After a wonderful sunny week-end, I’m leaving to Houston to attend TechConnect Summit 2009. This year, 5 of Univalor’s technologies have been accepted.
In case you are attending, I’ll be at Univalor’s booth (# 1029). I’ll also be sending updates on Twitter #TechConnect.
Developed by Pr. Mohamad Sawan and his team at the Polystim neurotechnologies Laboratory , this electrical platform allows blinds to recover vision. This system consists of a miniaturized implant connected to the cortex and communicating to a camera (which acts as an eye prosthesis). Pr. Sawan’s visual prosthesis project passed the stage of perfecting a first generation functional prototype (proof of concept). Now, in view of confirming complete validation, elaborated in vivo tests must be made in collaboration with medical research institutes in Montreal.
Because of the high number of patients diagnosed with cancer, tumor targeting, target chemotherapy and chemoembolization are of special interest for modern medicine. Nevertheless, many tumors are still out of reach to catheterization (in particular the ones that must be targeted in regions only accessible through smaller diameter vessels). Some 40 years after the release of the “Fantastic Voyage”, Prof. Martel came up with the solution. He developed a MRI based platform which enables to reach targets usually inaccessible to catheterization. Its applications include cells targeting, chemo-embolization and local hyperthermia.
“Smart textiles” are already everywhere. Essentially used for their technical performances and their functional properties, they are forecasted to represent 80 % of textiles by 2020. Current photonic textiles, usually made from conventional optical fibers (fiberglasses, usually used in telecommunications), have been shown to be limited in terms of applications since they cannot be woven and don’t provide a uniform coloration in time. Prof. Skorobogatiy proposes to use plastic fibers constituted by successive layers of polymers. From a single light source, Pr. Skorobogatiy’s fibers naturally emit a homogenous color which is controllable in real-time. Furthermore, since they are made of polymers, they can be easily woven using a common loom.
In the past decades, the flow cytometry technologies became a routine test for counting, and discriminating microscopic particles in a stream of fluid. To better discriminate each cell type, these techniques require a first step of fluorescence labeling. This step makes difficult to reuse the sample for further experimentations. Using a refractometer as a detector permits to skip this step. The Prof. Yves-Alain Peter and his team introduce a low cost and high resolution refractometer. Due to its organization, it is capable to characterize a particle in a volume. All its components are fabricated simultaneously in one conventional microfabrication process.
Many methods allow the fabrication of microscopic pieces. However, because of technological limitations, they have been confined to relatively thin device architectures (a few layers) and are limited by materials constraints. To overcome these limitations, Prof. Therriault proposes a radiation-assisted direct-writing approach which allows manufacturing in a straightforward manner and in ambient conditions 3D functionalized microstructures.
A few weeks since my last post. I then have many news to share with you.
First, probably the most important one, you may know that Didier left Univalor. After 5 years at Univalor, he is joining MSBi Valorisation (equivalent of Univalor for McGill, Sherbrooke and Bishop’s Universities) as the General Manager. I had lots of fun (and learned a lot!) working with him. Just hope, we’ll be able to collaborate soon on some exciting projects! Thanks and Good Luck Didier!
Since we came back from Photonics West 09, we have been very busy working on new projects from Université de Montréal (Equipment for transporting thermolabile products), École Polytechnique (software for condition based maintenance, software for writing analysis) and Hopital Sainte-Justine (Quantitative clinical postural assessment Tool). Of course, as soon as our analysis is completed, I’ll give you more details here.
We have also been working with ScisWave to prepare Capital Innovation. ScisWave is one of the 9 selected companies and will be presenting at the 2009 edition (Montreal – March 25).
This year, Guy Kawasaky, Founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, will be Keynote Speaker! If you don’t know him yet, I recomment you read “The Art of the Start“, the best book I have ever read on start-up creation (Thanks again Didier for recommending me to read it!).
I’m now preparing my next two trips:WBT late March, 3 projects selected, and, TechConnect Summit early May, 5 projects selected. If you’re going, I’d love the meet you there!
Last News? The February 09 edition of the Vector is now available! Check out the progress of Ptidej on page 3.
In 1966, a microscopic submarine entered a diplomat’s bloodstream to remove a blood clot in his brain and thus save the world from certain nuclear annihilation.
Some 40 years after the release of this movie “Fantastic Voyage”, this extraordinary vision from Hollywood becomes a reality with MR-SUB, a MRI-based platform for medical target interventions developed by a team led by Dr. Sylvain Martel from Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal.
You may have heard about corporations and government agencies, such as TJ Maxx or the United States Veteran Affairs, which have lost and paid out millions of dollars to recover from data breach fallout. Protecting Personal Identification Information or Intellectual Property materials is now a challenge for companies.
For that reason, data loss protection technologies (also known as anti-data leakage) become more and more popular because they provide companies with a solution to prevent from data breaches but also from their associated costs (negative public exposure, brand name damage, etc…).
While looking for a solution to fight against web juvenile pornography, Prof. Jean-Pierre David (Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal) came up with a method to detect in real-time and at very high speed (10Gbit/s and more) the transmission of known files over a network.
Since it works at very high transmission data-rate, it can be placed directly at the company gateway and offers a solution to prevent unauthorized files from leaving it.
As usual, your comments and feedback are very welcome. Further information is also available on flintbox. You may also contact me for more detailed information.
Governments, Public Security Agencies or any Organization that needs to control or ensure the transmission of files now has the opportunity to go beyond current limited real-time cyber-surveillance solutions technologies (sniffers).
To remedy the problems of slow speeds and heavy computing resources of current sniffer technologies, Professor Jean-Pierre David, École Polytechnique de Montréal, has proposed a system that enables real-time file content detection and tracking over a network.
This system has three components: a database of indexed files to be monitored, an optimized algorithm, and hardware to implement the algorithm (an FPGA board or on chip depending on volume).
When one of the protected files passes into a network, it is automatically detected by the system, a report indicating the transmission is sent, and an alarm is set off. Depending on the application, its transmission can even be blocked before it arrives at its destination.
Advantages:
- Does not depend on data transmission protocols.
- Protected files are not tagged.
- Can be applied to all types of data files and formats, including compressed files.
- Detectable data transmissions include the downloading or uploading of webpages or the transmission of emails.
- Works at 10Gbit/s and more.
Current known limitations:
- Detection and tracking performance may be reduced with encrypted files.
- Depending on applications, installing numerous sub-systems of the hardware and algorithm could be required.
This technology is now fully tested and available for licensing. Further information is available upon request (under NDA).
The April 2008 edition of the Vector newsletter is now available.
Featuring this month:
1 – Signature of a license agreement with South Korean company Dungil
Rubber Belt Co. Ltd regarding an earthquake-resistant bracing technology.
2 – A real-time image processing technogy
3 – A new vaccine for “Streptococcus suis”, an infectious bacterial pathogen in porks
To read this edition, click here
As usual your comments are very welcome!
After Photonics West, AUTM, and WBT, we’ll be featuring 5 of our technologies at the TechConnect Summit 2008
The TechConnect Summit is focused on bringing together the world’s top technology transfer offices, companies, and investment firms to locate the most promising technologies and early stage companies from across the globe.
It’ll be the third time that we’re going to participate in this summit. This is THE place to make great contacts within universities, venture capitalists and companies (Just look at their Review Board…). We recomment everyone to go, but… DON’T forget your business cards!
Hello,
