Mainly financed by EPFL, the Innogrants are or were also supported by the following sponsors
13 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Fields | Project leader(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myriad Optics | SB/GR-GA | FoodTech | Marwan El Chazli |
| Protonica | SB/LUMES | Engineering | Veronica Leccese, Benoît Truc |
| Dexterous Catheters | STI/LIS | MedTech | Yegor Piskarev |
| PitchMe | STI/UNFOLD | CleanTech | Sebastien Lefouest, Daniel Fernex |
| Biomatics | SV/PTPSP | Biotech | Chloe Albietz, Francois Carruzzo |
| SafeShore | ENAC/PL-LCH | CleanTech | Tara Habibi |
| Circelec | STI/LMTS | CleanTech | James Bourely, Nicolas Fumeaux |
| ZigZag | STI/LAPD | ICT | Niyazi Dinc, Mustafa Yildirim |
| Qanova Tech | SB/HQC | Quantum | Simone Frasca |
| Lemna Bio | SV/UPDALPE | Biotech | Moustafa Houmani, Lucien Krapp |
| Helix Robotics | STI/CREATE-LAB | Engineering | Kai Junge, Francesco Stella |
| MyJoint | STI/BIOROB | MedTech | Mina Baniasad, Soroush Bagheri Koudakani |
| Neurovia | STI/LSBI | MedTech | William Esposito |
13 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Fields | Project leader(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| REMA (Jaria) | STI/LO | CleanTech | Steven Schenk, Ioakeim Sioutis |
| Dewi | SV/UPSCHRIMPF1 | MedTech | Marliawaty I Gusti Bagus |
| Mechagel | STI/LBO | MedTech | Peyman Karami |
| Inkocell Therapeutics (Anake Therapeutics) | SV/UPHUELSKEN | Biotech | Angela Madurgaalons, Mathieu Girardin |
| MIROS technology | STI/RRL | Engineering | Fabian Zuliani, Neil Chennoufi |
| AirCurve | IC/CVLAB | MedTech | André Mercanzini |
| Navintis (MagFlow) | STI/MICROBS | MedTech | Lucio Pancaldi-Giubbini, Ece Ozelci |
| naialabs | SV/PTBET | Biotech | Grégoire Michielin, Hon Ming Yip, Evan Olson |
| Novoviz | STI/AQUA | Engineering | Andrada Muntean, Andrei Ardelean |
| Hepavue | STI/LTS2 | MedTech | Gaby El Alam, Maxime Nachit |
| Maven Health | SB/LIFMET | BioTech | Christopher Wall |
| NeoSens | STI/BIOS and IC/MLBIO | MedTech | Marco Fumagalli, Karim Zahra |
| BCellOne | STI/LBMM | BioTech | Miguel Solsana |
10 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Fields | Project leader(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consulto | SV / UPSALATHE1 | Medtech | Baher Higazy, Basem Higazy |
| Beyond Scroll | STI / LAMD | Cleantech | Luis Medonza, Marianna Fighera |
| Nanodecoder | SV / CAO | IT & Communication | Sailan Shui, Zhidian Zhang, Nathan Sierro |
| DemoSquare | IC / INDY | IT & Communication | Victor Kristof |
| Elythor | STI/LIS | Engineering | Harry Vourtsis; Nathan Müller |
| AeroSpec | ENAC/LAPI | Cleantech | Dudani Nikunj; Satoshi Takahama |
| Swistor | STI/NANOLAB | Cleantech | Clara Moldovan |
| IsoSpec Analytics | SB/LCPM | biotech | Stephan Warnke, Ahmed Benfaleh |
| Emissium | STI/IPESE | Cleantech | Alessio Santecchia, Luise Middelhauve |
| Clearsky | STI/LTS5 | IT & Communication | Hugo Flayac |
13 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| AdaMu | Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience | IC/LCN1 | Florian Colombo |
| Arkaiya | Environmental Engineering Institute / Ludwig Group | ENAC/GR-LUD | Duncan-Bruce Sutherland |
| Parithera | Microsystems Laboratory 4 | STI/LMIS4 | Antoine Herzog; Weida Chen |
| ArcoScreen | Microsystems Laboratory 4 | STI/LMIS4 | Margaux Duchamp |
| Qaptis | Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering | STI/IPESE | Yves Loerincik; Masoud Talebi Amiri; Théodore Caby |
| Adaptyv Biosystems | Laboratory of Biological Network Characterization | STI / LBNC | Julian Englert; Daniel Nakhaee-Zadeh Gutierrez; Moustafa Houmani; Amir Shahein |
| BearMind | Laboratory of Movement Analysis and Measurement | STI / LMAM | Mathieu Falbriard, Tom Bertrand |
| Capture | Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience | SV/LNCO | Jean-Baptiste Beau |
| Corintis | Power and Wide-band-gap Electronics Research | STI/POWERLAB | Remoc van Erp; Pirouz Sohi |
| FiberLab | Laboratory of Photonic Materials and Fiber Devices | STI/FIMAP | Bastien Schyrr |
| Omnigrasp | Soft Transducers Lab | STI/LMTS | Vito Cacucciolo, Valentin Py |
| Solaxer | Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory | ENAC/LESO-PB | Anna Krammer; Maxime Lagier |
