2009 Intel + Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge Participating Teams

AMIRECO - St.Petersburg State University, Russia
JSC “AMIREco” has developed biopreparations for cleaning soils and waters from oil pollution. The business model of JSC“AMIREco” is based on production and sales of a line of biopreparations for eliminating oil pollution. Main consumers of named bio preparations are presumed to be companies that perform full range of oil pollution eliminating activities and special rescue services in oil-producing companies. The main advantages are: no need in additional disposal after application (for example the collection and disposal of used sorbents are expensive); composite nature of the product (microflora, sorbent carrier and mineral nutrition in one biopreparation); high cleaning efficiency (up to 99% of hydrocarbons degraded after 30-40 days); no negative impact on the environment.

Artificial Skin - State University - Higher School of Economics, Russia
Production and marketing of award winning innovative skin regeneration wound dressings (‘artificial skin’) and gels, application: for treatment of burns, in surgery and cosmetology. Technology has been developed at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

AutoTB – University of California Berkeley, USA
More than one-third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis which kills 1.7 million annually. Improved diagnostics are desperately needed to combat this growing epidemic. AutoTB is developing an automated sputum microscopy device which decreases analysis time, increases sensitivity and eliminates human error present in current procedures while integrating into the existing infrastructure and remaining inexpensive and accessible to developing countries. The medical and economic benefits of this device will provide a competitive advantage over existing technologies and make it very marketable to NGOs and both rural and urban clinics in developing countries.

CaptchaAd - Technical University Munich, Germany
The CaptchaAd GmbH is the world's first company to combine enhanced SPAM protection with interactive video advertising and thus increase the security on websites and facilitates visitor’s use, while at the same time ensuring a more conscious perception of advertising by the user. Instead of distorted codes conventional CAPTCHAs (an anti SPAM function usedmore than 250 million times a day worldwide) use to differentiate between humans and machines, CaptchaAd (Captcha Advertising) uses questions concerning the content of the spot. A CaptchaAd is a short commercial including a question which can easily be read and answered by site customers to substitute the “normal” CAPTCHA process. This results in a higher level of attention and involvement by the user to the viewed content.

Chimps - The University of Tokyo, Japan
Chimps' mission is to create social learning platform, focusing on Math and Science.  Mathematics is one of the most important elements that sustain our modern society. At the same time, the Web has become necessary for our lives. Those two, however, are not linked well enough, especially for scientific-educational purposes. We cannot easily write math equations on the Web, nor can we search them. With our novel technologies, Chimps provides Web-based academic environment for students, teachers and researchers around the world,enabling them to create, share and discuss various academic materials related to mathematics on the Web.

FILSEL - EAFIT, Colombia
FILSEL designs systems to treat water waste from the industry. The objective is to recover the water and the raw material to reuse them in the process. Using nanotechnology, FILSEL provides integrated solutions to industry, including diagnosis, design and construction of industrial filtration and/or concentration equipment, according to specific needs of industry.

Hopeful Monster - Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
We provide a service system to assign male and female with good affinity to matchmaking party using Machine Learning framework. These kinds of data analysis-driven service are very popular in mainly USA, for example, “eHarmony” or “True.com”. These services only treat 1 to 1 meeting. But party type, multi to multi meeting, has the advantage that each participant can meet multiple potential partners at one time. And also there is no mechanism which can treat indefinable evaluation functions such as affinity by feeding back the empirically obtained values of those functions. We expand this service all around the world soon.

Ihealth - Tsinghua University, P.R. China
Ihealth Group aims to improve life quality with its revolutionary new product—MPHB biodegradable bone screws. Ihealth has developed MPHB bone screw in light of bionics which has been granted a national patent in China. Our product overcomes the disadvantages of the existing materials and provides a nearly perfect solution for the rehabilitation and fixation of bone injuries.

IntraOz - All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India
Affordable solutions for emergency vascular access, and usable in resource constrained environment is lacking. IntraOz’s novel solution addresses these critical needs, while reducing clinical complications. Our patent pending technology provides quick and definitive vascular access coupled with visual feedback. Estimated Indian market is 1.3M for such devices annually, with huge global potential. Our cumulative sale is USD 10M in five years. Using several prototypes for bench-top tests, we have mitigated early clinical risks; now ready for animal tests. We seek USD 2M investment to set up pilot facilities, human studies, and obtain regulatory approvals to commercialize the device by 2011.

