List of Technology Pioneers 2008
Biotechnology and Health
23andMe Inc. USA
www.23andme.com
Linda Avey, Co-Founder and Co-President
23andMe is a privately held biotechnology company that is developing new ways to help people make sense of their own genetic information. Its mission is to be the world's trusted source of personal genetic information. 23andMe was co-founded by Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki.
Accuray Incorporated, USA
www.accuray.com
Euan S. Thompson, President and Chief Executive Officer
As the global leader in the field of robotic radiosurgery, Accuray Incorporated develops and markets the CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System, the next generation in radiosurgery designed to treat tumors anywhere in the body with sub-millimeter accuracy.
The company's CyberKnife System is the firts and only commercially available system to use intelligent robotics to continuously track, detect and correct for tumor and patient movement throughout the treatement.
Anecova SA, Switzerland
www.anecova.com
Martin Velasco, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
The company has developed a major innovative technology and is poised to bring a real breakthrough product and methodology for the treatment of infertility. A major advantage of the leading-edge technique is that it constitutes a return to a solution which is closer to the natural process. In vivo rather than in vitro assisted reproductive technology: Anecova is developing a promising approach for the future. Anecova has now announced proven results which were better than anticipated. This is a major challenge, as sterility now affects one in ten couples, or more than 80 million people throughout the world.
InSightec Ltd. Israel
www.insightec.com
Jackob Vortman, President and Chief Executive Officer
InSightec was founded in 1999 when GE Healthcare (then GE Medical Systems) and Elbit Medical Imaging transferred their proprietary technology to the company to enable it to concentrate on developing the promising MR guided focused ultrasound surgery both companies had investigated. Since then, InSightec has invested over $100 million in research and development. The company holds over 30 patents with additional intellectual property pending.
mondoBIOTECH AG, Switzerland
www.mondobiotech.com
Fabio Cavalli, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Business Architect
mondoBIOTECH AG, a private Swiss breathing swiss air™ biotech company headquartered in Basel is focused on development of treatment options for fatal and rare lung diseases. In addition to PAH, the company has a variety of clinical Phase II studies in pulmonary diseases ongoing.
Neurosynaptic Communications Pvt Ltd, India
www.neurosynaptic.com
Sameer S. Sarwakar, Chief Executive Officer
Neurosynaptic Communications is a telemedicine solutions company which has developed a remote low cost diagnostic kit to measure four primary parameters, viz temperature, blood pressure, ECG and heartbeat (stethescope) for teleconsultation. n-Logue proposes to deploy this kit in select locations to facilitate a remote telemedicine services.
NuLens Ltd. Israel
www.nu-lens.com
Ori Gal, Chief Executive Officer
NuLens researches, develops and markets technologies for the ophthalmic markets. The company is currently developing a new Accommodative Intraocular Lens (IOL) technology with the potential to provide over 10 diopters of accommodative power. This exciting innovation, based on the patents of Dr. Joshua Ben Nun, will prove to be the first intraocular lens to provide real, comfortable, and lasting accommodation for near, intermediate and far distances - the way nature intended. Not only does it restore eyesight, it provides better eyesight than ever before.
Oxitec, UK
www.oxitec.com
Luke Alphey, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist
Oxitec Limited was founded in 2002 to develop and commercialize leading edge science and technology invented at the University of Oxford. Oxitec is located near Oxford in the United Kingdom and employs an energetic, professional team of 25 people. Oxitec has developed and patented a novel technology platform which promises a step change in the cost-effectiveness and breadth of application of the Sterile Insect Technique. This platform is called RIDL® and is the basis for providing effective and environment friendly pest control to agriculture and public health. Oxitec has generated product candidates for four insect pest control markets, and has advanced its lead candidate to the final testing phase of the development pathway in the USA.
RainDance Technologies, USA
www.raindancetechnologies.com
Jonathan M. Rothberg, Co-Founder and Chairman
RainDance Technologies is a nanotechnology company devoted to discovering, developing, and commercializing the precise manipulation of minute amounts of fluids in microfluidics devices for a variety of industrial and research applications. After CuraGen and 454 life Sciences, it's the third New Haven-area bioscience company started by its chairman, Jonathan Rothberg.
