UW – AC Demo

September 27, 2016

Waterloo technology creates the next evolution of keyboard and mouse

How AC JumpStart Client Palette’s hardware is changing how we interact with software

When you first look at Palette, you might think it’s a DJ mixing board. But look a little closer and you’ll realize it’s a customizable input device used for photo editing and software.

Partnering with several high profile companies like Adobe has turned what began as a 2013 fourth-year design project into a company that has since shipped to more than 40 countries. It’s a game changer for those who interact with the digital world.

Calvin Chu, CEO of Palette, says the traditional dragging of a mouse cursor and keyboard shortcuts can only take you so far.

“We looked at different types of interfaces in the world and saw that a lot of them had similar components,” says Chu. “We realized these tools were made for specific jobs.”

This caused him to ask a critical question – “What if we could make tools that are tailored for your work instead of a one size fits all keyboard and mouse?”

Palette’s physical sliders, dials and buttons that adjust brightness and control is making that possible. It doesn’t hurt that its magnetic sides allow it to be rearranged like Lego pieces.

A $60,000 AC JumpStart – University of Waterloo award is helping Chu and his team expand Palette.

Funded by FedDev Ontario and the University of Waterloo, AC JumpStart is delivered through the Accelerator Centre and provides early stage technology startups with the seed capital, mentorship, and market-readiness tools needed to build a business in today’s knowledge economy.

“Coming from a technical background, it can be difficult understanding the finance and sales side of things,” says Chu. “The mentors and their experience have been great for us.”

So far, the majority of business comes from the United States and Europe. Almost no one guesses where Palette actually comes from.

“Our customers – including our Canadian ones – always assume we’re in Silicon Valley,” says Chu.

AC JumpStart’s mentorship is helping Chu strategize Palette’s expansion into distribution and retail internationally. The most popular Palette kit across the globe so far is their Expert Kit.

Chu credits its success to balancing between the Starter Kit’s lower cost and the Professional Kit’s advantages. There’s also the option to customize your own kit from scratch or add custom pieces to any existing kit. No matter what customers choose, Chu says they all serve the same purpose.

“There’s a better way than dragging your mouse and using shortcuts, and we’re taking the steps to provide that for people,” says Chu. “We’re making people’s jobs easier.”

March 8, 2016

ExVivo Wins $25K CBMC Prize

by Peter Moreira

This post originally appeared in Entrevestor.

ExVivo Labs of the University of Waterloo won the $25,000 first prize at fourth annual Canada’s Business Model Competition at Dalhousie University in Halifax on Saturday.

Co-Founders Christian Brum and Eric Blondeel won the prize for a poised and focused presentation on the development of their product, which reduces the pain and wait times involved in testing for allergies.

The pair will now proceed to the International Business Model Competition at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, in late April.

The pitchers described current tests for allergies as primitive, painful and inconvenient. People who believe they have an allergy now have to wait several months for a test, which involves placing substances on a needle, pricking the skin, and looking to see if there is a reaction. This is repeated with different substances until there’s a reaction.

ExVivo has developed a simple, painless patch that detects allergens through biomarkers present in the skin. Once the product is launched, patients could buy it at a pharmacy and apply it at home. If there’s a positive reading, they can book an appointment with an allergist. If not, they’ve saved a lot of hassle. It could reduce the wait times, which can stretch to more than a year.

“That’s why we’re calling it the home pregnancy test of allergies,” said Blondeel. “We’re not trying to take away the allergist. We are trying to find the right people who should be going to see an allergist.”

Lumos, Ohm Claim CBMC Prizes

ExVivo has been working with Velocity Science at the University of Waterloo and the Waterloo Accelerator Centre’s ACJumpstart program, and is now preparing for its first clinical trials.

It is also now trying to raise investment capital. CEO Moufeed Kaddoura was unable to attend the competition in Halifax because he was at an allergy conference in Las Vegas, meeting with potential investors.

Brum and Blondeel charted the progress of the company, which previously received funding from the Velocity Fund.

