List of Technology Pioneers 2010
Biotechnology and Health
Aura Biosciences
Aura Biosciences plans to commercialize powerful cancer drugs based on discoveries it has licensed from research institutions in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The firm’s hollow particles, made of nano-sized protein shells, could radically improve delivery of approved cancer drugs, by keeping them stable as they travel through the body towards their intended target.
Elisabet de los Pinos, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.aurabiosciences.com
Corventis
Corventis makes a wireless cardiac monitor, the size of a Band-Aid, which has the potential to automate the provisioning of medical care in both developed and developing nations.
Edward Manicka, Chief Executive Officer
www.corventis.com
MicroCHIPS
MicroCHIPS makes intelligent in-body devices for people who need treatments that are not orally available. The tiny chips allow drugs to be released in the right place in the body, at the right time and in the right amount.
John Santini, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.mchips.com
Pacific BioSciences
Pacific BioSciences brings together biotechnology, semiconductor processing and advanced photonics from the telecommunications industry to revolutionize DNA sequencing.
Stephen Turner, Founder and Chief Technology Officer
www.pacificbiosciences.com
Proteon Therapeutics
Proteon Therapeutics is developing PRT-201, a recombinant human protein that clips elastin fibres, leading to persistent dilation tests of blood vessels and increases in local blood flow in animal testing.
Nicholas Franano, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer
www.proteontherapeutics.com
Energy and Environment
BioFuelBox
BioFuelBox builds, owns and operates modular bio-refineries that recycle brown grease and trap grease and waste water sludge for companies and cities, converting it into premium clean burning fuel for local use. It eliminates the waste streams on site and shares part of the fuel profits with its customers.
Steve Perricone, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.biofuelbox.com
Bloom Energy
Bloom Energy aims to change the way the world generates and consumes energy by converting a wide range of renewable and traditional fuels into electricity through a highly efficient electrochemical reaction, rather than combustion.
K.R. Sridhar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.bloomenergy.com
Boston-Power
Boston-Power is pioneering the use of lithium-ion and other materials capable of powering end applications ranging from portable consumer electronic devices to electric vehicles.
Christina Lampe-Onnerud, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.boston-power.com
Care Electric Energia
CARE has designed a turbine system that generates energy from the natural flow of a river, without any alternation of its natural state. It provides fish passage facilities and does not dam the normal flow of materials in the river, conserving the fauna, vegetation and ecosystem.
Johann Hoffmann, Founder
www.careelectric.com.br
Epuramat
Epuramat’s technology promises to revolutionize waste water treatment. Its Extreme Separator achieves an efficiency of up to 99% in terms of solid/liquid separation of organic and inorganic particles in wastewater and liquids – and it does it in only one treatment step.
David Din, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.epuramat.com
eSolar
eSolar aims to become the first solar electricity company to reach parity with the cost of fossil fuel. It hopes to achieve that goal with technology that concentrates the sunlight of mirrors of one square metre to produce steam at centralized towers.
Bill Gross, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.esolar.com
Lehigh Technologies
Lehigh Technologies manufactures very small, micron scale, engineered rubber powders from material derived from scrap tires using a proprietary, cryogenic, grinding technology. These powders are novel materials that are currently used in the manufacture of new tires and other rubber goods.
Alan Barton, Chief Executive Officer
www.lehightechnologies.com
Metabolix
Metabolix aims to create a new class of materials that can serve as an alternative to petroleum-based plastics. It has developed bio-based and biodegradable plastics using both engineered microbes and engineered bio-energy crops that grow bio-plastic directly inside leaves and stems.
Richard P. Eno, President and Chief Executive Officer
www.metabolix.com
Serious Materials
The construction industry is responsible for 52% of C02 emissions worldwide, which is more than automobiles, transportation and industry combined. Serious Materials is tackling the problem with high tech building materials that include super insulating products.
Kevin Surace, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.seriousmaterials.com
Vihaan Networks Limited (VNL)
VNL has developed a solar-powered GSM system specifically for remote and rural areas where people have less than US$ 2 a month to spend on their phone bills. Its base stations, which cost one-quarter of traditional equipment, only require as much energy as a 50-watt light bulb.
Rajiv Mehrotra, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
www.vnl.in
Information Technologies and New Media
amiando
amiando's technology tools enable organizers of small and mid-size events to handle everything from invitation management, online promotion and attendee registration to integrated billing online.
Felix Haas, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.amiando.com
Amobee
Amobee is reinventing the advertising model to make it work on mobile phones. Its technology allows communication companies to insert relevant, interactive advertisements into all types of mobile entertainment and communication channels, including videos, music, messaging and games.
Zohar Levkovitz, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.amobee.com
CollabNet
By centralizing management of users, projects, processes and assets, CollabNet's application lifestyle management platform enables a culture of collaboration, delivering an improvement in productivity of anywhere from 10% to 50% and reducing the cost of software development by up to 80%.
Bill Portelli, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.collab.net
Dilithium Networks
Dilithium's mobile video infrastructure solutions enable delivery of multimedia content over any mobile or broadband network to any device, helping pave the way for mass market adoption of mobile video.
Paul Zuber, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.dilithiumnetworks.com
Innovid
Innovid enables advertisers to embed their brands in the heart of video content and create a two-way communication between the viewers and the brand.
Tal Chalozin, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
www.innovid.com
Obopay
Obopay is a mobile payment service that allows users to instantly get, send and spend money, top up their mobile, buy online, buy via mobile, pay bills and pay small businesses anywhere, any time, via text messaging and the Web.
Carol Realini, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.obopay.com
Playfish*
Playfish, one of the world's largest and fastest-growing social game companies, allows friends to play together over social and mobile platforms.
Kristian Segerstrale, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.playfish.com
*Playfish was selected in September 2009. A few weeks after its selection as a Technology Pioneer, it was acquired by Electronic Arts.
RingCentral
RingCentral uses cloud computing to deliver capabilities normally found only in the most expensive business phone systems to any company, regardless of its size or location. For as low as US$ 10 a month, customers can buy and start using their systems, eliminating the need for investment in expensive on-premise equipment and maintenance.
Vlad Shmunis, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
www.ringcentral.com
StreamBase
Traditional database systems cannot keep pace with the continuous data streams produced by global electronic transactions and sensor networks. So, in 2001, StreamBase's founders started work on the "Aurora" project to investigate the underlying principles required to design a new system architecture for continuous real-time event data.
Mark Palmer, Chief Executive Officer
www.streambase.com
Twitter
Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read others' updates, known as "tweets". Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to followers who have subscribed to them.
Evan Williams and Biz Stone, Co-founders
www.twitter.com
Ushahidi
Ushahidi is a technology tool that facilitates the crowd sourcing of information during times of crisis, helping in disaster recovery or to draw attention to problems such as election fraud.
Ory Okolloh, Co-founder and Executive Director
www.ushahidi.com