| Spectrace | Laboratory of Integrated Performance in Design | ENAC/LIPID | Jeffrey Hubbard |
10 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allure | Biorobotics Laboratory | STI/BIOROB | Mohsen Falahi |
| Sensemodi | Laboratory of Movement Analysis and Measurement | SIT/LMAM | Olga Motovilova, Jérôme Thevenot |
| Alithea Genomics | Bart Deplancke’s Research Group | CV/UPDEPLA | Daniel Alpern |
| Tune Insight | Laboratory for Data Security | IC/LDS | Juan Troncoso Pastoriza |
| RAAAM Technologies | Telecommunications Circuits Lab | STI/TCL | Robert Giterman |
| School Rebound | Computer-Human Interaction in Learning and Instruction | IC/CHILI | Thibault Asselborn |
| LBTech | Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory LESO-PB | ENAC/LESO-PB | Luc Burnier |
| Space4Impact | Space Center / Innovation Space | Center | Gaetant Petit, Edoardo Alberti |
| AICA | Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory | STI/LASA | Lukas Huber, Baptiste Busch |
| Retreeva | Laboratory for Functional Inorganic Materials (LFIM) | SB/LFIM | Olga Trukhina |
11 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visual Structure | Swiss Finance Institute | CDM/ | Semyon Malamud |
| Water Probe | Laboratory for fundamental BioPhotonics | STI/LBP | Orly Tarun |
| Largo Films | Image and Visual Representation Lab | IC/IVRL | Sami Arpa |
| FlowBone | Laboratory of Biomechanical Orthopedics | STI/LBO | Ulrike Kettenberger |
| Compair | Laboratory for Processing of Advanced Composites | STI/LPAC | Amaël Cohades |
| Depoly | Laboratory of molecular simulation | SB/LSMO | Samantha Anderson |
| SenSwiss | Microsystems laboratory 4 | STI/LMIS4 | V. Steininger & P. Philipp |
| Asterivir | Supramolecular Nanomaterials and Interfaces Laboratory | STI/SUNMIL | Paulo H. Jacob Silva |
| Limula Biotech | Laboratory of Stem Cell Bioengineering | SV/UPLUT | Yann Pierson |
| Rea | Swiss-up engineering Chair – Laboratory of Life Sciences Electronics | STI/CLSE | Erick A. Garcia Cordero |
| ShadMe | Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory | ENAC/LESO-PB | Yujie Wu |
12 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foldaway Haptics | Reconfigurable Robotics Lab | STI/RRL | Marco Salerno, Stefano Mintchev |
| Neural Concept | Computer Vision Lab | IC/CVLAB | Pierre Baqué |
| Prediva | Integrated Systems Laboratory | IC-STI/LSI1 | Nicee Srivastava |
| CO2 Transformation | Laboratory of Organometallic and Medicinal Chemistry | SB/LCOM | Felix Bobbink |
| 3seNs | Laboratory of Advanced Semiconductors for Photonics and Electronics | SB/LASPE | Pirouz Sohi & Ian Rousseau |
| EMETS – Water Treatment | Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Catalysis | SB/LSCI | Chin Lee (Jeff) Ong |
| 3D MetalPrinting | Laboratory of Thermomechanical Metallurgy | STI/LMTM | Nikola Kalentics |
| GoBeyond | Optics and Photonics Technology Laboratory | STI/OPT | Nicolas Decharmes, Raphael Barbey |
| NeuralSoft | Laboratory for Soft Bioelectronic Interfaces | STI/LSBI | Nicolas Vachicouras, Ludovic Serex, Florian Fallegger |
| FloChIP | Laboratory of Systems Biology and Genetics | SV/LSBG | Riccardo Dainese |
| Bionomou | Robotic Systems Laboratory | STI/LSRO | Frank Bonnet |
| Warp Coding | Operating Systems Laboratory | IC/LABOS | Nikolche Mihajlovski |
a record 15 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creal3d | Optics & Photonics Technology Laboratory | STI/OPT | Vincent Gajdosik, Tomas Sluka |
| Nanogence | Powder Technology Laboratory | STI/LTP | Abhishek Kumar |
| Viventis Microscopy | Prof. Oates Group | SV/UPOATES | Petr Strnad, Andrea Boni |
| Imverse | Foundation Bertarelli Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics | SV/LNCO | Javier Bello Ruiz, Robin Mange |
| ADC Imaging | Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry and Molecular Imaging | SB/LCBIM | Aleksey Yevtodiyenko & Elena Dubikovskaya |
| Microbiome Diagnostics | Chair of Applied Statistics | SB/STAP | Paulo Refinetti |
| Mirrakoi | Biomedical Imaging Laboratory | STI/LIB | Daniel Schmitter , Zsuzsanna Püspöki, Pablo Garcia-Amorena |
| Feeltronix | Foundation Bertarelli Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology | STI/LSBI | Arthur Edouard Hirsch, Aaron Gerratt, Hadrien Michaud |