As well as interviewing allergists, pharmacists and allergy patients, the team at one point surveyed 700 people across the country, many of whom said they would test repeatedly with the product. The main reason for wanting the patch was to speed up the testing process and be able to use it at home. And mothers of children with allergies don’t want their children subjected to the repeated pinpricks.

The team is preparing for an initial product that will test for grass allergies, which are increasingly common.

They added that the patch could be used by researchers to generate an early income stream. Clinical researchers need to find people with allergies to conduct their tests, but they can only determine whether people have allergies using the existing primitive process. By using the ExVivo patch, researchers could quickly find a group of people with allergies, cutting time and costs of the trials. And ExVivo would not have to go through the lengthy regulatory process to sell to researchers.

The Canadian and International Business Model Competitions assess student entrepreneurship teams based on the process they used in building their company. They place particular emphasis on the use of a lean canvas and interviewing potential customers and partners to shape the business case.

December 11, 2015

Innovation Inside: Dematic

How Dematic is investing in R&D to solve complex problems

Imagine you work in a warehouse and have to package up a pallet with various products to be shipped to a grocery store – items like pop, chips, pasta, canned goods, etc. It’s pretty simple, right? You put the chips on top of the pop because if you did it the other way, the chips would get crushed. You put the heavier boxes at the bottom to create stability so the whole thing doesn’t fall over.

Simple. Except it isn’t. In reality your brain is just really, really good a quickly identifying an objects physical properties – weight, shape, stability – and solves what is, in fact, a rather complex mathematical problem without you even being consciously aware of it. But if you’re not really aware you’re doing it, how would you teach a computer to do it? There are so many variables you can’t possibly program them all; you need to create software that can think intuitively, extrapolate, and learn from each experience.

It’s an immensely complex problem, and one that Dematic is hoping to solve through research. Dematic is a global player in the supply management and warehouse automation field, with roots that can be traced back to 1819 and the founding of German crane manufacturer Demag.

Their Software Development team in Waterloo is considerably newer – an arm of the company that landed here in 2013 thanks largely to the company’s commitment to researching problems and finding creative solutions.

A few years ago, Dematic started to invest in new product development, with a specific focus on software to help companies optimize their supply chains. The company sought out a top tier executive who could lead a new software R&D team and quickly found on Pete Devenyi, former SVP of Enterprise Software from BlackBerry. Interested in learning more about Waterloo Region, Dematic researched the community and found a university globally-renowned for research and innovation, a top ranked talent pool, and one of the most robust tech communities anywhere in the world.

They made a decision: why bring Devenyi to Michigan when the talent, resources and research capabilities to build the cutting edge software they needed were here. And so Dematic’s Waterloo office was born.

Devenyi subsequently hired Scott Wahl, a former BlackBerry colleague as software director to run the Waterloo office. They have now grown the Waterloo branch of Dematic to 30 people, including co-op students and recent graduates from University of Waterloo, and there is no signs of stopping. The team works closely with the rest of the global software organization, with teams in US, Germany, and Australia, to accelerate software innovation and product delivery. While the team is part of a $2B global organization, they have enough autonomy to run like startup. This allows them to remain nimble and flexible, but still have the resources and confidence of a large organization to back them up.

Innovative ideas aren’t exactly new to Dematic – in 1908 the company (then Demag) built the world’s largest floating crane, which was used to construct the famed White Star steam ships RMS Titanic and RMS Olympic.

But, what sets Dematic apart today is a focus on using research to stay ahead of the curve. Through a partnership with the University of Waterloo’s Department of Management Sciences in the Faculty of Engineering, and leveraging grants from both Collaborative Research & Development (CRD) and Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), Dematic has been researching and developing advanced mathematical models and machine learning algorithms to solve complex automation problems.

One of the focus areas for the Waterloo team is to develop advanced analytics capabilities. The end goal: give customers the insights they need to manage their operations efficiently and turn managers into researchers within their own warehouses; constantly analysing, improving, and iterating on design and process, rather than simply repeating– leave that for the robots!

