Solutions for living

INNOVATORS:From electronic battlefield guides to faster genomic testing, this month's new innovators have improved the quality of existing services

ZOLKC

An on-site tourist guide

WATERFORD-BASED Zolkc was formed after the Scottish National Trust (SNT) approached the TSSG Research Group at Waterford IT for advice about how to use technology to tell the story of one of its top attractions, the Culloden Battlefield.

The site near Inverness is where the Jacobite army, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, was finally defeated by the British.

The SNT was impressed with the proposed solution and invited the researchers to tender, which they did successfully.

Managing director Paul Savage says the technology uses a handset with GPS technology and automatic triggering to adapt the content, depending on how the visitor tours the site and their areas of interest. "It brings the experience to life with technology, using multimedia content, video content, audio content and text-based content," he says.

When the technology was developed, next-generation phones like the iPhone were not widely available, so the company based its concept around handset devices handed out on site.

Zolkc's hand-held battlefield guides won top prize at the Museums and Heritage Awards for Excellence in 2008, and that provided the impetus for the company to bring the concept to different visitor sites.

It has since secured a number of other deals, including two in Ireland. One of these is to provide more information around the Dunbrody Famine Ship in New Ross, Co Wexford.

"That should be a fantastic project, and hopefully it will be live in around 12 months. There are a large number of sites in Ireland that we are talking to people about and we would hope to get some of those live for next summer," says Savage.

The technology is particularly suitable to mid-size attractions, he says - those with between 20,000 and 50,000 visitors. "Sites with larger visitor numbers are likely to already have an on-site solution, while for smaller sites it's not really worthwhile."

The company can provide content or adapt existing content into their multimedia format.

Over the next two years, the improvement in consumer handset quality will present a big challenge and opportunity, and Savage says the company will be looking at ways to take advantage of the enhanced capability.

The revenue models are flexible, and include a once-off payment, licensing fees and shared revenues. Zolkc is also looking at projects in Canada and Italy.

SOCOWAVE

Wired into wireless

SOCOWAVE IS attracting attention from global wireless infrastructure vendors interested in its technology that allows faster internet access for mobile users.

The company has its origins in research carried out by the Institute for Microelectronics and Wireless Systems in Maynooth.

Institute director Ronan Farrell says the idea came from a discussion with Alcatel Lucent BellLabs, based in Blanchardstown, which was looking for ways to reduce the construction and operating costs associated with mobile phone towers.

The solution, according to Farrell, can cut energy costs in half. It also improves the quality of the connection, opening up the possibility of increased downloads onto mobile phones - both faster and with better quality.

The concept was initially developed as a simulation until researchers obtained funding from Enterprise Ireland in 2008 to build a prototype to show commercial lenders.

"At that point we knew we had a technology that was viable, and we started looking for commercial partners."

Enterprise Ireland put the team in contact with Joe Moore, who licensed the technology and went on to form Socowave, with Farrell remaining as a technical adviser.

Socowave's active panel antenna (APA) technology will enable faster internet access for mobiles and significantly reduce the industry's carbon footprint by enabling future networks to be designed with fewer base station sites.

WHILE THE concept of "risk assessment" has been somewhat tarnished by its association with the financial sector, for the food industry it is increasingly vital.

For manufacturers, consumers and regulators, measuring the concentration of additives and nutrients in foods is challenging.

CREME

Regulating food risks

When the impact of pesticides used in farming and migrated chemicals from the packaging is included, the task becomes more complicated. This measurement is exactly what Trinity College Dublin spin-out Creme specialises in. The concept was developed by Cronan McNamara, Creme founder and chief executive, while working in the university's Centre for High Performance Computing on an EU research project.

During the project he realised part of the project could be commercialised, and in 2005 he applied to Enterprise Ireland for funding.

"Regulation in food safety has been moving into an area requiring more detailed data on people's exposure to food chemicals. We realised this was going to be required by Government regulators and by the industry," he says.

Creme's technology mines huge population databases on age, body weight and other details, combines this with databases on what they are eating, and performs a risk analysis based on the chemical concentrations in the food.

"This gives the level of exposure of the consumers to different levels of different chemicals. Our results are much more detailed and realistic than what was done before."

The company has a number of contracts with food safety organisations, chemical firms and universities.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland recently signed a contract to use Creme's software to gauge the impact of salt reductions in foods on the salt intake of the Irish population.

McNamara says a strength of the technology is it can "combine lots of datasets to extract the information sought using valid scientific methods".

For example, the software can combine a food safety or ingredients dataset with one measuring pesticides in farming with another measuring the amount of chemical transfer from packaging to the food contained within.

"Datasets are gathered for different reasons but we can combine them and generate exposure results," says McNamara.

The company is profitable, with customers in Europe, the US and Japan, and it is particularly interested in the area of rapid response for food companies.

Growth to date has been funded by revenues. It employs 12 staff, and its revenue model is a combination of a licence fee and consulting services.

STOKES BIO

First contract for gene firm

UNIVERSITY OF Limerick spin-out Stokes Bio is looking at capitalising on the information available in plant, animal and human genes. The company has developed an instrument that allows for faster and cheaper genomic testing.

This information has a variety of commercial uses, from enabling healthcare companies to detect early-stage cancers to assisting food companies and livestock producers to develop the most productive breeds.

Founded in 2005 by professor of engineering sciences Mark Davies and lecturer in biomedical engineering Tara Dalton, Stokes Bio recently signed its first contract to supply its instruments to a US-based company that Davis declined to name, citing confidentiality.

Davis says there are eight to nine years of research wrapped up in the instruments. Stokes Bio's particular expertise is in micro fluidics, which is working with very small quantities of liquid. When testing tiny droplets of blood in a tube no wider than a strand of hair, the smaller the amount of testing agent required, the lower the cost of the process.

The company owns all its intellectual property following a swap in return for an equity stake with the University of Limerick, where much of the initial research work was carried out. Other stakeholders include Cork-based Kernel Capital and Enterprise Ireland.

Davies and Dalton have retained their academic posts at the University of Limerick. The company employs 20 people full-time, 12 of whom have PhDs.

Creme mines huge population databases on age, body weight, etc, combines this with databases on what they are eating, then performs a risk analysis

Socowave's active panel antenna technology will enable faster internet access for mobiles