Newswise — Five high-tech companies specializing in functions from eye scanning to data encryptions were selected as semi-finalists for the North American-leg of the Global Security Challenge set for Sept. 5 in Washington, D.C., competing to earn the $500,000 overall prize and mentorship from a top world-wide venture capitalist company.
Organizers of the international competition seek the world's most promising security technologies. Along with semi-finals in Singapore and Germany, companies in North American competition will seek to earn a spot to present business plans Nov. 8 at the final event hosted by the London Business School.
"This year, the number of submissions to the challenge has increased by leaps and bounds - this seems to indicate a global understanding of the need for innovation in these areas," said Simon Schneider, co-director of the GSC and a former homeland security consultant with IBM.
Mississippi State University and GSC joined earlier this year to host the U.S. competition, where the top North American selections will present business plans to a panel of judges. Entrants submitted executive summaries of their business.
The U.S. semi-final will occur at the Crystal City Marriott, where business plans will be presented to leaders from Accenture, Redshift Ventures, the Technical Support Working Group of the U.S. government, Mississippi State and the National Science Foundation. Opening this event will be Jay Cohen, under secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Tickets for the event are free and can be reserved online at: http://www.globalsecuritychallenge.com/conference/usa.html.
The selected semi-finalists for the Washington, D.C.,-based competition have developed technologies that assess people's health through an eye scan, carry out accurate surveillance at night, protect data transport, revolutionize data encryption and improve security intelligence sharing while preserving privacy rights.
The five U.S. semi-finalists are:
NoblePeak Vision - enabling the rapid detection and identification of people and objects at night without active illumination.
EyeMarker - scans the eye to rapidly and non-invasively assess a person's health. Stealth Technology - privacy-preserving data mining software to enable information sharing between agencies or enterprises.
MagiQ - hardware-based quantum key distribution to protect data transported over fiber networks.
Mica - disruptive encryption software combining asymmetric keys with unique relationship identifiers.
The Global Security Challenge was founded by MBA students at the London Business School and sponsored by TSWG of the U.S. government, Smith's Detection, Accenture and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Researchers and entrepreneurs from around the world compete for the $500,000 grant award and mentorship from leading venture capital funds, such as Paladin Capital Group and Siemens Venture Capital.
The annual competition aims to find the most promising security technology start-up business and is the first competition to feed the growing market for new security technology.
Kirk Schulz, MSU's vice president for research and economic development who will serve as a panel moderator at the U.S. semi-final, said he looks forward to the competition stimulating significant interest among high-technology companies for entrepreneurs. The land-grant institution shares many goals of the competition, such as finding ways to transform research into commercialized products, techniques and concepts, he added.
"As a leading research university and an economic development engine in Mississippi, we encourage competitions that allow researchers in the security sector to learn about business aspects of their inventions and to meet potential partners to move their ideas forward," Schulz said.
Mississippi State traditionally has been among the U.S. research institutions ranked in the top 10 percent by the National Science Foundation based on recent science and engineering research expenditures. The university's aggressive technology commercialization program emphasizes engineering and agriculture. In recent years, MSU established the Thad Cochran Endowment for Entrepreneurship, along with collaborating with federal agencies and industries to help increase technology-oriented, start-up companies.
Among the collaborators and sponsors are the U.S. departments of Defense and Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, General Electric, Northrop Grumman, EADS/American Eurocopter, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Israeli Aerospace Industry, and Mississippi Technology Alliance.
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