Inviko – Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico
Inviko will revolutionize the way people do business through social networks. The accelerated growth of social networks has created an online revolution. This growth has prompted users to generate and exchange vast online information amongst them. However, until now, there has been no efficient way for users to benefit from this information and their connections, in order to reach new reliable entities, to get engaged in business relationships and help other people satisfy their needs. Inviko provides a solution to this problem. Inviko leverages social networks by extracting its information and applying technology to offer an efficient way for users to get what they need by offering a commission. Users will be able to do business in a new, easy, fast and efficient way.

KAI Square - National University of Singapore, Singapore
Established in 2006, KAI Square is an emerging company specializing in open platform technology with focus in mobile surveillance. KAI Square’s mission is to enable innovations through the integration of Knowledge and Artificial Intelligence (KAI). The Juzz4© products are capable of conducting interactive learning, complex event handling and cross cameras advance analysis. To top it off, a highly efficient video search option is available for retrieval of selected video feeds from the secured archives.

NEW GREEN - Shanghai Jiaotong University, P.R. China
Our core product is an assay kit for pesticide residues, which account for the abuse of pesticide in vegetable and fruit. Its key technology-Pichia pastoris expressing high AChE activity is the fruit of SJTU-SIBS-PSU united laboratory’s research effort. It is now listed in the key projects of national technology. The IPR has already been secured. Based on this novel recombinant AChE, our product is low-cost and high-quality, as certificated by Chinese authorities. Our main users are Agricultural Bureau of all levels, supermarkets and wholesale markets, to fast-inspect whether there is pesticide residues at high level in agriculture products.

Nimero – University of Leicester, Bulgaria
Envision is an educational system designed to help teachers in their classes and it’s aimed at solving the two main problems in primary education – the lack of resources and the lack of interest in the students. Its main purpose is to make every child active participant in the lessons while using resources effectively.

Ninui – FGV-SP, Brazil
Ninui is the first free Brazilian online business platform. We specialize in niche markets and operate in the web and mobile environments. We offer to our user-sellers the free set up, management and integration of virtual points of sale. And to our user-buyers we guarantee safe shopping experiences in a vast variety of categories of products and services in hundreds of exclusive market niches. Ninui defends fair trade, promotes the natural entrepreneurship of the population, and generates opportunities of digital and commercial inclusion, work and income.

NKU HealthCare Medicine - Nankai University, P.R. China
With the advanced technique support from the key laboratory of Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Nankai University, we use the Fungal fermentation technology to produce Taxol anticancer drugs on a large scale. With the low cost and high-quality production of the Taxol drugs, we bring health and hope to the cancer patients. This technological innovation, Fungal fermentation, is free from the limitations of Taxol sources. Meanwhile, it reduces the felling of yew tree which is becoming rare and effectively protects the ecological environment.

NovelMed - Cairo University, Egypt
NovelMed introduces a sensitive cushion that can be attached to an ordinary chair to measurethe dynamic forces exerted on different parts of the back and buttocks during sitting. The sensitive cushion can be connected to the computer to create a 3D simulation for the user’s spine while s/he is sitting on the chair. The cumulative data enables generating a user’s personal report describing his/her bad habits during prolonged sitting that might influence spine diseases. The sensitive cushion is a portable device that can be used away from the computer while driving a car, or while sitting at work or home giving immediate vocal instructions that help the user to improve his/her sitting habits.

Plasboo - Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Plasboo is an internet collaborative service focused on places. It aims at disseminating knowledge about places of interest at a global level, enhancing their tourist and cultural potentialities and discovering new ones.

ProtCare - Sabanci University, Turkey
ProtCare is a medical diagnosis diaper targeting infants aged 0-24 months. ProtCare initially diagnoses urinary tract infections by nitrite testing. ProtCare aims to solve the complications of sample collecting in infants. With a 5min surfing on internet, it's easy to witness the distress of parents that are at loss on how to collect urine from their baby girls.By implanting nitrite tests within the baby diapers, the test will be performed as the baby urinates and the result will be displayed instantly on the diaper with a color change.