| Retina Imaging | Laboratory of Applied Photonic Devices | STI/LAPD | Timothé Laforest, Dino Carpentras, Mathieu Kunzi |
| Tomoprint | Laboratory of Applied Photonic Devices | STI/LAPD | Damien Loterie, Paul Delrot |
| VascuSafe | Microsystems Laboratory 4 | STI/LMIS4 | Guillaume Petit-Pierre, Marc Boers |
| EmbryoSpin | Microsystems Laboratory 1 | STI/LMIS1 | Marco Grisi, Marc Conley |
| Instoa – Digitalization of Clinical Trials | Operating Systems Laboratory | IC/LABOS | Nicolas Gobet |
| Medusoil | Soil Mechanics Laboratory | ENAC/LMS | Dimitrios Terzis |
| Mano | Defitech Foundation Chair in Brain-machine Interface | STI/CNBI | Luca Randazzo |
12 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| FXII Inhibitor | Laboratory of Therapeutic Proteins and Peptides | SB/LPPT | Christian Heinis, Andres McAllister |
| Active Wearables | Robotic Systems Laboratory | STI/LSRO | Simon Gallo, Giulio Rognini |
| Chef’s Road | Operating Systems Laboratory | IC/LABOS | Youssef El Houti, Abdelkoudouss Badou |
| Vizir | Image and Visual Representation Laboratory | IC/IVRL | Martijn Bosch & Adrien Bierbaumer |
| Dispencell | Stem Cell Dynamics Laboratory | SV/LDCS | Georges Muller & David Bonzon |
| Thinkee | Group Kayal | STI/GR_KA | Nastaran Asadi Zanjani, Johann Bigler & Jean-Charles Fosse |
| Lironix | Laboratory of Macromolecular and Organic Materials | STI/LMOM | Giuseppe Sforazzini |
| MiraEx | Group Villanueva | STI/GR_LVT | Clément Javerzac-Galy & Nicolas Piro |
| TWIICE | Laboratoire de Systèmes Robotiques | STI/LSRO | Marek Jancik & Tristan Vouga |
| EEG buds | Defitech foundation chair in Brain-Machin interface | STI/CNBI | Naik Londono |
| Lumigbo | Laboratory of Biomedical Orthopedics | STI/LBO | Andreas Schmocker & Azadeh Khoushabi |
| GRZ Technologies | Laboratory of Materials for Renewable Energy | SB/LMER | Noris Gallandat & Claudio Ruch |
11 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Twenty Green | Electronics and Signal Processing Laboratory | STI/ESPLAB | Mario Zaiss & Duncan Sutherland |
| Sthar | Laboratory of Theoretical Physical Chemistry | SB/LCPT | Alberto Hernando de Castro, Miroslav Sluc, Marius Wehrle & Eduardo Zambrano |
| Swiss Sonic Production | Laboratory of Microengineering for Manufacturing | STI/LPM | Csaba Laurenczy |
| Targeted cancer therapy | Laboratory of Synthesis and Natural Products & Radtke Group | SB/LSPN & SV/UPRAD | Viktoria Reinmüller |
| Volumina | Microsystems Laboratory 4 | STI/LMIS4 | Amélie Béduer & Thomas Braschler |
| Cellphmed | Laboratory of Virology and Genetics | SV/LVG | Marc Friedli |
| Technis | Microsystems Laboratory 4 | STI/LMIS4 | Naïk Londono, Martin Hofmann & Wiktor Bourée |
| TasteHit | Unit of prof. Salathé | SV/UPSALATHE | Alexei Kounine & Christopher Burger |
| ArtMYN | Audiovisual Communications Lab | IC/LCAV | Loïc Baboulaz, Alexandre Catsicas, Julien Lalande, Mathieu Rudelle |
| Daphne | Swiss Plasma Center | SB/SPC | Mario Michan |
| Insolight | Laboratory of Applied Photonics Devices | STI/LAPD | Laurent Coulot, Mathieu Ackerman, Florian Gerlich |
12 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xsensio | Nanoelectronic Devices Lab. | STI/NANOLAB | Esmeralda Magally |
| RAW | Data-Intensive Applications and Systems Lab. | IC/DIAS | Miguel Branco |
| Cloud Storage | Image and Visual Representation Laboratory | IC/IVRG | Thomas Lochmatter & Radhakrishna Achanta |
| Biosemic | Laboratory of the Physics of Living Matter | SB/LPMV | Wiktor Lisowksi |
| Lucentix | Laboratory of Protein Engineering | SB/LIP | Rudolf Griss & Alberto Schena |
| Intento | Chair in Non-invasive Brain-machine Interface | STI/CNBI | Andrea Maesani & Andrea Biasiucci |
| SensArs Neuroprosthetics | Translational Neural Engineering Laboratory | STI/TNE | Francesco Petrini, Stanisa Raspopovic & Marco Capogrosso |
| Cell Culture Platform | Laboratory of Stem Cell Bioengineering | SV/LSCB | Sylke Hoehnel & Nathalie Bradenberg |
| Graspeo | Real-Time Coordination & Distributed Interaction Syst. | STI/REACT | Andrii Vozniuk |
| Nowy | Dependable Systems Lab. | IC/DSLAB | Loïc Gardiol, Amer Chamseddine & Silviu Andrica |
| Perspectives | Artificial Intelligence Lab. | IC/LIA | Claudiu Musat |
| EAR | Audiovisual Communications Lab. | IC/LCAV | Juri Ranieri & Ivan Dokmanic |