Dematic is also investing in the future of innovative supply chain management through the Dematic Scholarship for Excellence in Supply Chain Optimization with the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering. The scholarship is awarded to one male and one female second year engineering student at the University, selected based on academic standing and an essay submission.

In an age where consumer expectations, not organizational capabilities, determine who succeeds, Dematic’s seems poised to change the way we experience receiving… well, just about everything.

December 10, 2015

The Accelerator Centre Announces Third AC JumpStart Cohort

26 Companies receive funding and mentorship to grow their businesses

The Accelerator Centre is pleased to announce the third cohort of the AC JumpStart program. 26 companies were selected to participate in the program, which provides funding and mentorship aimed at growing their business and accelerating their sales.

CoinValue — coin valuation software and hardware developer

Digital Governance Group —real-time political engagement software platform

Dimples — customized 3D printed jewellery

Eleven-X — cellular IoT hardware and software

English Never Stops — cloud-based peer-to-peer language acquisition platform

FishBuoy — Software offering real-time water and environmental conditions to anglers

Fidget Toys — developers of a multifunctional stress-relief toy

Find BoB — online marketplace easing the transfer of financial business ownership

HealthIM — standardizing hospital admission processes for persons with mental illness

HH Development — data management solution for professional motorsports

Horizon Solutions — helping building owners improve energy efficiency

InkSmith – Manufacturing filament (ink) for 3D printing using bioplastics and 100% recycled materials

iSports Development — software platform connecting professional and amateur athletes

Kineris — wearable devices that speed recovery from joint injury or surgery

Local Line — connecting local food suppliers to customers

Massuni — allows users to easily design customized furniture that meets their exact needs

ONEIRIC — sports tech manufacturer

Palette — platform of physical input devices for improving creative workflow

Pressa — developing a water bottle allowing users to naturally flavour water

Streetcast — mobile platform that allows organizations to communicate with local residents and visitors

TaaCam — virtual reality (VR) and higher dimensional (3D/4D) digital image or video solution

Thalo — revolutionizing the way information is displayed on portable devices

UCIC — enables users to see any place in the world in real-time by connecting people.

Vidhub — platform for profs, students and researchers to have discussions in a sandboxed environment.

VIV Life Group — helps people discover meaningful experiences that are curated just for them

zpharm — medical tech company focused on smoking cessation

Through the AC JumpStart program, each company will receive $30,000 in seed funding, $10,000 worth of mentorship from the AC’s team of industry experts, as well as access to market research, investor connections, and the AC’s network of Clients and Graduates.

About AC JumpStart

Funded through an $8 million commitment from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), the AC JumpStart program is delivered in partnership with Conestoga College, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo.

The AC JumpStart program began in January 2015, with three cohorts of companies participating in the program in 2015, and two cohorts annually in subsequent years. Each cohort receives funding and mentorship over a 12-month period. Over the next four years (2015-2018) the program will support 180 companies.

December 9, 2015

Founder of SSIMWAVE Recognized with Engineering Emmy® Award

Studies Estimate Three-Quarters of Consumer Internet Traffic will be Video by 2017

Zhou Wang, co-founder of AC Client SSIMWave Inc., and Professor at the University of Waterloo, was presented with an Engineering Emmy by the Los Angeles-based Television Academy on October 28, 2015, at the 67^th Engineering Emmy Awards for his contribution to the development of the Structural SIMilarity (SSIM) Index for video quality measurement. Only a handful of Canadian (individuals or companies) have received this prestigious award.

The SSIM index family of algorithms, invented by Dr. Wang, are now the most widely used method for measuring video quality used throughout the media, telecommunications and entertainment industries. Recent studies estimate by 2017 over three-quarters of consumer internet traffic will be video. Video is the future of content marketing – quality, speed and flexibility is crucial.