Silicon BioDevices - University of California Berkeley, USA
Silicon BioDevices is a seed stage medical device company with a new approach to diagnostics. Laboratory procedures require expensive equipment while current point-of-care tests face limitations in terms of accuracy and applicability. By applying the microchip technologyused in computers and cell phones, we encapsulate the performance of a laboratory test in the palm of your hand. A drop of blood can be analyzed by a disposable microchip that displays a digital result in a few minutes. The stage is set for a revolution in the $50 billion diagnostics market and Silicon BioDevices will be at the center of it.

Silicon Reef – FGV-SP, Brazil
Conceived in 2005 and incorporated in 2008, SiliconReef develops analog integrated circuits. Its first product, Energy-Harvesting IC (EH01), is a microchip that encompasses high efficiency power converters and a storage charge controller for use in energy-harvesting systems. It seamlessly handles the entire process of energy conditioning from multiple sources using proprietary architecture and algorithms to achieve maximum efficiency. The company will deposit the product patent in March, 2010 and will start licensing its technology in 2011.

Treems - save a tree, share a dream - Technical University Munich, Germany
As seen in the media, science and politics a more ecological conscious mindset has formed into a long-term trend. We as the world’s middle and upper class are aware of potentially drastic problems arising through climate change yet we are not really willing to change our lifestyle. Treems addresses this by focusing on reducing deforestation one tree at a time. With the protected tree as a commodity that you can directly buy and own over a web-based marketplace users are provided with a transparent tool and a more personal experience. By harnessing the financial power of individuals Treems will repair the world.

Vaxeal – University of Lausanne (CH) , University of Kuwait
Vaxeal is a Biotech Company specialized in therapeutic vaccine development, incorporated in 2009 in Switzerland, and at pre-incorporation stage in the United Arab Emirates, with scientific teams in France, Switzerland, Koweit and China; The company and its strategic partners have developed a novel therapeutic vaccine strategy to address unmet medical needs in the field of infectious diseases and cancer, with a first focus on Hepatitis C, Malaria, several carcinomas and melanomas. Our strategy resides in the restoration of appropriate immune responses in cancer and infected patients using selected immunogenic synthetic peptide sequences, called IRIC peptides. For each disease, IRIC sequences are selected on the basis of the molecular requisites for inducing protective responses.

Vizmo – Technion, Israel
Vizmo provides customer service centers with a platform for visual self-service. With our platform mobile callers are converted from voice service to visual self service.

Voxound - Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile
We have developed a free web site that lets people find, play and buy music by selecting multiple user-generated tags, such as “French romantic jazz”, or “English pop with piano”. Music classification (tag assignation) is done collaboratively using a freely distributed music organizer software, that is intended to be used by people that own large music collections. Besides the possibility of tagging songs, the software gives a series of benefits to a common user, like the automatic fixing of their song information and the creation of quick playlists (using tags) that combine local and remotely streamed music.

Wormhole IT - UADE - Universidad Argentina de la Empresa, Argentina
Wormhole IT (http://www.wormholeit.com) is a company created to develop innovative software for the new collaborative web. We aim at becoming the Latin American Standard for web conferencing solutions through partnership with Telecommunication Companies and Internet Service Providers.

Zimplistic - National University of Singapore, Singapore
Roti is staple diet of 800 million Indians eating 2.4 billion rotis everyday. Making rotis is a very time consuming, tedious and skillful task and since there is no fully automatic home appliance that makes rotis, people resort to unhealthy and expensive alternatives like frozen rotis. Zimplistic is a Singapore based startup that has designed & developed the first ever, fully automatic "Rotimatic". It is like a coffee machine. It is the size of a mini microwave oven, the user just has to enter no. of rotis, and it measures, kneads, flattens, roasts and puffs rotis out.

µSpore (microspore) - University of Pune, India
µSpore (microspore) is a patented, novel technology-platform for transportation and long-term preservation at room temperature of DNA, extendable to other biomaterials. It is a superior and cost effective solution compared to the existing technologies. We offer DNA preservation kits prepared from naturally occurring pollen using its DNA carrying and protecting properties. Our customers range from forensic research to biodiversity preservation laboratories. We seek $ 1M for pilot facility and product stabilization; expected sales will be $92.5M cumulative in five years. We will be an innovative research based organization having tie-up with established firms for successful marketing of the products worldwide.