The Emerging Technologies at #TechBBQ 2019

This years theme of “Emerging Technologies” has amassed a large range of entrepreneurs from all over Scandinavia to come and share their vision at TechBBQ.  With over 2900 startups, 600 scaleups and 750 investors TechBBQ has become the largest startup and innovation summit in this part of the world.  This years event sold out the day before it started with 8,000 tickets sold

The themes carried forward throughout the event covered Ecosystems, Mental Health, Emerging Technologies, Breakthrough and Global Conservation.

There is easy access to the Founders and excellent space to present their vision.  Around the sides and throughout the main hall there are areas to meet and chat with Investors as well.

The CloudTech crunch is in full flow here and the innovations a-plenty.  Meet some of the Exhibitors:

Whispr

They bring processes and procedures to frontline service staff to help them train and be accountable in Real Time.  This assists with better understanding where the bottlenecks are in the company, as the user can account for issues as and when they occur.

The user is given a discreet ear piece that they can wear throughout the day and they can check and verbally tick off what was former cumbersome paper checklists.  These lists though useful stop the worker from completing the next task for a few minutes. Instead with Whispr they can verbalise a command to the hidden mouthpiece means that their hands remain free.

I spoke with Hugh O’Flanagan, CEO about his Startup.  He gave me an example of one of his clients that has hotel housekeeping staff.  He stated that their client could have a staggering staff turnover of 73.5% per annum.  This means potentially there could be two or more staff down for upards of 90 days whilst having to train new members of staff.  Whispr with its AI offers frontline training and reporting to to the business owner in its own dedicated dashboard.

The device is something you can ask about where to find products, what to do next in a certain room or scenario and it responds immmediately with the prepared textualisation that’s been added.  You can ask it go back, repeat or skip as required as well.  This means that no shadowing is required by a further staff member.  This tool is meant to be entirely handsfree but a screen is available if required.

It’s very similar to a Spotify Playlist but instead is a workflow.  It directs you to areas to complete and suggests what needs to be done and you can confirm whether it has or not in simple one word commands.  It also comes in various languages as well.

Unbiased

Sukesh Kumar Tedla was at #TechBBQ from Sweden to promote his technology that uses AI and Blockchain.

Back in 2017 he made enquiries on what kind of content Google and Facebook had on him and was stunned when Google came back with gigabites of information.  This even included phone calls, times he called people and the durations.  Around this time it was also still early President Trump era and the words “Fake News” was being banded about frequently too.

He felt that the access of information that these large organisations had on their audience was far too powerful and although their “streams” gave a personalised structure to what they displayed, it could potentially still engender ignorance and “Fake News” to the reader. For example, if you searched for lots of content on a sport with one slant, you would only ever see similar content from searches in the future.

He then spent a large proportion of time conducting research on how people consume their data.  For instance, would you see something on Facebook and perhaps double check it or get further information in Twitter or head straight to Google?  Very soon his company will be opening a public application of Unbiased and this will continue to educate their company in information consumption.

This new search engine will show the “searcher” unbiased search results in the hope that a more rounded opinion is served to the user.  They don’t guarantee however the accuracy of the information or the source, only that the information is no longer influenced by an algorithm.

I can see excellent uses for political and societal researchers, Journalists and of course to people who want to learn more rounded opinions on a topic.

Fynoti

Þröstur Sveinsson started his entrepreneurial journey back in 2004 whilst living in Denmark (he hails from Iceland) and he met Jesper Buch, the founder of Just Eat.  At the time it was just a small startup.  They met over a lecture and got chatting and he eventually opened the very first franchise of Just Eat back in Iceland.  He managed that for 5 years and learnt everything he needed to know about a startup.  He closed down the franchise as the economy bit 5 years later and moved back to Denmark and met a new partner who started a company that initially worked in software, then IoT solutions.  It was a very challenging time that kept them growing.

Whilst all this growth and change was happening unfortunately his partner had a burglary and he had no alarm system as it costs a fortune in Denmark.  The current leader in this field is a company called Very Sure, then a few others like G4S, Securitas etc.  The way their companys work is that you buy the standard system that ranges between 4-7,000 Danish Kroner to put in and then a monthly subscription of 400-500 Danish Kroner for monitoring.  It’s much too expensive for many people in Denmark.  There is currently only 25% of households who can afford a security system for their homes.  Unsurprisingly Denmark has the highest burglary rate per capita in Europe.  30,000 break ins in Denmark per year.

In order to keep the price down on his system, he has created a neighbourhood watch type system.  It’s all in the best interest of this community based warning and check system that this works.  Currently when paying with the market leaders you have a monitoring station and someone will come out if required.  That is why you pay a monthly subscription.

What Þröstur and his team have created is several (hopefully hundreds) of these systems are in your locale.  Thereby when an alarm goes off, one or many of your neighbours will come out to inspect your property and see if everything is OK.  If they are concerned on arrival, just like the larger companies, they would call the local Police station to attend.

They have currently sold 2,200 of these alarms (in a Crowdfunding campaign last year) and 100 subscribers for this system that they are piloting in one area.  Although there is no duty for the people in your area to attend, the hope is that you can reciprocate for them one day if needed and it really is something that you have tangibly agreed too once collecting the alarm for your own home.

The system works by heat measurement and only goes off when there has been a change.  It can be installed by the home owner as its very small and portable and only really needs to be in areas where people have normal access in and out of the home. You can have pets in the home by simply leaving the area on the floor hidden by putting something in front of the sensor.  This is definitely one to watch in Denmark.

CrystalSpace

Jaan Viru started CrystalSpace 5 years ago when he was part of the Estonian first satellite team ESTCube-1.  His (and others) skillset was utilised to make this a reality and when the project was finished, he wanted to use his experience going forward in a similar fashion.

His company focuses in nanosatellite research, design and development. He was telling me there was a large gap in the market for more reasonably priced cameras that can be taken into space.  However, they wanted to design equipment that was as useful on Earth as in Space.  To this end they have created imaging for Vacuum Chambers.  Both of these are uniquely difficult environments to monitor.

Their cameras can be used for monitoring mission critical events like watching Solar Panel deployment and antennae deployment.  Then through to Assay and Vacuum chamber monitoring.

The current method for “seeing” both of these are real time human monitoring but normally from a potentially obstructive viewpoint.  For example, you maybe in a space capsule or on the ISS to watch deployment of Solar Panels with the potential of eye damage from reflective material.  Then the Vacuum Chamber classically is already a small piece of equipment with a very small “viewport” that creates its own issues.

They have made it possible to retrofit Vacuun Chambers with cameras and lighting if required, that is much more presciptive and affordable without adding a hole to the chamber.  They can take photos, record and have a live feed – whatever is required.

These are but a few of the enormous array of Startups at this years #TechBBQ.  They have all come to generate interest, funding / investment and support for their creations.  I was struck by the variety and the many countries that were represented at this years event.  I look forward to learning and reporting more about each of these amazing companies in the future.