Naresh Ghawalkar
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Selected work
Smart City and Computer VisionPublic-program context

Translating Computer Vision into City-Scale Public-Safety Workflows

Converting complex operational and Computer Vision use cases into coordinated workflows, dashboards, and product requirements.

RoleProduct Owner
Period2017–2019
Illustrative Smart City diagram showing cameras, analytics, operator review, and coordinated public-safety response.

Executive summary

Demonstrates product ownership at city scale, multi-agency coordination, Computer Vision product judgment, and operational workflow design.

The narrative focuses on product contribution, decisions, and supported outcomes.

12,000+

Surveillance cameras

Part of the city-scale public-safety ecosystem.

100,000+

Community cameras

Connected to the broader operational ecosystem.

Multi-agency

Workflow coordination

The product supported complex operational roles, decisions, and handoffs.

Context

The Hyderabad Safe and Smart City program involved public-safety workflows, video analytics, traffic automation, adaptive signaling, and multi-agency coordination.

The environment combined large-scale infrastructure, Computer Vision capabilities, control rooms, field workflows, and public-sector governance.

Problem

The product had to convert a technically complex ecosystem into workflows that operators could understand and act upon.

Automated detection could not be treated as a replacement for judgment. The system needed clear handling for false positives, uncertainty, escalation, and accountability.

Discovery and stakeholder alignment

Workshops explored events, roles, decisions, handoffs, dashboard needs, and response paths.

Broad program goals were translated into actionable stories and product behavior across multiple agencies.

  • Event-detection workflows
  • Operator dashboards
  • Escalation and response paths
  • Traffic and public-safety use cases
  • Camera and data dependencies
  • Accuracy, privacy, and trust considerations

Product approach

Use cases were structured into requirements, workflows, stories, and dashboard needs that could be planned and delivered incrementally.

Dataset quality, event-detection accuracy, false-positive handling, monitoring, privacy, and human confirmation were considered together.

Execution

The work involved Agile coordination, requirement refinement, acceptance criteria, and ongoing alignment between technical teams and operational users.

This case study reflects my product contribution rather than claiming sole ownership of the program outcome.

Outcome

The work supported a city-scale ecosystem involving more than 12,000 surveillance cameras and over 100,000 community cameras.

The overall program outcome was delivered by a broad multi-organization team.

Product judgment

Key decisions and trade-offs

Strong product work requires explicit reasoning, not only final outputs.

Decision
Rationale
Trade-off
Design around operator decisions, not detections.
A detection creates value only when an operator understands what to do next.
Operational workflow design adds complexity beyond the underlying Computer Vision capability.
Treat uncertain events as reviewable.
False positives and data limitations required human confirmation.
Review may slow response, but it reduces inappropriate automated action.
Deliver incrementally.
City-scale programs are too complex to define as one monolithic release.
Incremental delivery requires careful dependency and integration management.

Lessons learned

  • Operational workflows determine whether Computer Vision creates real value.
  • Human confirmation is essential for consequential detection.
  • Large programs require precise role, decision, and handoff definitions.
  • Product ownership at scale depends on continuous stakeholder translation.

Interview talking points

  • How I translated operational needs into workflows and user stories.
  • How I considered false positives, privacy, and human confirmation.
  • How product ownership works across a multi-organization program.
  • How infrastructure scale becomes a usable operator experience.