“Structural Similarity (SSIM) is an algorithm for estimating the perceived quality of an image or video. Its computational simplicity and ability to accurately predict human assessment of visual quality has made it a standard tool in broadcast and post-production houses throughout the television industry. SSIM uses powerful neuroscience-based models of the human visual system to achieve breakthrough quality prediction performance. Unlike previous complex error models that required special hardware, it can be easily applied in real time on common processor software. SSIM is now a widely-used perceptual video quality measure, used to test and refine video quality throughout the global cable and satellite TV industry, and directly affects the viewing experiences of tens of millions of viewers daily.” — Television Academy

On being selected for this award, Dr. Wang commented: “I’m extremely happy to receive the Emmy from the Television Academy. It was a lot of fun when we did the SSIM work more than 10 years ago, and it was also very exciting seeing it being recognized and used by more and more people in academia and industry over the years.”

Over the past decade following the development of SSIM, Dr. Wang, Dr. Abdul Rehman, Co-Founder, President & CEO of SSIMWave, and Dr. Kai Zeng have made many breakthroughs and improvements to SSIM in terms of accuracy, speed, applicability and flexibility. “SSIM is just a starting point and we do not stop there. We have been making continuous effort to deliver more useful tools for automatic assessment of video quality and to help improve the visual quality-of-experience of everyone” said Dr. Wang.

In 2013, Drs. Wang, Rehman and Zeng co-founded SSIMWave, Inc., in Waterloo, ON, a spin-off company from the University of Waterloo Commercialization Office (WatCo) with the assistance of their business adviser Mrs. Ling Loerchner.

The SSIMWave team developed SSIMplus, a new set of algorithms enabling the team to develop new software solutions which are revolutionizing both the broadcasting of video (TV and internet), improving end-user visual experience, optimizing bitrate, and enhancing video streaming quality-of-experience. Video is the new document, and SSIMWave’s products for video quality of experience measurement and optimization offer crucial solutions in this rapidly expanding and competitive environment.

SSIMWave’s SQM hopes to be the Gold Standard Video Quality of Experience Monitoring Solution for file based internet video, and their SQM Live for live video – both revolutionize today’s approach to video content processing and delivery for the optimal visual quality of experience for end-users. Their optimization software includes SSIMWave’s Perceptual Bandwidth Optimizer and Smart Video Streaming for video delivery.

November 18, 2015

AC JumpStart Client Suncayr Plans Broader Product Line

This post originally appeared on entrevestor.com

By Peter Moreira

Suncayr CEO Rachel Pautler sums it up best when it comes to the obvious appeal of her company’s skin protection product, joking that her team initially wondered, “Why has no one done this before?”

The product—a marker that tests the effectiveness of your sunscreen using ink that only becomes visible when your skin is exposed to UV rays— has a literal pain point, allowing users to avoid sunburns and skin damage. Pautler says it is also more precise than competing products like the Netatmo June wristband and Goodlux Sunsprite lapel clasp, which measure the overall amount of UV exposure received, but cannot gauge sunscreen coverage.

Pautler and fellow co-founders Derek Jouppi, Andrew Martinko and Chad Sweeting are nanotechnology engineers who began working on the idea as a senior class project at the University of Waterloo in 2013. Development started in Waterloo’s Velocity Science accelerator program before half the operation moved to the Velocity Foundry, a hardware incubator. It has also received mentorship at Communitech.

In the span of about two years, Suncayr’s innovative technology has already started turning heads internationally. In 2014, the company was the only Canadian team shortlisted for the prestigious James Dyson Award. Most recently, Suncayr was named one of the Kairos Society’s K50 companies, an international network that spotlights companies that have founders under 25 and a revolutionary, market-ready product.

At the K50 Global Summit held this month in Hollywood, Suncayr was selected out of the group as one of the most promising 13 startups, receiving a resource prize from the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center which includes a week of retail space in San Francisco for consumer testing.

Pautler says that while getting the Suncayr marker to market is their chief focus, the medical implications of their technology reach far further.

“Our core technology is not really the UV sensing at all,” she said. “It’s more so how we keep it on the skin. Sun screen has a lot of solvents– it dissolves a lot of things– so we developed our technology to keep a very thin film on the top of your skin.”