10 Innogrants have been approved.
| Project | Laboratory | Unit | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Playfulvision | Computer Vision Laboratory | IC/CVLAB | Horesh Ben Shitrit |
| Makur | L’IDIAP Laboratory | STI/LIDIAP | Joan Isaac Biel |
| Neofluidis | Microsystems Laboratory 2 | STI/LMIS2 | Ata Tuna Ciftlik |
| Imperix | Industrial Electronics Laboratory | STI/LEI | Simon Delalay & Nicolas Cherix |
| Code Tickler | Dependable Systems Lab | IC/DSLAB | Cristian Zamfir |
| G-Therapeutics | Chair in Spinal Cord Repair | SV/BMI | Vincent Delattre |
| Bright Sensors | Microtechnics Production Lab. | STI/LPM | Gael Farine & Conor Slater |
| Rovenso | Biorobotics Laboratory | STI/BIOROB | Thomas Estier |
| Anemomind | Computer Vision Laborator | IC/CVLAB | Julien Pilet |
| Oncoeffective | Microsystems Laboratory 4 | STI/LMIS4 | Robert Meissner |
9 Innogrants have been approved.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distalmotion | Development and commercialization of a new surgical device that will enable a new generation of minimally invasive surgery in the abdominal cavity. www.distalmotion.com | STI/LSRO1 | Ricardo Beira |
| Cellestia | Optimization and preclinical validation of the Notch inhibitors for cancer therapy. | SV/UPRAD | Rajwinder Lehal |
| Osmotech | An Innovative Way of Generating and Storing Electricity. www.osmoblue.com | STI/LMIS4 | Elodie Dahan |
| Faceshift | Analysis of face motions and to animation of virtual characters for use in movie or game prodcution. www.faceshift.com | IC/LGG | Thibaud Weise |
| Nanolive | Quantitative super-resolution microscopy. www.nanolive.ch | STI/LAPD | Yann Cotte |
| Morphotonix | Fusion of photonics, state-of-the-art microtechnology and food. http://www.morphotonix.com | STI/LMIS1 | Shenqi Xie & Vaida Auzelyte |
| SmartCardia | New medical technology for remote monitoring the treatment of heart patients. www.smartcardia.com | STI/ESL | Srini Murali |
| DNA Watch | Anti-counterfeiting solution for luxury watches. www.dnawatch.ch | SB/LASPE | Nasser Hefyene |
| Shoelace wireless | Smart wireless devices in close proximity to cooperatively acquire high rate content. www.shoelacewireless.com | IC/ARNI | Lorenzo Keller |
67 projects were submitted; 17 went through a second phase assessment and 6 have been approved.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindmaze | New interactive rehabilitation method for stroke patients. www.mindmaze.com. Video demo | SV/LNCO | Tej Tadi |
| Therapeutics for ALS | Development of therapeuties for Amyotrophie Lateral Selerosis (ALS), also known as Charcot’s disease. | STI/LP | Prof. Klok |
| L.E.S.S. |
Nanostructured fibers for illumination. www.less-optics.com
|
STI/GR-STI | Yann Tissot & Simon Rivier |
| Swiss to 12 | Passive components for terahertz technology. www.swissto12.com | SB/LPMN | Alessandro Macor & Emile de Rijk |
| KB Medical | Medical robotic system that allows the surgeon to be more precise. www.kbmedical.com | STI/LSRO2 | Philippe Bérard & Szymon Kostrzewski |
| Azbooka | Online assistant of Maths for school kids. | STI/LC | Evgeny Milyutin |
48 projects were submitted; 10 went through a second phase assessment and 5 have been approved.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large field confocal fluorescence microscopy | Combining size and high resolution in optical microscopy by providing sharpness where there is blur; enlarging image when restricted in size; solve traditional tradeoff for the users | STI/LMIS1 | Bastien Rachet |
| Cloud management | Design and development of a tool to correlate user- and service-level problems with faults in the underlying software and hardware, in an automated manner. It targets cloud data centers, SaaS providers, and large organizations demanding stringent service guarantees. | IC/LABOS | Jean-Philippe Martin-Flatin |
| Abionic | A combination of micro-technologies and medical applications through the use of microfluidics for fast, reliable and medical diagnostics. www.abionic.com | STI/LOB | Nicolas Durand |
| Bug Buster | Automated testing, improved security and reliability of web applications development. www.bugbuster.com | IC/LABOS | Olivier Crameri |
| Samantree Technologies | By using light instead of mechanical tools and microscopic pores instead of large perfusion tubes, the project develops new endoscopic imaging, where light can be modified to serve as an ultra-thin scalpel or ultra-precise tweezers, necessary for cellular or subcellular operations. www.samantreetechnologies.com | SB/LCPPM | Davor Kosanic |
48 projects were submitted; 11 went through a second phase assessment and 5 have been approved.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minsh | The first underwater social world for Twitter users. | IC/LSR | Barbara Yersin & Jonathan Maim |
| Ozwe | A computer without a mouse and keyboard. | AA/CRAFT | Frédéric Kaplan |
| WippSo | A new synthesis tool for electronic circuit design which facilitates engineering companies in building smaller, lower power, application specific FPGA designs. | STI/MM | Marco Mattavelli |
| Anti-cancer agents | New chemistry compounds as anti-tumour agents: compounds that are able to re-install apoptosis (self-killing) of cancer cells represent interesting potential drugs to fight cancer, especially those that are toxic to cancer cells and not to non-tumour cells. They are several possible targets in cancer cells that, once hit by a suitable compound (bullet), can induce apoptosis. Among them we can aim the energy producing machine and proteins that promote cell division. Synthetic, as well as natural compound derivatives have been identified that can act on either one of these two targets. | SB/LGSA | Claudia Bello |
| Imina Technologies | Imina Technologies designs, fabricates and sells complete manipulation platforms to nanotechnology scientists. A unique combination of ultra precise positioning stage with revolutionary mobile micro-robots provides the leading edge research community with devices of simplicity and flexibility never reached before. www.imina.ch | STI/LSRO2 | Benoît Dagon, Guillaume Boetsch and Christophe Canales |
2008
43 projects were submitted; 14 went through a second phase assessment and 8 have been approved.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| DB4all | DB4ALL provides services for extracting data from websites into a structured form, in a time record and at very competitive fees. | IC/LBD | David Portabella |
| Aïmago | Functional Brain Imaging is understood as vizualizing an aspect of brain function by measuring localized changes in cerebral blood flow. The method used here is Laser-Doppler Imaging (LDI) with state of the art electronics, signal processing and statistical analysis. www.aimago.com | STI/LOB | Michael Friedrich |
| Excellness Biotech | Cell culture is a process that allows cell expansion out of the body. This technique constitutes an inescapable step to study any biological processes and to test the effects of any cosmetics or therapeutic agents. Presently standard cell culture is performed in plastic dishes. The major challenges of cell culture are 1) to expand cells in sufficient amounts and 2) to preserve the stability of cell characteristics in this stressful ex-vivo environment. Cellnes develops an innovative culture dish technology that allows better cell growth than any existing standard methodology. Go to www.excellness.com | SB/LCB | Pierre-Jean Wipff |
| Novagan | III-nitride-based optoelectronics have experienced a tremendous development since 15 years. Blue light emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) are now standard products. A gap exists for devices having mixed properties of LED and LDs. This open the way for more advanced optoelectronic devices such as Superluminescent Light Emitting Diodes (SLEDs). Go to www.novagan.com | SB/LASPE | Eric Feltin |
| Aleva Neurotherapeutics | Development of implantable microelectrodes used in Deep Brain Stimulation therapy for neurological diseases. Target customers are neurosurgeons performing Deep Brain Stimulation therapy using implantable neurostimulators seeking to improve the efficiency and success rate of the therapy while decreasing surgery time and complexity. www.aleva-neuro.com | STI/LMIS4 | Andre Mercanzini |
| Filtering methods | Securing and filtering Internet communications (including email filtering and web content filtering). The main goal of the project is to demonstrate and license the technology that was developed during a PhD (including also work that is not yet published). | IC/LCA2 | Slavisa Sarafijanovic |
| Social networking | Bridging the gap between social activities and internet browsing by building tools that will allow users to interact directly with other people accessing the web, all that in real time. | IC/LABOS | Rodrigo Schmidt |
| Madeinlocal | Find & Meet your friends in the city! The project aims at promoting local life and commerce using the latest technologies, iPhone & web, and at building a social network for local life. MadeinLocal is an interactive guide for bars, restaurants and events as well as a social network to find and communicate with your friends with geo-localized messages. | IC/MEDIA | Manuel Acevedo |
2007
45 projects were submitted in 2007; 16 went through a second phase assessment and 7 have been approved.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recommendation Systems | As the Internet is growing, people are overwhelmed by information and cannot deal with it. Recommendation Systems are tools to help recommend items to the user that they would not have found otherwise. Current systems (like the one found on amazon.com) have profound problems: not very accurate, cannot explain recommendation, lack of privacy. A new recommendation tools that overcomes all of the above problems is proposed. www.prediggo.com | IC/LIA | Vincent Schickel-Zuber |
| Energy Storage | An increasing recourse to renewable energies is one of the key solutions to address the current resource and environmental concerns related to the world energy supply. These energies present the advantages of being inexhaustible and harmless to the environment. However, many of them, such as wind and solar energies, suffer from one important drawback: their unpredictable intermittent nature that makes them not always available when and how needed. Consequently, energy storage means are necessary to transform this “take it when you get it” power into a schedulable power. So far, electrochemical batteries are the main commercially available energy storage solution to bridge the intermittent power of renewable energy sources. However, their toxicity and short duty lifetime (1 to 5 years) makes them incompatible with the aforementioned advantages of those sources. The Solution: Pneumatic Energy Storage (PES) appears as the viable response to this question. It is based on the natural elasticity or compressibility of air, i.e. it works like an “Air-spring”. Air, the storage medium is available everywhere; the operating principle produces no greenhouse gas; the system can operate for more than 20 years and will yield no problematic waste at disposal. Therefore, PES technology naturally fits renewable energy sources. www.enairys.com | STI/LEI | Sylvain Lemofouet-Gatsi |
| Gliapharm | Glial cells and astrocytes in particular are emerging as potentially very interesting targets for neuroactive agents in a variety of pathologies, including cognitive impairments of various origin, neurodegenerative diseases, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, depression and migraine, to cite a few. Thus developing a therapeutic strategy targeted at astrocytes to improve cognitive impairment in neurodegeneration would be a particularly important first step to develop a whole new field of neuropsychopharmacology. | SV/LNDC | Pierre Magistretti |
| Optimax | In today’s increasingly competitive markets, companies often require the ability to form complex and highly dynamic supply chains in order to stay competitive. Often times billions of dollars and their very survival are at stake. Electronic auctions are becoming an increasingly popular way of negotiation in supply chain formation and optimization. They have the potential to achieve much better deals by encouraging competition among suppliers, and to offer important cost savings and much faster decisions by avoiding tedious back and forth one-to-one negotiations. | IC/LIA | Adrian Petcu |
| Map3D | At present the attempts of reducing regional air pollution often are unsuccessful mainly due to the lack of tools allowing objective decisions. Thus decisions are taken mainly based on the existing air pollution point monitor stations at the ground level which do not reveal the underlying processes and causes and therefore are insufficient for the development of abatement strategies and on air pollution modelling studies investigating few days air pollution episodes. It is necessary to have a permanent modelling system which provides daily forecast of local meteorology and air pollutant (gases and particles) concentrations. This system will allow easy and direct access to the modelled concentrations for decision makers and environmental administration. The design will also allow easy and fast introduction of scenarios and therefore to forecast the influence of new projects, infrastructure measures or short-term abatement measures rapidly and cheaply. www.gaiasens.com | ENAC/EFLUM | Olivier Couach |
| MEMS scanners and micro-projection systems | Lemoptix (formely Scanlight Imaging) aims to revolutionize scanning and video projection systems by using advanced Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) technologies to achieve significant size and cost reductions. Several professional and end-user markets are about to get deeply transformed by the emerging use of MEMS technologies, using techniques similar to semiconductors. Indeed, scanners and video-projectors could benefit from significant size and cost reductions, thus opening up new applications and markets for barcode scanners, endoscopes, optical spectrometers, heads-up displays and video-projectors. We have developed a unique thermal actuation micro-mirror technology able to replace polygonal mirrors commonly used in scanning applications. This technology opens up other applications such as heads-up displays, disposable endoscopes and optical spectrometers (gas sensors). These micro-mirrors have already been successfully tested by the 2nd world barcode manufacturer and are in agreement with the specifications for this application. We are also currently developing the second micro-mirrors generation based on similar technology platform, to access the micro video-projection market. We focus on two successive products: the fabrication of stand-alone micro-mirrors and the development of miniaturized colour video-projectors. www.lemoptix.com | STI/LMIS4 | Nicolas Abelé |
| Neurosurgery | Stereotactic surgery is a minimally-invasive form of surgical intervention which makes use of a three-dimensional coordinates system to locate small targets inside the body and to perform on them some action such as ablation (removal), biopsy, lesion, injection, electrical stimulation, implantation, etc. In neurosurgery, stereotactic procedures refer to the use of a reference frame, a mechanical device equipped with head-holding clamps and bars which puts the head in a fixed position in reference to the coordinate system (the so-called zero or origin) of the frame. Each point in the brain can then be referenced with respect to this frame. Our project aims at developing a new system that will replace the heavy and uncomfortable frames used today by a light stereotactic tripod that will be easy to use for the surgeon, comfortable for the patient and as precise as the current techniques. www.stereotools.com | STI/LTS5 | Jean-Philippe Thiran |
2006
46 projects were submitted in 2006; 23 went through a second phase assesment and 9 have been approved.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPAD: Single Photon Avalanche Diode (Fastree3D) |
SPADs are photodetectors capable of detecting the arrival time of a single photon with picosecond precision. This characteristic makes SPAD-based 3D image sensors applications superior in terms of sensitivity, keeping eye-safe operation, and precision, if compared to existing 3D images sensors using the time-of-flight principle. In addition cost issues are addressed by the use of commercially available CMOS technologies. | IC/LAP & STI/LMIS3 |
Cristiano Niclass |
| Biocomposites | Bone is a natural cellular composite which is one of the most repaired tissue of the organism. Surgeons currently use either auto- or allo-grafts / demineralised bone matrix, which, however, have a limited availability, or present pathogen transmission risks, respectively. Synthetic tissue grafts are thus investigated in order to provide porous templates (scaffolds) for tissue regeneration. Polymer or ceramic scaffolds are mainly used today. However, there is a need for improved mechanical properties and enhanced biological behaviour of synthetic scaffolds. The Innogrant focuses on a ceramic-polymer composite, with suitable morphology, mechanical and osteoconductive properties to repair cancellous bone. A new porous bioresorbable composite was developed by a solvent-free technique. The absence of solvent and its promising properties tailored to those of natural bone are highly interesting for surgeons. | STI/LTC | Laurence Mathieu |
| Doppler Imaging System | A high-speed laser Doppler imaging system was developed for visualisation of the microvasculature blood blow in biological tissue like skin. Significantly, microcirculation is the ultimate arbiter of the adequacy of tissue perfusion in the presence of vascular disease, injury, or tissue irritation. Accessing the microcirculation of the blood in a non-contact non-invasive manner offers monitoring of various skin conditions including burns grading, skin cancers, psoriasis, eczema, and scars. Also, the new imaging system offers important functional information for monitoring of wound healing and the diagnosis of allergies. The imaging device possesses the fastest ever imaging speed for this type of device and generates detailed flow-map (speed, concentration, and perfusion) images in real time at high special resolution. The outstanding performance of the system creates the opportunity to advance the laser Doppler imaging technology towards everyday medical applications, such as the basic disease diagnoses performed by physicians. The key applications of the technique lie in the domain of dermatology and plastic surgery. | STI/LOB | Alexandre Serov |
