Troy, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Incubator Program today announced that six new high-technology companies will join the Incubator. The companies — represented by members of the Rensselaer community and beyond — are focused on vibro-diagnostics, renewable energy, 3-D modeling, zombie-zapping, aviation safety, and terahertz instrumentation technologies.

“Entrepreneurship is ingrained in the Rensselaer culture, and the ground-breaking Incubator Program has been an integral part of our success. As a place devoted exclusively to giving life to new ideas, the Incubator acts as a ‘living laboratory’ where ideas generated in classrooms, research centers, and beyond can be tested and applied in real-world environments,” said Michael Tentnowski, director of the Incubator Program. “In joining the Incubator, each company has an opportunity to nurture their technology ventures as a means of commercializing discovery and innovation within an academic environment. Our goal is to continue building on Rensselaer’s extraordinary history of fostering discovery and innovation, moving ideas from the lab to the global marketplace, thereby providing economic growth to the region.”

Rensselaer’s Incubator Program was founded in 1980, making it one of the oldest U.S. incubators and the first wholly owned and operated by a university. Since its inception, about one-third of the incubator companies have been started by Rensselaer professors, another third by Rensselaer students, and the final third by those within the surrounding community, according to Tentnowski.

The new companies include:

• Archimedes Group, a company founded by a visiting professor of management at the Lally School of Management and Technology. The company’s focus is on commercializing technology developed in the Ukraine. Technologies include vibro-diagnostics of infrastructure such as bridges and dams, technology for monitoring radiation and radioactive cleanup, CAD systems for distributed sensor networks, satellite monitoring of agriculture, and improved methods for vacuum drying. Archimedes also is promoting comprehensive Chernobyl tours dedicated to understanding the Chernobyl accident and its aftermath.

• Hestia BioEnergy, coming from New York City, focuses on the construction, procurement, and operation of biomass power plants that create environmentally clean electricity, heat, chemicals, and fuels. Biomass is plant matter such as trees, grasses, agricultural crops, or other organic material. The company functions as a distributed generator and uses customers’ residue to generate power through gasification-based technologies.  

• Landform Logic is a geo-data modeling service company, founded by a research assistant professor in Rensselaer’s School of Engineering. The company produces high-precision three-dimensional digital elevation models (DEMs) for machine guidance and grade control technology. Services include topographic data preparation, design, and visualization, as well as software customization and training for the earthwork design, construction, and land development communities.

• Simplicita has developed a zombie remediation system specifically designed for service providers. Simplicita frees carrier networks from zombie programs residing on servers. The company has developed the first commercial software product for Internet Service Providers, including cable and telco-network operators, which identifies, isolates, and fixes zombies and other virus-like programs. 

• VoiceFlight Systems is developing advanced speech recognition technology that provides exceptional accuracy in high-ambient noise level environments. This feature will first appear in a product that allows aircraft pilots to enter information into selected aircraft systems much more rapidly and effectively than is currently possible.

• Zomega Terahertz develops and produces terahertz instrumentation for scientific, homeland security, and industrial applications. The company, in collaboration with Rensselaer’s Center for Terahertz Research, has developed its first product — a Z-1THz time domain spectrometer. The device produces imaging and sensing technologies for biomedical imaging, genetics diagnostics, microelectronics, and chemical and biological material identifications.

The Incubator Program offers an extensive suite of business services, including infrastructure-based support, consulting, business development, funding events, and networking opportunities. There are 21 companies housed at the Incubator on campus, and 23 affiliated companies located throughout the Capital Region.

Tentnowski noted that the Incubator is focused on attracting, nurturing, and retaining high-technology companies in the region. For example, two recent graduates of the program, Web Scribble Solutions and Applied Science Innovations, have established offices in Rensselaer’s Technology Park. Another Incubator graduate, 1st Playable Productions, has moved out of the Incubator and into an office space located in downtown Troy.  

For more information about Rensselaer’s Incubator Program, go to http://www.rpi.edu/dept/incubator/homepage/.

Contact: Jessica Otitigbe
Phone: (518) 276-6050
E-mail: otitij@rpi.edu