Resverlogix Corp, Canada
www.resverlogix.com
Donald McCaffrey, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Resverlogix Corp is a leading biotechnology company working toward the development of novel therapies for unmet medical markets. Its goal is to improve patients’ longevity and quality of life by becoming a leader in the research, development and commercialization of products for cardiovascular disease, cancer and fibrotic conditions.
SiGNa Chemistry, Inc. USA
www.signachem.com
Michael Lefenfeld, President and Chief Executive Officer
SiGNa Chemistry is an early stage company developing unique solutions to compelling chemistry problems through the power of interdisciplinary science. SiGNa™ products have been found to work as powerful reducing agents that work at room temperature and as convenient sources of clean molecular hydrogen. By capitalizing on the many powerful applications of SiGNa Chemistry's technologies, such as alkali metals absorbed into various oxide materials, SiGNa is positioned to develop and deliver a host of solutions to a wide range of scientific applications and industries. These advanced materials will deliver new products to academic and industrial markets as diverse as pharmaceutical synthesis, petroleum refining, organometallics, catalysis, and hydrogen energy.
Energy and Environment
Cima NanoTech Inc. USA
www.cimananotech.com
Jon Brodd, Chief Executive Officer
Cima NanoTech is an advanced materials company leveraging its unique, patented nanomaterial technologies with customers to deliver next generation solutions today. With commercial production capabilities, proven technical performance, and a team focused on delivering value to its customers, Cima NanoTech offers a technology platform upon which next generation solutions are built. The company currently focuses on the electronics industry, where manufacturers value the benefits of low temperature substrates, finer component line resolution, and other unique attributes made possible by nanomaterials. Cima NanoTech is based in the US, with its R&D center in Caesarea, Israel, and a commercial manufacturing facility in Hiroshima, Japan. Additional laboratory facilities in Korea, Japan, and the US support the work of the Israel lab and enable close, local partnerships with electronics manufacturers to meet their specific needs.
fluXXion B.V. The Netherlands
www.fluxxion.com
Thijs Bril, Chief Executive Officer
fluXXion is an Eindhoven, Netherlands based high technology company applying tried and tested technology from the semiconductor and micro system industries, to the design and manufacture of revolutionary new micro filtration membrane products for the bulk and analytical liquid filtration markets. The basic micro machining technology was originally developed by Royal Philips Electronics in the Netherlands, for the manufacture of complex micro structured products. fluXXion has built up a significant application know-how in micro filtration over the last years.
Gridpoint Inc. USA
www.gridpoint.com
Peter L. Corsell, President and Chief Executive Officer
GridPoint provides a Smart Grid platform that aligns the interests of electric utilities, consumers and the environment. The platform provides utilities with an intelligent network of distributed, clean technology resources that controls load, stores energy and produces power. Utilities efficiently balance demand and supply by discharging stored power during peak periods, reducing customers' non-essential loads, optimizing baseload generation assets and relieving stress on T&D assets. Utilities avoid the regulatory, environmental and "time-to-build" hurdles associated with building new power plants while fueling the mass adoption of renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions and conserving fuel, capital and land resources.
Hycrete, Inc. USA
www.hycrete.com
David G. Rosenberg, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Concrete provide concrete producers, builders, designers and owners with modern concrete construction Systems that deliver cost savings, schedule acceleration, and sustainable construction solutions. They currently focus on large projects demanding mission-critical subgrade, grade, and super grade water and corrosion protection. Applications include deep foundation slabs and walls, podium and plaza decks, roof, parking and tunnel structures. The Hycrete concrete System provides a high value, sustainable approach to waterproofing and corrosion protection through an evolution in performance concrete construction.