| Bio-simulations | Computer-based bio-simulations have the potential of reducing the costs by 30% by replacing the clinical tests with virtual testing. Only the molecules that proved to work in the bio-simulation stage are then validated in real tests, thus saving a considerable amount of time and money to the new drug development process. However all the current bio-simulation solutions on the market provide insufficient computing performance, they are extremely expensive and difficult to use as they require strong expertise in Cluster, Grid and Super- computing operating and management techniques. This Innogrant addresses the fundamental speed computing performance issue by the mean of original and elegant design of hardware architectures dedicated to the bio-simulation applications. The core hardware is made easy to integrate as acceleration co-processor in the whole range of existing computing systems (laptop, workstation, server, supercomputer) at board/motherboard level in a plug-and play fashion. Our core products are acceleration modules that speed up the computation time by a factor of 10 to 50 times. |
IC/LAP | Payal Kapoor |
| Cathodoluminescence | In order to improve semiconductor nanostructures to be used in future electronic and optoelectronic devices, a detailed understanding of the electronic processes in these nanostructures is indispensable. Even the most sophisticated methods used to explore material properties and dynamics run into limits when applied at the nanoscale. Current techniques either have good spatial resolution (down to tens of nanometers or below) or an ultrafast time resolution (down to picoseconds), but not both. The group of Prof. Deveaud at EPFL managed to go an important step ahead by developing a picosecond time resolved cathodoluminescence (pTRCL) setup with unprecedented combined spatial and temporal resolutions. This setup tracks movement of charge carriers in nanostructures at trillionths of a second (10^-12 s !!) and 50nm spatial resolution. The prototype in our laboratory will be further developed to get a industry ready turn-key application. Go to www.atto-light.com | SB/LOEQ | Samuel Sonderegger |
| Media Delivery – Jilion | The project aims at developing an Internet marketplace for promoting and distributing user generated content. Recommendation and social networking techniques will be used in order to establish strong relations between user and content. www.jilion.com | IC/ALGO | Zeno Crivelli |
| The Noc of Choice | Today, embedded systems, such as mobile phones, wireless communication products, set-top boxes and multimedia portable devices are incorporating rich and varied functionalities on the same device. With the increasing complexity of these systems, the communication requirements between the components inside the system are rapidly increasing. Current bus-based communication architectures do not provide the required scalability needed to support the high bandwidth requirements of these applications. NETWORKS-ON-CHIP (NOCS) are one of the most promising possible answers to the scalability concerns of the interconnection systems. NoCs bring a packet-switching communication paradigm, such as the one seen in large area networks, to the on-chip domain. NoCs are an excellent solution for high-performance, high-complexity designs as mandated by today’s and tomorrow’s user needs. This objective of this project is to create commercially viable NoC solutions for embedded systems. Go to www.inocs.com | STI-IC/LSI | Srinivasan Murali |
| An internet service | A travel-related, internet service, based on applied mathematics and computer science techniques. www.routerank.com | IC/LCA | Jochen Mundinger |
| Application-aware wireless networks | The goal of this project is to develop a proof-of-concept prototype for a novel wireless networking architecture that employs application-aware optimizations. This architecture has the potential to improve performance by a significant factor with respect to current state-of-the-art, and enable a new class of application using commodity hardware. | IC/LCAV | Henri Dubois-Ferriere |
2005
34 projects were submitted in 2005; 18 went through a second phase assesment and 7 have been approved.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic Instruction Set Creation |
Harnessing the unprecedented potential offered by semiconductor density while maintaining control over costs in the design of integrated circuits presents a challenging but attractive opportunity for electronic design automation tools: existing methodologies for creating the architecture of an integrated circuit are predominately manual and typically require several man-years of effort to achieve. The technology being developed presents a methodology that automates the process of creating designs directly from the software functional description of the circuit. Design creation is extremely rapid, thus enabling engineers to consider and trade-off different possible architectures. Human errors are reduced, time-to-market constraints are contained and due to the exploration characteristics the chances of meeting the requirements are significantly enhanced. |
IC/LAP | Paolo Ienne |
| Recombinant proteins | The primary objective of this program is to obtain a confirmation of early results on specific promoters for the production of recombinant proteins. The objective is to establish a comparison between promoter strength, compared at various industry standards, and to do this in highly controlled conditions. This study is also designed to establish the potential commercial interest. | SV/LBTC | Florian Wurm |
