways that we could get this technology into the hands of people who needed it faster, and accelerate our mission of helping save more lives, Motorola was kind of the obvious first choice because it built a lot of the core technology that’s used in 911 today.”

Hyper’s technology handles the majority of non-emergency calls by listening to 911 callers, responding to them and asking follow-up questions in more than 30 languages. The tool then routes callers to the correct agency or to a human, if needed.

Sanders, McCabe and their team designed it to reduce the burden on understaffed emergency dispatch centres.

In a 2023 survey by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch, many 911 call centres across the U.S. reported being understaffed by 25 per cent. Hyper reports on its website its AI agent autonomously resolves up to 75 per cent of non-emergency calls.

Sanders says a number of his interests converged when he co-founded Hyper, including his fascination with first responders and his passion for public service.

As a child growing up in Thompson, he was obsessed with the idea of becoming an RCMP officer. He convinced his mother to sew yellow stripes on his navy sweatpants. He walked around outside, cap gun in hand, wearing those sweatpants along with a life jacket that served as his bulletproof vest.

“Eventually, one of the (local) officers … gave me his rain hat, and then I really looked the part,” Sanders said. “I wore that basically for a year.”

After Sanders’ family moved to Winnipeg when he was six years old, his mother worked as a host on CBC radio — something he says gave him an understanding of the power of voice.

Presto, the first startup Sanders was involved with, employed AI-assisted speech recognition technology to automate aspects of drive-thru orders at quick-service restaurants.

With Hyper, Sanders wanted to use AI for a different purpose.

About a year after he and his team started building the technology, his father sent him a news article about Mayor Scott Gillingham’s commitment during the 2022 municipal election to reduce city services/information 311 line’s wait times to fewer than three minutes.

Sanders reached out to the City of Winnipeg about possibly using AI to accomplish that goal. Later, someone suggested he explore applying the technology to emergency calls.

Now, Hyper is being used by a growing number of 911 teams across Canada and the United States, including the Toronto Police Service. The Motorola Solutions acquisition will allow the technology to get into even more hands.

“I’m excited,” Sanders said. “Building up more of these agents to do other cool, really helpful things is going to transform the way that we help save people’s lives and support the important work that’s done by 911 (operators) in our community.

“It’s such a critical service and it’s such a privilege to be able to kind of build technology that helps do that better.”

Motorola Solutions is pleased to have the Hyper team on board, said Jeremiah Nelson, corporate vice-president of product and technology.

“Ben’s a very impressive founder,” Nelson said. “I really appreciate his vision (and) his leadership. He’s attracted a really strong team, a very talented team, to build this technology, and it makes me just really excited to have him be part of Motorola.”

Sanders was living off the grid near Whitehorse when he co-founded Hyper.

He and his life partner, who is also from Winnipeg, moved back to the Manitoba capital at the end of 2024 in part so their children could grow up close to extended family.

On June 21, 1959, Winnipeg became the first city in North America to provide what today is known as the 911 emergency phone number. “Winnipeg has a storied history in being an innovator in 911 and it continues today,” he said.

Sanders will soon return to Collège Jeanne-Sauvé, the high school he graduated from. “It’s my 25th high school reunion,” he said. “I can’t believe it. Time’s just flown by.”

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca