FAU TECH RUNWAY
Quality, Quantity of Start-ups

The cutting-edge technologies developed by the winners of the 2017 FAU Tech Runway Launch Competition have significantly raised the bar of the quality and breadth represented in this year’s Venture Class. The program awards up to $100,000 in cash grants, entrepreneurship instruction, structured team mentoring, no-cost workspace and introductions to potential sources of investment capital, according to Rhys L. Williams, associate vice president for research and managing director of the program.

MEET THE CASH WINNERS OF VENTURE CLASS 5

Tap2Open

eliminates call box aggravation in gated communities.

Created by FAU computer science graduate Mark Grosberg, Tap2Open grants entry to residents and invited guests via smartphone, tablet or computer.

The system is ideal for regular visitors, like weekly pool service staff, delivery drivers and other expected guests. It also works for one time visitors.

“There’s a lot of options for the community and how they choose to deploy the system,” Grosberg said. "The product can be tailored to meet the specifics needs of the community."

Call boxes would still be available for guests without smart devices.

Hubspring Health

is the brainchild of technologists and physicians Frank Gencorelli, M.D. and Andrew Rosendahl, M.D., Ph.D.

During his residency, Gencorelli, whose undergraduate degree is in engineering from FAU, became frustrated at how much time was wasted struggling to access even the most basic resources and communicate with his team.

When time was critical to a patient's outcome, he had to login to a desktop computer, access the hospital’s intranet, locate a shared folder and, with some luck, find the information he was looking for.

“Things that seem easy outside of health care were incredibly time consuming in the hospital, where patients’ lives lie in the balance,” Gencorelli said. He and Rosendahl, a medical colleague, cofounded Hubspring to sove this pervasive problem in the industry.

The Hubspring software platform — "The Hub" — puts all mission critical content and communication tools in one place, making it accessible from any device or location, eliminating delays in care.

"The Hub has been transformative” in the medical departments using it, including the University of Miami, University of Texas, University of Tennessee and many others, according to Gencorelli.

Ridgeback Network Defense

founder Tom Phillips spent decades working on technology in national security for the U.S. government.

Phillips and co-CEOs, Raj Kulkarni and Scott Fogarty, created Ridgeback, a security platform that defeats malicious computer network invasion in real time. Ridgeback dramatically shifts the odds in favor of the enterprise to detect and eliminate hackers, a $75 billion global problem, according to Fogarty.

The technology performs by populating a company’s network with the appearance of billions of “IT assets” — computers, servers, copiers — fake resources that act as landmines when hackers try to infiltrate a network.

“The minute the hackers scan the network they’re scanning fake resources,” Fogarty said. “Every decoy is a landmine, and every time it’s tripped, the compromised computer is taken offline and the threat is stopped. Our product sends confusing and irritating information back to the hacker.”

For national security uses, Ridgeback maintains an open connection to the hackers, meaning the hackers’ machines are susceptible to being exploited.

Unlike many cybersecurity solutions on the market, which require hardware, bandwidth and human management, Ridgeback can be downloaded and made operable within 10 minutes.

Videopura

is a cloud platform that halves the file size of videos streamed on the Internet.

Hari Kalva, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Computer & Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, developed software to discard what’s not visible to the viewer, based on principles of human vision.

“When we watch videos and process information, there are certain aspects you see and others you don’t see,” Kalva said. “Our software can analyze a video, identify what is happening and encode only the portions of the video that are relevant for perception.” For example, when a movie cuts from scene to scene or a camera angle changes, “our eyes do not see many details in up to five to 210 frames before the cut,” according to Kalva.

During trials, users compared video streamed on local news channels’ websites to Videopura’s reduced file size version. “In all cases, we found our video is the same or better quality than what’s out there,” said Kalva.

By reducing file size, consumers use less data and videos load faster. This results in a cost savings for consumers, and service providers benefit by lowering the costs of storage and streaming.

Squeeze,

a budgeting and expense aggregator app — think Expedia for your bills — has expanded rapidly in its first year, now employing nearly 20 people: nine in Boca Raton including one FAU graduate, two FAU interns and several global subcontractors.

The company is building a partnership with LendingTree and recently launched daily deals and digital coupons so users can “squeeze other things,” said CEO and founder Elias Janetis. Squeeze is also teaming up with the Penny Hoarder and its more than 19 million monthly visitors.

The free Squeeze app launched in 2017 without any paid advertising. In the first 90 days, more than 12,000 users downloaded the app. After incorporating user feedback, Squeeze is launching its next iteration and a website with a coupon and deals engine, giving users access to up to 10,000 merchants to identify the best deal. The app is available for Android and iOS devices, and at Squeeze.com.

"The FAU Tech Runway physical facilities were a great help and allowed us to focus our cash burn on product development instead of physical overhead,” Janetis said. He plans to stay headquartered in South Florida after graduating from the Tech Runway space.