FUTURE WORLDS STARTUPS ANNOUNCE GROUNDBREAKING HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE INNOVATIONS FOR CES 2020
University of Southampton entrepreneurs will launch prosthetics software breakthroughs, IT security and quantum technology at the world’s largest technology show, CES 2020. For the fifth consecutive year the University of Southampton’s Future Worlds stand will be the only UK university exhibiting at CES in Las Vegas this January.
Founders from Aquark Technologies, SPYDERISK and Radii Devices will unveil their novel technologies on the Future Worlds stand in the Sands Expo from Tuesday 7th January to Friday 10th January.
University spinout AudioScenic will also be showcasing its latest advances in head-tracking 3D audio soundbars on the nearby UK Pavilion at Eureka Park.
CES 2020 will include over 4,500 exhibiting companies and attract more than 180,000 attendees wanting to see the next generation of consumer technologies.
“Exhibiting at CES has helped startups and spinouts from the University of Southampton to gain hundreds of commercial leads and secure millions of pounds of investment,” Future Worlds Director Ben Clark says. “This year’s stand showcases the best of university tech innovations in areas such as Digital Health, Cyber Security, Quantum Technology, 5G, Smart Cities, and AI.”
Radii Devices will launch intelligent software for faster, more personal fitting of prosthetics and orthotics in Las Vegas.
The software, which uses the same technologies seen in F1 car design and America’s Cup yacht racing, applies cutting-edge engineering design and prediction of device fit before manufacture.
Currently, socket fit is a real challenge in the clinic, with multiple fitting sessions required to achieve a comfortable outcome.
“Getting the fit of these devices right is so important for users,” founder Joshua Steer says. “We’re determined to create the tools that clinicians deserve. We’re delighted to be launching our software at CES and can’t wait to start our clinical pilots scheduled for early 2020.”
Radii Devices is spinning out of the Bioengineering Sciences research group and has been boosted on its journey by a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship and a £120,000 seed investment at the Future Worlds Dragons’ Den event.
Software as a service (SaaS) spinout SPYDERISK will launch an innovative web-based solution for IT security compliance at CES 2020.
The team from the University’s IT Innovation Centre will be connecting with early adopters at the Las Vegas expo as they help cyber-security professionals save months of manual work each year finding threats to systems.
With the average cost of a data breach in the US at $8m in 2019, the danger of cyber-attacks is increasingly driving companies to obtain compliance certification such as SOC-2 and ISO 27001 and also demand them from their supply chain.
In contrast to other solutions, SPYDERISK automates much of the risk assessment process mandated by SOC-2 and ISO 27001 through finding all the threats in a system and following the web of attack paths and consider how one threat can lead to another.
The business calculates risk based on the threat likelihood and business impact, and proposes mitigations drawn from a detailed knowledgebase before generating the reports needed for compliance certification.
“This ground-breaking product is a game-changer for enterprises, dramatically reducing the time and cost to understand and manage security threats, to ensure better protection and compliance certification,” founder Dr Stephen Phillips says.
Professor Mike Surridge, Head of Research, adds: “I am delighted that seven years of detailed research on modelling risk has produced such a valuable commercial product, and in doing so provides an important defence against the prevalent threats to IT security that face the world today.”
Aquark Technologies, a future spinout from Physics and Astronomy, will reveal the first design for portable atomic clocks at the global innovation showcase.
Founder Dr Andrei Dragomir has based the device around a unique, micro-fabricated ultra-high vacuum chamber. The product is one of the first simple, plug-and-play quantum devices on the market that includes cold atoms.
“Quantum technology offers so many opportunities for incredible technological advances, however, most of this is currently unreachable by users or companies due to the size, weight and level of complexity,” Andrei explains. “We are changing that and are bringing this marvellous technology to the market.”
Whilst the feat of the atomic clock represents the first step for the new business, the vacuum chamber and novel optical geometry that sit at the heart of Aquark’s devices will enable the miniaturisation of most quantum technology based systems.
“Future Worlds is helping to change academic culture to be more focused on commercial impact through startups and spinouts,” Future Worlds Director Ben Clark adds. “This year we’ve had over 3,000 people register for our events on-campus, helping hundreds to explore startup ideas, leading to support for over 30 startups and spinouts who collectively raised over £7m in early stage funding.
“The Future Worlds stand at CES proudly puts UK university innovation on the world stage, helping students and academics turn world-leading research into ground-breaking products.”
Future Worlds will be based in Booths 51733 and 51735 of Eureka Park in the Sands Expo.
Industry professionals are invited to get in touch with the University innovators exhibiting at CES 2020 at futureworlds.com/CES2020. You can follow all the action from the Future Worlds Accelerator stand in a daily blog in our news section, starting on Monday 6th January.
For full press information and launch details of our startups at CES 2020 visit: http://futureworlds.com/press
Credit: http://www.investinsouthampton.co.uk/news/story.aspx?id=tcm:64-423905