LS9 Inc. USA
www.ls9.com
Robert Walsh, President
LS9, Inc., the Renewable Petroleum CompanyTM, is a privately-held biotechnology company pursuing industrial applications of synthetic biology to produce proprietary biofuels. LS9's products, currently under development, are designed to closely resemble petroleum derived fuels, but be renewable, clean, domestically produced, and cost competitive. In addition to biofuels, LS9 will also develop industrial biochemicals for specialty applications. LS9 is headquartered in San Carlos, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Nanostellar Inc. USA
www.nanostellar.com
Pankaj Dhingra, President and Chief Executive Officer
Nanostellar, Inc. uses a unique nanotechnology methodology to develop precious-metals containing materials for the automotive and stationary power industries, enabling these industries to meet stringent diesel emissions-control requirements mandated in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. The company delivers nano-engineered catalyst materials that reduce exhaust emissions and increase effectiveness of precious metals in these catalysts by 25%-30%. Nanostellar's Rational Catalyst Design methodology combines computation materials science, novel synthesis and chemical engineering to aid in the rapid development of new materials.
Primafuel, USA
www.primafuel.com
Brook Porter, Co-Founder and Executive Vice-President
Primafuel is a private company developing the technologies and the production infrastructure for low-carbon and ultimately zero-carbon fuels. The global demand for transportation fuels continues to grow, resulting in mounting economic, environmental and social costs. Biofuels offer an important part of the solution, with dramatic potential to reduce our dependency on fossil-fuels. Primafuel is committed to making biofuels widely available, affordable and sustainable.
Silver Spring Networks, USA
www.silverspringnet.com
Scott Lang, President and Chief Executive Officer
Silver Spring Networks creates the critical networking infrastructure for the Smart Grid, known as a Smart Energy Network. Based on the Internet Protocol (IP) suite, it addresses the challenges of running multiple applications and devices on the same network and dramatically improves efficiency, lowers costs and ensures the reliable delivery of services. This smarter, more efficient grid could cut the growth rate of worldwide energy consumption by more than half over the next 15 years and drastically reduce carbon emissions.
SkySails GmbH & Co. KG, Germany
www.skysails.de
Stephan Wrage, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Executive Board
It is SkySails aim to reduce fuel consumption of modern shipping by the utilisation of environmentally friendly, free-of-charge wind energy. For this SkySails is developing, producing and distributing a towing kite wind propulsion system that is world patent pending. As a result, ship operation will become more profitable, safer and independent of declining oil reserves.
Unidym Inc, USA
www.unidym.com
George Grüner, Founder and Chief Science Officer
Unidym leads in the development, manufacture, and application of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Unidym’s first CNT electronics product, already recognized as a true innovation, is a transparent, conductive film that replaces films currently used in touch screens and displays made with indium tin oxide(ITO). Building directly on the work of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Richard Smalley and Distinguished Professor George Grüner at UCLA, Unidym is at the forefront of the growing markets in printable and flexible electronics. Unidym partners with and licenses intellectual property (IP) to a growing number of companies who are aggressivelyexploring other uses of CNTs in various markets.
Information Technologies and New Media
AdMob Inc. USA
www.admob.com
Omar Hamoui, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
AdMob is the world's largest mobile advertising marketplace. Founded in 2006, AdMob allows advertisers to reach their customers on the mobile Web and publishers to increase the value of their mobile sites. AdMob offers both advertisers and publishers the ability to target and personalize advertising to their customers in over 160 countries.
Arteris, Inc. France/USA
www.arteris.com
Charles Janac, President and Chief Executive Officer
Arteris S.A. is a start-up based in Paris, France and San José, California, U.S.A. The company was founded in 2003 by a group of semiconductor industry veterans. The company’s focus is on the next-generation of challenges associated with System-on-Chip (SoC) design: on-chip communications, or Network-on-Chip (NoC). Arteris is backed by an international set of venture capitalists and its management team brings experience from the communications, semiconductor, EDA, and IP industries.
