Paris, France. October 2, 2017 – GE Digital, the industrial internet arm of General Electric, today launched a Digital Industrial Program for UK and European start-ups. The challenge, which is led by the company’s European Foundry in Paris, aims to drive deeper collaboration between GE and the start-up community and to encourage innovation across the industry.
The programme features a series of industry-specific challenges, which will help GE Digital identify six winners who will receive funding and access to GE Digital’s partner ecosystem – helping them drive their business growth.
In 2016, GE Digital worked with five start-ups to develop and market an industrial application in various areas such as blockchain, logistics optimisation, energy management, Industrial IoT and Big Data analytics for smart buildings.
This year, the Digital Industry Program has gone bigger and more international with a stronger focus on attracting participants from key European markets such as the UK, Germany and Italy. New partners include Israeli city Eilat, Turkish energy company Aygaz, French aviation company Daher and global printer company Hewlett Packard. Other divisions of GE are also engaged, notably GE Power.
The Digital Industry Program is described by GE as a demonstration of GE Digital’s commitment to driving tech innovation in the industrial space by fostering closer partnerships with start-ups. The start-ups participating in the competition will, say the organisers, need to leverage the capabilities of Predix, GE’s platform for the industrial internet in order to build innovative applications that solve real-world industrial problems.
Companies interested in participating can apply online before October 23, 2017 at www.digital-industry.io.
Five start-ups benefited in 2016
This “open innovation” approach initiated by GE Digital last year has already enabled five industrial start-ups to grow their businesses by taking advantage of the GE Digital developer ecosystem. These start-ups are:
- Evolution Energie developed an industrial application based on Blockchain which allows users to track renewable energy as it moves through the power grid and mixes with energy from other sources.
- Irlynx designed advanced human activity detection systems, that can be used to support assisted living for the elderly, advanced management of construction facilities and intrusion detection.
- Cityzen Data provides apps for managing and analysing data from sensors, meters, the IoT and applies more generally to any measurable event, thanks to its open source software technology – Warp 10.
- Predictive Layer uses predictive analytics to enable companies to forecast energy use and use it as a predictive indicator of potential maintenance problems and energy savings.
- Cosling has developed a process optimisation algorithm, logistics and planning expert. The start-up has developed a Predix application reportedly optimising the selection process and minimising the number of pallets by 20%.
As one of the winners from the 2016/2017 edition, Jean-Guillaume Fages, co-founder and CEO of Cosling, explains: “We had initially competed with a planning project for the production of a hydraulic dam. But once selected, we finally identified with GE Digital that the business need for this was not yet mature enough. As a result, we developed a prototype in palletisation on Predix. Thanks to the contacts of GE Digital, we were able to approach major players in logistics and start selling our app.”
According to Vincent Champain, managing director of GE Digital Foundry Europe: “At GE Digital we bring together the best digital-industrial expertise and make it available to our industrial clients. That expertise comes from GE’s industrial engineers, data-scientists, developers and UX designers – but also from our wider ecosystem of partners. The successful start-ups in this competition will have the opportunity to join this ecosystem and offer our global industrial clients innovative digital solutions that solve real industrial problems.”
For more information go to www.digital-industry.io.
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