| Highly extendable substrates | Traditionally, expansion of cell populations on Petri dishes require passaging to new surfaces when the cell monolayer becomes confluent. Passaging is labour-intensive and involves cell exposure to degradative enzymes, which contribute to cell phenotype changes that are problematic for tissue engineering. The Cartilage Biomechanics Group of EPFL has invented a device for culturing cells on highly extendable (1000%) substrates. A transparent elastomer membrane is mounted in a Petri dish-like geometry, then a PC-controlled motor specifies its extension rate. This reduces the need for passaging since the elastomeric culture surface can increase as cells multiply. This promotes efficient population expansion and phenotype preservation. These features can improve the quality of engineered tissues while reducing manpower and materials. Mechanical stimulation may also reinforce desired phenotypes in cells such as fibroblasts, chondrocytes, and myocytes. This device is of interest in biotechnology and tissue engineering where current cell culture methods are unsatisfactory. In addition, the device enables novel research investigations into cell-surface interactions and mechanically activated gene expression. Our aims are to promote technology transfer with a multifaceted approach including (1) in-house device use, (2) collaborations with other laboratories, and (3) sales to other laboratories. Functioning prototypes are currently available. Go to www.cytomec.com |
STI/LRO | Tom Quinn |
| Service2service.Net | The goal of this project is to create a network where automatically generated business interactions between services will be realistic in all aspects, including security, reliability, and manageability. For that recent research results will be complemented with operational aspects essential for real business interactions to take place by creating and deploying in the network a set of core, essential services. Then in order to validate these core services and in order to create an initial critical mass of value in the network, a number of business services will be developed and deployed. These services will be aimed to provide an out-of-the-box solution for organizations with limited IT budgets like Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that want to have a hosted internet presence. | IC/LIA | Ion Constantinescu |
| Distributed Web Ranking |
The current Web search business is divided into two mostly isolated markets: general-purpose Internet search engines and enterprise-oriented Intranet search engines. On both markets, companies use a mix of text-based ranking and link-based ranking to order search results in their search systems and products. From what has been publicized, existing link-based ranking algorithms such as Google’s PageRank are built on centralized models which require a centralized computation of the ranking if used to rank the complete Web graph. Centralization causes many problems and limitations for Web search. Our patented technology leads the computation of link-based ranking to a further advancement where distribution in a P2P fashion is the built-in feature of our model and algorithms. Distributed link-based ranking computation brings to a search system many advantages such as computation thus system cost reduction, better search quality (including fresher ranking results, stronger immunity to ranking spamming and pollution, and potential better ranking), and more flexibility in personalization. |
IC/LSIR | Jie Wu |
| Microcooling | A patent pending technology concerning a microbubble generator for a multi-microchannel heat transfer assembly which improves heat transfer by controlled bubble generation within a circulating coolant in order to more effectively cool microelectronic devices is the basis of the proposed implementation project. A prototype of the microbubble generator will be developed and tested (along with a cost-effective manufacturing technique) during the course of the project. The goal is to achieve an inexpensive microbubble generator design and to prove its ability to enhance the thermal performance of microcooling elements as a key step towards licensing of the technology. | STI/LTCM | James DeRose |
| Nanoparticle delivery – would become later Anokion | The goal of this project is to obtain demonstrative, proof-of-principle data on drug loading and release with two recently developed nanoparticle systems. based on this data, it should be possible to pursue further commercial development. | SV/LMRP | Jeff Hubbell |
The NCCR Spin Funds
The Swiss national science fondation funds projets in a similar way to the Innogrants, through its NCCR programs. The MICS spin fund was the first such initiative and as of October 1st, 2011, it has supported 16 projects enabling the creation of 10 small companies.
| Projects | Description | Laboratory | Project leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sensorscope | Environmental monitoring. www.sensorscope.ch | EPFL/IC/LCAV | Mounir Krichane |
| Streamforge | Internet Multimedia Streaming. www.streamforge.com | ETHZ/ITET/TIK | Pascal von Rickenbach & Nicolas Burri |
| Sreee! | Mobile social networking games. www.sreee.com | ETHZ/CAAD | Steffen P. Walz & Thomas Seibert |
| Koubachi | Interactions between plants and humans. www.koubachi.com | ETHZ/INF/PC | Moritz Koehler & Philipp Bolliger |
| Sentry | Secure Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based Localization. | EPFL/IC/LCA | Panos Papadimitratos |
| Doxolo | Real time trading platform. | EPFL/IC/LSIR | Ali Salehi |
| Bmob | Urban Parking Management and Information System. www.bmob-park.com | USI/INF | Michal Piorkowski |
| Noti | Automated image annotation on mobile devices. www.vidinoti.com | EPFL/IC/LCAV | Mathieu Monney |
| Scala | Scala based development platform for Android. www.scalasolutions.com | EPFL/IC/LAMP | Antonio Cunei |
| Access Control | Access Control based on Secure Proximity Verification. | ETHZ/INF/SYSSEC | Boris Danev |
| GEOS | Embedded system for geo-localisation. www.s1tracker.ch | EPFL/STI/CD | Urs Hunkeler |
| Kandou | Power and pin-efficient signaling for high speed data buses. www.kandou.com | EPFL/IC/ALGO | Anant Singh & Seyed Armin Tajalli |
| Pix4D | Hands free mapping from UAV imagery. www.pix4d.com | EPFL/IC/CVLAB | Christop Strecha |
| Adimpact | Automatic evaluation of visual impact Video demo | EPFL/IC/IVRG | Radhakrishna Achanta |
| Serafina | Small, mass-producible and affordable autonomous robotic submarine, equipped with proprietary communication and localisation systems | EPFL/ENAC/DISAL | Alexander Bahr |
| Global fountain | To transform the way people learn | EPFL/IC/LCAV | Pedro Pinto and Francisco Pinto |
The Robotics spin fund is the second initiative. More about this by clicking here.