Future applications of their technology, Pautler says, could include better skin-contact drug delivery for things like nicotine or birth control, and use as an alternative to surgical tape.

“We’re hoping to build out the company to a whole suite of skincare products.”

For now, the Suncayr marker is still in the process of going through Health Canada’s regulation process. Once the company gets the greenlight they will be able to start pre-sales this spring, in anticipation of a full launch in to the Canadian market by July. Pautler says the company’s first round of funding could occur as early as this December.

Learn more about Entrevestor.

November 18, 2015

Two AC Grads Named to Deloitte’s Fast 50 list

Magnet Forensics and Miovision continue to show incredible growth and impact

This article originally appeard in The Record

Six firms in Waterloo Region are on this year’s list of Canada’s fastest growing technology companies.

Magnet Forensics, Miovision Technologies, Aeryon Labs, Dejero Labs, eSentire, and Igloo Software are on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 list, which is based on revenue growth over the previous four years.

Magnet, a Waterloo provider of digital forensics tools, is eighth on the list with four-year revenue growth of 1,154 per cent.

Miovision, a Kitchener company that develops traffic data collection and analysis systems, ranks 32nd with revenue growth of 305 per cent.

Waterloo drone maker Aeryon ranks 10th with revenue growth of 1,032 per cent.

Dejero, a Waterloo firm that provides a platform for live-to-air broadcasting, is 18th with revenue growth of 590 per cent.

Cambridge-based eSentire, a provider of cybersecurity tools and services, is 42nd with revenue growth of 202 per cent.

Igloo, a Kitchener firm that develops social networking software for businesses, ranks 45th with revenue growth of 159 per cent.

Topping this year’s list is Frank & Oak, a Montreal-based menswear brand and online retailer. It had revenue growth of 18,480 per cent.

Deloitte said the companies on the Fast 50 list achieved average growth of 1,293 per cent.

Ontario is home to 23 of the companies on the 50 list. There are 13 from Quebec, 10 from British Columbia, two from Alberta, and one each from Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan.

TrustPoint Innovation Technologies [another AC Graduate], a Waterloo startup that develops products for secure machine to machine communications, is among 12 firms on Deloitte’s companies to watch list.

This year’s survey of Fast 50 CEOs indicated that securing talent is a significant issue for two-thirds of the companies on the list.

“Young Canadian tech companies from coast to coast are experiencing staggering growth,” Robert Nardi, Deloitte’s technology, media and telecommunications managing partner, said in a news release.

“However, for these firms to maintain their trajectory they need to have the right talent mix. For today’s fast-growing companies, finding and attracting talent is of great importance.”

November 10, 2015

AC JumpStart Client Voltera becomes first Canadian winner of James Dyson Award

by SHANE DINGMAN – TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

This story originally appeared in The Globe and Mail

A group of University of Waterloo graduates has become the first Canadian winner of the international James Dyson Award, a prestigious engineering design competition judged by the British inventor.

The winning invention is called the Voltera V-One, a compact device that can print prototype circuit boards in minutes. Right now, when engineers are designing a circuit board, it can take days or weeks to get a prototype manufactured, and it usually involves a pricey minimum order of multiple units as well.

“I can’t tell you how many times we faced the problem we set out to solve,” says Alroy Almeida, co-founder of Voltera Inc., who is also preparing this week to ship the first early-bird units of the device to backers of the company’s crowdfunding campaign. About two dozen of the machines are shipping to backers who helped the company raise more than $500,000 in February, 2015. An additional 300 are expected to deliver in early 2016.

The Voltera falls into the category of 3-D printing, but it is far from a simple hobby machine.

“We’ve got customers now from all walks of life. In our early-bird backers, there’s a professor at a local university. He’s going to use it to run courses, and he runs an international electronics competition,” Mr. Almeida says. “Pebble [the California-based smartwatch maker with roots in Waterloo] purchased an early-bird unit. They are looking to use it in their prototyping.”

Production units are expected to cost in the $2,000 range, and come with the special conductive and insulating ink used to print the two-layer circuits. There’s also a solder-paste dispenser, allowing other components to be attached to the board.

