Gary Dean, Founder Director of Audiebant, has won the 2026 Mike Cahalane Award at the Association of Security Consultants’ (ASC) Gala Awards Dinner, held at Hinxton Hall, outside Cambridge, on Thursday, October 29 as part of the ASC’s annual conference gathering Consec.
The ASC describes the award, named after a former board member and stalwart of the industry body, as “celebrating impactful work from executive, academic, and affiliate security professionals”.
Audiebant has grown to a workforce of more than 50, drawing on more than 60 years of combined media and communications experience. The firm says that it identified a gap: organisations had established procedures for fire emergencies, but often lacked an equally effective way to communicate during any other incident. Hence Audiebant’s zoned, multi-channel lockdown and mass communication system lets users send different instructions to a single room, floor, building, cluster of buildings or estate at the same time. Pre-recorded, automated announcements, designed by risk managers or security consultants, remove the need for staff to compose the right message under pressure, while authorised users can still speak live when judgement is needed. Audible announcements are combined with alerts on screens and desktops through Audiescreen and on mobile devices through Audiesafe, all managed from one control portal.
The system’s design draws on Project ASCEND, the UK official NPSA (National Protective Security Authority) two-year research and simulation programme, which found audio announcements to be the most effective form of communication in the scenarios assessed. It also reflects the communication requirements of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, known as Martyn’s Law, and input from crowd safety researcher and teacher Prof Keith Still, a past speaker to the ASC’s quarterly business meetings in London.
Audiebant is deployed across facilities including NHS trusts, councils, schools and colleges, and major companies. More than 100,000 emergency messages are sent through the platform each year, and more than 7,000 announcements a month are translated into additional languages. The manufacturer reports that Glasgow School of Art uses it to lock down one building on its city-centre campus while telling people in neighbouring buildings to stay where they are, and in Nuneaton George Eliot Hospital recorded a 40 per cent reduction in incident reports of verbal and physical abuse within 28 days of installation.
Prof Still has described Audiebant as the first technology he would recommend in more than 35 years of international projects, and has incorporated it into training for police forces in the UK, Dubai and India.
Gary Dean said: “This is the most prestigious recognition I could have received. The ASC brings together the very best security consultants in the UK, and to be judged by the elite of my profession means a great deal. It’s a proud moment for me and for everyone at Audiebant. In an incident, raising an alarm is only part of the response. People need to understand what has happened, what they should do and where they should go. Our work helps organisations give the right instruction to the right people, at the right time.”
Photo from the dinner courtesy of the ASC: left to right, presenting the award Trevor Jenks of the SSAIB inspectorate, a speaker at Consec, and Gary Dean.
About Audiebant
Founded in Lancashire in 2018 by Gary and his son Josh Dean, its zoned, multi-channel lockdown and mass communication platform supports lockdown, evacuation, invacuation, phased evacuation and everyday announcements through audio, screens and mobile devices. Audiebant holds Cyber Essentials Plus, ISO 27001:2022, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 accreditations, and offers free, no-obligation technical site visits. Visit: https://audiebant.co.uk.
The Glasgow School of Art case study and video testimonial: https://audiebant.co.uk/the-glasgow-school-of-art/.