Clearwire Corporation, USA
www.clearwire.com
Craig O. McCaw, Founder and Chairman
Clearwire clearly has tomorrow in mind. The company operates a wireless broadband network designed for next-generation communications content and services. It offers high-speed Internet access in nearly three dozen markets in the US (primarily along the West Coast and in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and the Midwest). It also offers services in Brussels, Belgium; Dublin, Ireland; in Denmark, through Danske Telecom; and in Mexico, through partner MVSNet. Clearwire was founded in 2003 and is controlled by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw (founder of McCaw Cellular, which he sold to AT&T for $11.4 billion in 1997). Clearwire launched its operations the following year.
Garlik Limited, UK
www.garlik.com
Tom Ilube, Chief Executive Officer
Garlik is a new company from the founding CEO of Egg plc Mike Harris, former Egg CIO Tom Ilube and British Computer Society president Professor Nigel Shadbolt. As the first company to develop a web-scale commercial application of semantic technology, Garlik will enable consumers to find and understand what personal information is in the public domain about them and manage how their identities appear online.
Imaginatik, UK
www.imaginatik.com
Mark Turrell, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Imaginatik is the long-time leader in enterprise Idea Management. Its flagship solution, Idea Central, is designed to elicit ideas and insights from employees and extended enterprise partners, provide a shared collaborative space to develop ideas, and is equipped with sophisticated tools to evaluate and select the top ideas for implementation. Idea Central has won numerous awards, and is in use at clients such as Georgia-Pacific, W. R. Grace, ChevronTexaco, Bayer AG, and Goodyear Tire & Rubber. Imaginatik's software and services have helped clients discover significant sources of additional revenue, as well as tangible cost savings, process improvements and an increased product pipeline.
Innovative Silicon Inc. USA / Switzerland
www.z-ram.com
Pierre Fazan, Chairman, Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Innovative Silicon (ISi) was founded in 2002 to develop and license the Z-RAM® ultra-dense memory technology. Z-RAM® is a new concept in memory technology: unlike conventional SRAM, which uses 6 transistors, or DRAM, which uses 1 transistor and a complicated capacitor, Z-RAM® uses a single transistor – and nothing else – as the memory bitcell. The density and simplicity of this technology makes Z-RAM® the lowest-cost memory technology – both as stand-alone memory and as embedded memory on microprocessors and other leading-edge semiconductors.
Kayak.com, USA
www.kayak.com
Paul English, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Kayak Buzz was the first airfare history tool when launched in November 2005. Several enhancements later, Kayak Buzz displays the lowest fares to the 25 most popular destinations from a traveler’s hometown, as found by Kayak users. Consumers can further specify the fare buzz for a region: World cities, US, Europe, Caribbean, South America, Asia, Africa and Australia/Oceania. The Buzz product was further enhanced last summer with the launch of Best Fare History, an option to view up to 100 fare/itinerary combinations for a specific city pair found by other Kayak users over the past 36 hours and Best Fare Trend Graph which charts pricing for city/date pairs found by Kayak.com users over the past 90 days.
Lumio Inc. USA
www.lumio.com
Jonathan Curtiss, President and Chief Executive Officer
Lumio develops, patents, and sell intelligent optical modules for data input and output based around a core suite of virtual interface technologies. Lumio’s focus is in empowering OEM’s, system integrators, and system designers to integrate low cost, low overhead, and low foot print components that enable any flat surface to become interactive, employing a range of unique and ubiquitous Human Machine Interface (HMI) solutions. Established in May 2000 by Boaz Arnon and Amichai Turm to capitalize on the unique idea of creating a virtual keyboard interface for mobile data users; the Company has since dramatically deepened and broadened its IP portfolio.
MEDIO SYSTEMS, USA
www.medio.com
Brian Lent, President and Chief Executive Officer
Medio Systems, Inc. is the leading provider of mobile search and advertising solutions that help mobile operators implement the best customer experience and allow advertisers to reach their intended target audiences. Created specifically for mobile, Medio Mobile Search combines an intuitive, effortless user interface with powerful recommendation and personalization technologies.