In the future, the company is looking to create a marketplace where Voltera owners can download existing circuit-board designs that they can add to or modify.

Mr. Almeida says the team found out it won via a video message from Mr. Dyson. In it, he says: “As an engineer, I know the frustration of waiting for circuit boards to be printed, and the Voltera elegantly solved this problem. And that’s why I’ve chosen you as the International Winners of the James Dyson Award, well done!”

Mr. Almeida and co-founders Jesús Zozaya and James Pickard are mechatronics engineering graduates from Waterloo; fellow founder Katarina Ilic is a graduate of nanotechnology engineering.

Since 2008, the award has been won by British, American, Australian and German student projects. The winners get $45,000 (U.S.) and an additional $7,500 goes to their university.

October 15, 2015

What's Your Problem?

Collaborating to solve killer workplace problems

The Stratford Accelerator Centre, partnering with the University of Waterloo and Velocity, is excited to welcome Professor Larry Smith from UW Economics, to the Stratford campus on Wednesday, October 21 2015.

This must-see Velocity Alpha event: What’s Your Problem? is aimed at helping students and employees find and solve ‘killer’ problems in their workplaces. A UW pioneer in entrepreneurship and innovation, Smith has a keen interest in helping foster and build not only entrepreneurs but also entrepreneurial employees. “Nobody is dealing with the issue of entrepreneurial employees,” says Smith. “There’s a lot of activity on helping people start companies, justifiably, of course, and very little on helping people become entrepreneurial employees.”

The event, starting at 7pm, is happening on the University of Waterloo Stratford campus which houses the school’s digital media programs (Global Business and Digital Arts and the Masters of Digital Experience Innovation). Pizza and beverages will be provided!

Register here.

For more information contact Becka Borody (Manager, Operations at Stratford Accelerator Centre) at bborody@acceleratorcentre.com or (519) 275-3694

August 20, 2015

Pervasive Dynamics Aims to Improve Stroke Rehabilitation

AC Client partners with UW Research to create wearable technology to aid stroke recovery

The University of Waterloo and Pervasive Dynamics will develop and test wearable health technologies that can improve stroke rehabilitation as part of a new partnership aimed at transforming the health of older adults.

The joint research initiative, the first partnership between Waterloo and the Canadian developer of medical devices, will be part of the new Advanced Aging ResearCH Centre (ARCH) at Waterloo.

“Advanced wearable sensors are the next generation of personalized health care,” said Professor Bill McIlroy, of the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at Waterloo and head of ARCH. “They enable us to gain insights that are just not available through off-the-shelf products.”

The new devices will allow researchers to extract sophisticated data related to a stroke victim’s cardiovascular and nervous systems, balance and gait, and generate tailored diagnostic reports to improve physical and mental rehabilitation.

The new partnership will also explore the development of other wearable health technologies for older adults.

“From the management of chronic disease, to fall prevention and mobility strategies, health wearables have the potential to make a huge difference for the elderly,” said Muhammad Khan, founder and CEO of Pervasive Dynamics, and an alumnus of the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology program at Waterloo. “If we can get technologies like these in the hands of the public and practitioners we can significantly reduce the impact and burden of an aging population on the Canadian health-care system by providing clinicians with more data on which to base health-care decisions.”

By 2030, one-quarter of the Canadian population — close to 8 million people — will be over the age of 65. Stroke is the third major cause of death in Canada, with approximately 50,000 Canadians suffering a stroke each year. More than 20 per cent of older adults will take serious falls, costing the health-care system $2 billion in related costs annually.

“ARCH is focused on facilitating advances in therapies to slow down the trajectory of aging and reduce the risk of age-related injury and disease,” said McIlroy. “If we hope to reduce the impact of an aging population, we need to start now.”

In May, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research awarded ARCH $1.3 million for a variety of diagnostic and measurement tools. The first of its kind in Canada, the facility will house the most comprehensive collection of equipment focused on aging in the country.