When minutes matter

Part of my "Playground" series - where I explore strategic insights through conceptual case studies and creative thinking exercises.
 

Client: Federal Police Belgium

Case: Federal Police Hackathon 

Role: Creative business development

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STRATEGIC INSIGHT

Time is the enemy of memory. And in law enforcement, memory is everything.

Here's a startling fact: Belgium has just four forensic sketch artists. Total. For an entire country. These skilled artists create between 1,000 and 1,200 sketches annually - impressive for four people, but nowhere near enough for a nation of 11.5 million.

But the problem goes deeper than numbers. Human memory decays quickly, especially in traumatic situations. Every minute that passes between a crime and creating a suspect's image isn't just lost time - it's lost detail. Lost accuracy. Lost opportunities to prevent the next crime

Traditional forensic sketching follows a familiar pattern: wait for an artist to become available, schedule an interview, and hope the witness still remembers the crucial details. Meanwhile, that initial, crystal-clear memory of the perpetrator's face begins to fade. Features blur. Certainty diminishes.

For law enforcement, this creates an impossible choice: wait for an expert sketch artist and lose precious details, or proceed with just basic descriptions - age, gender, clothing - and hope it's enough. Either way, time works against justice.

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CREATIVE CASE STUDY

SketchFirstâ„¢

What if every police officer could be a forensic artist? Not through years of training, but through technology that turns their smartphone into an intelligent sketching tool?

That's where SketchFirstâ„¢ comes in - a conceptual project that reimagines forensic sketching for the digital age. It's not about replacing skilled forensic artists. It's about giving every first responder the power to capture crucial details in those first, vital moments.

Picture this: an officer arrives at the scene. While memories are still fresh, they open the SketchFirstâ„¢ app. Through an intuitive interface, they work with the witness while AI helps refine each detail in real-time. 

As the witness describes features - "the eyes were closer together," "the jaw was more angular" - the AI instantly adjusts the image, learning from each refinement to generate increasingly accurate composites. Meanwhile, the system continuously cross-references these evolving images against national databases. What once took days now takes minutes

The implications go beyond faster sketches. When AI handles the technical aspects of creating the composite, officers can focus entirely on the human element - supporting the witness, gathering additional details, and building trust through immediate action. It's about giving every first responder the tools of a forensic artist enhanced by artificial intelligence. Most importantly, it's about preserving those crucial first memories before time can erode them.

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COPYRIGHT © 2025 JO VAN GRINDERBEEK 

STRATEGIC AND CREATIVE ADVISOR

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