Hyderabad : Otis, the world’ leading manufacturer and maintainer of people-moving products, including elevators, escalators and moving walkways, and T-Hub, a global start-up catalyst for entrepreneurship and deal-flow, reviewed the proof-of-concepts (PoC) of the four start-ups that were shortlisted for the Otis Innovation Challenge, launched in June. Otis is a unit of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX).
For the challenge, T-Hub initiated a call for applications from start-ups across the globe and received applications from 14 countries. From this pool, a total of four start-ups met the eligibility criteria. These shortlisted start-ups, which have emerging technology-based solutions that can integrate with Otis offerings, participated in a 6-week Otis Innovation Challenge.
The selected start-ups got an opportunity to collaborate with Otis and enable innovative technology solutions. They also got the chance to scale-up by developing a PoC for a specific use case defined by Otis, with funding of up to $10,000 per start-up. On demo day, October 12, 2018, the cohort start-ups showcased their respective PoCs to key Otis executives for the final time.
PoCs were based on smart solutions across functions that aim to improve the efficiency and utilization of elevators, escalators and travolators. The solutions were built on emerging technologies such as computer vision, signal processing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, neural networks, facial recognition systems, crowd detection and management as well as people analytics. The winning start-ups will continue to further develop the PoCs by accessing Otis’ and T-Hub’s network of mentors, industry experts, investors, service providers, and community/ecosystem.
“Otis is focused on innovation and continuously enhancing the way we move people. We look forward to the opportunity to work with these start-ups to find creative and smart solutions for our customers,” said Vijay Jayachandran, vice president, Global Components and Technologies, Otis. “We have a legacy of innovation, and open innovation challenges like these ensure we sustain our legacy in the rapidly changing market landscape.”
Speaking on the occasion, Srinivas Kollipara, CEO, T-Hub said, “T-Hub has always stood by its commitment to supercharge innovation for corporations. For the Otis innovation challenge, we have shortlisted startups from UK, Argentina, Singapore and India from among the applications received from across the globe. It is through programs like this that more and more corporations believe in the power of entrepreneurs, and the goal to make a strong start-up ecosystem in the country is achieved.”
The four start-ups that showcased their PoCs on demo day were:
- Graymatics: Founded in 2011, Graymatics takes its roots from Silicon Valley with the vision to make innovative technology usable for every industry. The company is now based in Singapore, along with an incorporation in India. Graymatics has developed the industry-leading, scalable cloud platform allowing for automatic real-time indexing, analysis and classification of videos / images with a suite of search, curation, recommendation and advertising tools. Our solution can be deployed across a wide array of applications, including security and surveillance, E-commerce, digital marketing, telecommunications & services, and smart consumer electronics.
- Visio Ingenii (VI): Visio Ingenii (VI) arose from a passion to introduce next-generation technology in computer vision, signal processing, augmented reality, robotics, and self-learning systems, and is a growing developer of comprehensive “Visual Intelligence” capable software and hardware solutions.
- Deep Vision AI: Deep Vision is an applied AI company that provides automated image and video understanding, facilitating new ways of analyzing and monetizing visual data. Within the smart city ecosystem, its insights and use cases play a key role in understanding the needs of the community, inform infrastructure projects and urban planning, as well as improve overall city life.
- Orbo AI: Orbo has built a series of advanced Computer vision and Deep learning based IP that brings AI automation to Camera and Imaging applications. Primary focus of Orbo has been to bring Visual transformation using deep facial tech and visual enhancements using real-time, super-resolution tech for video / images as well as contextual enhancement using SmartFIX.