Meraki Inc. USA
www.meraki.com
Sanjit Biswas, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Meraki Networks, Inc. builds products for wireless community networks. It offers an integrated package of software, hardware, and management services to build mesh networks. The company’s platform is used to connect communities, apartment complexes, or business districts to the Internet. Its Meraki Manage, is a Web-hosted service that enables clients to setup and monitor the Meraki network. The company’s access device, the Meraki Mini, is a small indoor access point designed for mesh networking. Its Meraki Mesh firmware allows extending one or more Internet connections through a network of Meraki repeaters. The company was founded in 2006 and is based in Mountain View, California.
Polar Rose AB, Sweden
www.polarrose.com
Nikolaj Nyholm, Chief Executive Officer
Sweden based Polar Rose is the developer of automatic facial recognition with 3D modeling for visual search applications. Polar Rose was founded with unique expertise in automatic 3D modeling and pattern recognition pioneered by the company’s founder and CTO, Dr. Jan Erik Solem. Currently Polar Rose is in closed beta and will be officially launching its face matching product, called Bloom, later this year that will sort and add context to the Web of photos.
QlikTech International, USA
www.qliktech.com
Mans Hultman, Chairman
QlikTech is the global leader in next-generation business intelligence solutions, offering sophisticated in-memory analysis and reporting solutions for enterprise and individual customers. QlikTech supports an open information architecture, where business information is broadly, affordably and quickly available to those who need it. QlikTech’s flagship product, QlikView, uses next-generation patented in-memory association technology to make sophisticated analysis dramatically easier to deploy, use and maintain. QlikView’s click driven, visually interactive interface is simple for end users to learn and use.
Roundbox, USA
www.roundbox.com
Dennis Specht, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, President and Co-Chairman
Roundbox Inc. is a leading provider of mobile broadcast software solutions. The company provides client and server software spanning multiple network technologies to mobile operators. Roundbox's products help mobile operators take maximum advantage of broadcast and multicast to enhance both existing revenue-generating services as well as deploy new, differentiated ones. Roundbox is a private company based in Florham Park, New Jersey and is funded by premier venture capital firms.
SpeedBit Ltd. Israel
www.speedbit.com / www.videoaccelerator.com / www.fileratings.com / www.fileflyer.com
Ariel Yarnitsky, Chief Executive Officer
SpeedBit Ltd. was founded in 1999 in Haifa in the north of Israel. First launching Download Accelerator Plus with patented acceleration technology (now with 138 million registered users), SpeedBit continued by creating SpeedBit Video Accelerator for YouTube & iTunes, FileRatings.com and FileFlyer.com, with over over 60,000 new users joining the SpeedBit network every day. SpeedBit Ltd. is backed by Pitango venture capital and Yossi Vardi, the founding investor of ICQ the pioneering instant messenger that was sold to AOL in 1998, and managed by Ariel Yarnitsky, the former general manager of ICQ.
Transclick Inc. USA
www.transclick.com
Robert E. Levin, Chief Executive Officer
Transclick is a wireless web services infrastructure company enabling customers to communicate via email, SmartPhone text or instant messaging with real-time language translation in 16 languages from any mobile phone, corporate enterprise portal or wireless PDA. Transclick is post-revenue with Qualcomm, Verizon Wireless, the US Army; 2007/8 30+ carriers.
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. USA
www.wikimedia.org
Florence Devouard, Chair
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the 15 most visited websites in the world.
Yandex LLC, Russia
www.yandex.ru / http://company.yandex.com
Arcady Volozh, Chief Executive Officer
Yandex is the largest portal of the Russian Internet today, which offers its users key internet services. According to research studies conducted by Gallup Media, FOM and Comcon, Yandex is the largest resource of the Russian Internet, based on audience size and internet penetration. Among services offered by Yandex are: search engine, directory of sites by themes, free e-mail, latest news, Spam protection system (Spamooborona), free web hosting (Narod), encyclopedia, dictionaries, comparison shopping system (Market) and many more. By 2006, our audience reached 4 million visitors a day, and it continues to grow.