CHF 40,000 for smart eyewear for vision-impaired people, a digital doctor for wind turbines, and digital innovation for the waste industry
22.03.2024
LighthouseTech, RTDT Laboratories, and ucentrics were selected at Venture Kick's second financial and entrepreneurial support stage. Their projects develop a smart eyewear frame equipped with front-facing sensors that scan the environment and alert the user of hazards located in the path using a soft haptic vibration; tackle the problem of recurring structural failures of wind turbines by developing a novel hardware-software solution for structural health monitoring of wind turbines; and empower organizations by revolutionizing industrial user guidance & knowledge Management.
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 LighthouseTech: COO Nathan Deutsch, CEO Franco Burlando, and CTO Andrea Moroni Stampa
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 RTDT: from left to right, CEO Dr. Imad Abdallah, CCO Aris Mukherjee, and CSO Dr. Konstantinos Tatsis
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 ucentrics: co-CEO-CPO Julian Wolf, CTO Sophokles Ktistakis, and co-CEO Amir Golshani
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LighthouseTech: Pioneering smart eyewear for blind and vision-impaired people
Blind and visually impaired people rely on the white cane for walking. While this is the best solution available for detecting obstacles on the ground or low-lying levels, it cannot effectively protect them from collisions above the waist. The fear of collisions affects the choices of low-vision people, resulting in negative societal impacts and costs.
Lighthouse developed a smart eyewear frame equipped with front-facing sensors that scan the environment and alert the user of hazards located in the path using a soft haptic vibration. In combination with the white cane, Lighthouse offers full body protection. It is the only obstacle-detection eyewear in a large and growing market. With over 15m potential users in North America and Europe and 50m worldwide, Lighthouse has a huge growth potential. To back this growth there is a strong and experienced team: Andrea an electronics engineer, Nathan a social scientist, and Franco, Riccardo, and Claudio who are veterans in the optical and eyewear industry with 35+ years of experience.
The Venture Kick Stage 1 funds will be used to develop the software and firmware for our device.
RTDT Laboratories AG: The digital doctor for wind turbines
RTDT is a deep-tech spin-off from ETH Zurich tackling the problem of recurring structural failures of wind turbines by developing a novel hardware-software solution for structural health monitoring of wind turbines. By combining real-time measurements from various substructures of wind turbines with a large library of proprietary advanced analysis methods, RTDT can cover many use cases relating to structural health, power performance, lifetime extension, and optimal operation & maintenance of wind turbines.
The founding team, consisting of Dr. Imad Abdallah, Dr. Konstantinos Tatsis, and Aris Mukherjee, has extensive experience in wind energy, structural mechanics, and monitoring, as well as Venture Capital and startup experience. Notably, the CEO Dr. Imad Abdallah worked as lead engineer at Vestas for seven years, where he was responsible for designing wind turbines.
The Venture Kick funds will contribute to patenting RTDT’s Aerosense system for real-time monitoring of rotor blades.
ucentrics: empowering organizations by revolutionizing industrial user guidance & knowledge management
Error prevention in industrial applications is crucial due to potential safety risks & high costs. Classic Augmented Reality (AR) based guidance lacks error prevention and users still make many critical errors. ucentrics’ proprietary AR tool anticipates users' moves via AI-powered behavioral analysis & provides real-time feedback to significantly reduce errors, eliminating the limits of traditional AR guidance systems. ucentrics' modern AR tool enhances safety, reduces errors, and optimizes training to increase the organizations’ overall performance and efficiency.
ucentrics' core team includes Amir Golshani (Ph.D., serial entrepreneur, vast high-tech industrial experience in R&D/Operations), Julian Wolf (Ph.D., advanced AR specialist, +6 years experience), Sophokles Ktistakis (Ph.D. cand, focus on AI-assisted human behavior analysis & computer vision), and Prof. Mirko Meboldt (ETHZ-pdz chair with deep and broad expertise).
ucentrics addresses a market of USD 80 billion by 2030 with its services. The Venture Kick funds will facilitate its business development and market expansion initiatives.
Blind and visually impaired people rely on the white cane for walking. While this is the best solution available for detecting obstacles on the ground or low-lying levels, it cannot effectively protect them from collisions above the waist. The fear of collisions affects the choices of low-vision people, resulting in negative societal impacts and costs.
Lighthouse developed a smart eyewear frame equipped with front-facing sensors that scan the environment and alert the user of hazards located in the path using a soft haptic vibration. In combination with the white cane, Lighthouse offers full body protection. It is the only obstacle-detection eyewear in a large and growing market. With over 15m potential users in North America and Europe and 50m worldwide, Lighthouse has a huge growth potential. To back this growth there is a strong and experienced team: Andrea an electronics engineer, Nathan a social scientist, and Franco, Riccardo, and Claudio who are veterans in the optical and eyewear industry with 35+ years of experience.
The Venture Kick Stage 1 funds will be used to develop the software and firmware for our device.
RTDT Laboratories AG: The digital doctor for wind turbines
RTDT is a deep-tech spin-off from ETH Zurich tackling the problem of recurring structural failures of wind turbines by developing a novel hardware-software solution for structural health monitoring of wind turbines. By combining real-time measurements from various substructures of wind turbines with a large library of proprietary advanced analysis methods, RTDT can cover many use cases relating to structural health, power performance, lifetime extension, and optimal operation & maintenance of wind turbines.
The founding team, consisting of Dr. Imad Abdallah, Dr. Konstantinos Tatsis, and Aris Mukherjee, has extensive experience in wind energy, structural mechanics, and monitoring, as well as Venture Capital and startup experience. Notably, the CEO Dr. Imad Abdallah worked as lead engineer at Vestas for seven years, where he was responsible for designing wind turbines.
The Venture Kick funds will contribute to patenting RTDT’s Aerosense system for real-time monitoring of rotor blades.
ucentrics: empowering organizations by revolutionizing industrial user guidance & knowledge management
Error prevention in industrial applications is crucial due to potential safety risks & high costs. Classic Augmented Reality (AR) based guidance lacks error prevention and users still make many critical errors. ucentrics’ proprietary AR tool anticipates users' moves via AI-powered behavioral analysis & provides real-time feedback to significantly reduce errors, eliminating the limits of traditional AR guidance systems. ucentrics' modern AR tool enhances safety, reduces errors, and optimizes training to increase the organizations’ overall performance and efficiency.
ucentrics' core team includes Amir Golshani (Ph.D., serial entrepreneur, vast high-tech industrial experience in R&D/Operations), Julian Wolf (Ph.D., advanced AR specialist, +6 years experience), Sophokles Ktistakis (Ph.D. cand, focus on AI-assisted human behavior analysis & computer vision), and Prof. Mirko Meboldt (ETHZ-pdz chair with deep and broad expertise).
ucentrics addresses a market of USD 80 billion by 2030 with its services. The Venture Kick funds will facilitate its business development and market expansion initiatives.