The Milestone Developer Summit 2025 recently convened innovators, developers, and technology partners in video technology at the historic Carlsberg Museum in Copenhagen.
This renowned venue, known for scientific breakthroughs like the invention of the pH enzyme, provided an ideal setting for discussions on open platform development, the responsible use of AI, and a Hackathon.
Discovering Milestone's open platform vision
Sebastian Döllner, VP of Technology Partnerships & Open Platform, highlighted the importance of collaboration in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. "Technology is evolving faster than ever, and no single company has all the answers. The winners are those who can bring together the best technologies, the best minds, and the best ideas. The essence of Milestone’s open platform is to empower innovation. We’re building more than video management software—we’re building an ecosystem that allows partners and customers to innovate on top of it," he stated.
The summit showcased keynotes from industry pioneers, including NVIDIA, AWS, Dell, and Intel. Breakout workshops and the Hafnia Hackathon provided participants worldwide with a platform to exchange insights and predictions for the future.
Early access to upcoming innovations
The hackathon challenge revolved around creating innovative integrations with third-party applications
Prior to the summit, AI developers from 15 countries gained access to Milestone's upcoming specialised Vision-Language Model (VLM). Developed with NVIDIA Cosmos-Reason and Hafnia’s domain-specific data library, this VLM enhances understanding of city-specific visuals, languages, and events.
The hackathon challenge revolved around creating innovative integrations with third-party applications and leveraging the VLM API to advance smart city solutions.
Generative AI-enhancements for XProtect
Milestone also introduced a generative AI-powered plugin for its XProtect Video Management Software during the event.
This plugin aims to streamline traffic management across urban areas by automatically converting video footage into comprehensive reports, summaries, and validated real-time alerts, thereby maximising valuable video data.
Showcasing innovative Hackathon finalists
Six developers were shortlisted at the Hackathon, with a panel from Milestone and NVIDIA
Six developers were shortlisted at the Hackathon, with a panel from Milestone and NVIDIA selecting the top three. Thomas Kreutz emerged as the winner, using Hafnia’s VLM API to transform live city camera feeds into instant, privacy-aware real-time answers.
Kreutz remarked, “I wanted to build something that is relevant and useful in real life. What I liked the most about the hackathon was how easy it was to get started. The API and documentation made it simple to build a demo quickly, brainstorm more ideas, and try them out.”
Kreutz was awarded €5,000 and an NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit. Roland Harwood, Community Lead at Hafnia, expressed admiration for the innovative solutions developed by the finalists and emphasised the potential of their platform and data library in advancing computer vision models.
Overview of Hackathon finalists
- Ask The City/Thomas Kreutz: Utilises city cameras to answer real-time questions with privacy considerations, enabled by Hafnia’s VLM API.
- VLM for Emergency Response by Flynn Owen, Dan Towers, & Tom Aldridge (Blaize): Uses edge AI for event generation and real-time emergency response planning.
- SmartMap by Gabriel Crosnier de Bellaistre (Citilog): Integrates incident detection, traffic, and weather data into actionable map overlays.
- RevoFlow by Rawinder Singh: A no-code builder for AI-powered video analytics using Milestone's VLM API; awarded Audience Choice.
- Clipnotes by Magnus Guldberg Pedersen: Converts short video clips into structured insights in moments using Hafnia’s VLM.
- Hafnia Video Event Analyzer by Jojy Saju JosephS: Offers multimedia intelligence with advanced search and summarisation powered by a VLM API.
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The Milestone Developer Summit 2025, dedicated to innovators, developers, and technology partners in video technology, took place at the historic Carlsberg Museum in Copenhagen—a venue renowned for scientific breakthroughs, including the invention of the pH enzyme, a milestone in biochemical innovation.
This legacy of discovery provided the perfect global stage for a new era of open platform development, responsible AI, and, not least, the Hackathon.
Essence of Milestone’s open platform
Sebastian Döllner, VP of Technology Partnerships & Open Platform, said: “Technology is evolving faster than ever, and no single company has all the answers. The winners are those who can bring together the best technologies, the best minds, and the best ideas. The essence of Milestone’s open platform is to empower innovation. We’re building more than video management software—we’re building an ecosystem that allows partners and customers to innovate on top of it.”
With keynotes from, e.g., NVIDIA, AWS, Dell, and Intel, breakout workshops and the Hafnia Hackathon, participants from all over the globe were able to share insights and predictions on what the future might look like.
First access to the future
Before the summit, AI developers from 15 different countries had early access to Milestone’s upcoming specialised VLM. The VLM is developed using NVIDIA Cosmos-Reason and post-training it with Hafnia’s domain-specific data library to better understand city-specific visuals, languages, symbols, events, weather, lighting and more.
The Hackathon challenge: create innovative integrations with third-party applications and leverage the VLM via API to enhance smart city solutions.
Generative AI-powered plugin for XProtect
Now, millions of video cameras capture valuable footage that could improve everyday life. Yet much of this potential remains untapped due to the time-consuming task of reviewing and analysing countless hours of video to uncover meaningful insights.
In addition to the specialised VLM, Milestone is also launching a generative AI-powered plugin for XProtect Video Management Software. The upcoming generative AI-powered plugin for XProtect is designed to improve traffic management across cities, ports, airports, and other urban areas. It delivers advanced video intelligence by automatically converting video footage into detailed written reports, summaries, and validated real-time alerts.
Innovative integrations from all finalists
Of the participating developers, six were shortlisted, and a panel of judges from Milestone and NVIDIA selected the top three. The winner: Thomas Kreutz, who used Hafnia’s VLM API to turn live city cameras into instant, privacy-aware answers to real-time questions, said: “I wanted to build something that is relevant and useful in real life. What I liked the most about the hackathon was how easy it was to get started. The API and documentation made it simple to build a demo quickly, brainstorm more ideas, and try them out.”
Thomas Kreutz took home €5,000 and the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit. Roland Harwood, Community Lead - Hafnia, commented: “We are very impressed with the innovative integrations from all finalists. But Thomas Kreutz and Ask The City really nailed it. The hackathon's success is promising for the future use of our platform and data library to train computer vision models on compliantly sourced, curated, extensively annotated, and anonymised real-world data.”
FACTS: The six Hackathon finalists ranked from the winner
- Ask The City/Thomas Kreutz Turns live city cameras into instant, privacy-aware answers to real-time questions. Pick a place on the map, ask in natural language, and get a response derived only from the last few seconds of video. Powered by Hafnia’s VLM API.
- VLM for Emergency Response/Flynn Owen, Dan Towers & Tom Aldridge (Blaize) Leverages edge AI devices to generate events and contextualise, triage, and create response plans for emergency situations in near real-time.
- SmartMap/Gabriel Crosnier de Bellaistre (Citilog) Uses Hafnia’s VLM to unify incident detection, traffic levels, and weather/visibility data into live map overlays with operator-ready actions, enabling faster decisions and better visualisation.
- RevoFlow/Rawinder Singh A no-code workflow builder that lets security integrators create AI-powered video analytics through drag-and-drop design, powered by Milestone's VLM API. Audience Award winner.
- Clipnotes/Magnus Guldberg Pedersen Converts short video clips into structured, interpretable insights in seconds using Hafnia’s Vision-Language Model.
- Hafnia Video Event Analyser/Jojy Saju JosephS A multimedia intelligence platform that uses a VLM API to analyse images and video, generate semantic metadata, and enable advanced search, summarization, and event detection.
