BT & TIP Select Third Cohort of TEAC Startups

Senior network and technology experts from BT and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) heard from the six startups who made it through to the final of TIP Ecosystem Acceleration Centres (TEAC) on January 17th, 2020 at the BT Tower in London. The startups from the Edge Computing and 5G Private Network fields were: ADVA, CloudBackend, Condense Reality, DoubleMe, Ori Industries, and TDCOMM.

Part of the Telecom Infra Project, TEACs are a global, sustainable ecosystem that attracts the brightest entrepreneurial minds and innovative investors to work together to produce breakthrough technologies that reimagine telecom infrastructure. By bringing together the key actors – established operators, cutting-edge startups, and global and local investors – TEACs establish the necessary foundation to foster collaboration, accelerate trials, and bring deployable infrastructure solutions to the telecom industry.

The TEAC final showcased innovations within the telecom and edge computing industries. The event was attended by partner operators, academics, investors, customers and analysts focused on supporting innovation and creativity in the telecom industry. After deliberation, the judges selected two winners, including:

• DoubleMe: DoubleMe is developing an AI-based real-time volumetric video experience that could be used for many different use cases including holographic teleconferences and remote training/assistance/customer interactions. As a key differentiator, their video capture solution uses AI to enable the volumetric representation to be generated in real-time using only one camera compared to current multi-camera video capture systems. The AI logic could reside in the edge of an operator’s network.

• Ori Industries: Ori Industries is building the next generation of cloud infrastructure to power a smart, autonomous, and immersive future. They are developing an edge aggregation platform solution to expose edge infrastructure capacity available from operators to application developers. Ori Industry’s aim is to offer added value by developing exposure APIs as well as libraries that developers can re-use.

TEAC UK will send DoubleMe and Ori Industries to MWC Barcelona, with a stand at the heart of the conference as part of the TIP Pavilion in Hall 5. TIP will also support the startups attending events across the globe throughout the year, working with TIP project groups relevant to their offerings for lab and field trials, and in developing relationships with potential funders.

Both startups will also collaborate with BT Research for the next 12-18 months, where they will develop their solutions and have the opportunity to join Innovation Martlesham, an exciting cluster of high-tech telecommunication and technology companies based in Suffolk, UK.

“TIP is playing a crucial role in helping to tackle some of the big challenges in global connectivity, supporting innovation across the telecoms sector and opening up opportunities for companies with exciting ideas, regardless of scale,” said Howard Watson, CTIO of BT, and a member of the TIP Board. “This year, we were particularly interested in entries from companies who are using Edge Computing or 5G Private Network Infrastructure in innovative ways to create new business opportunities or benefit society.”

The inspiring event showcased the innovation propelling the telecom industry and related edge computing field forward.

Paul Crane, BT Networks Research Director and a judge in the competition, delivered the opening address. He emphasized the importance of disaggregation and virtualization, noting, “how we are seeing traffic patterns change demonstrates the need for Edge Computing to ensure low latency and optimization. There is a need for connected workers with AR – from talkback, to remote experts, to overlaying manuals whilst working on equipment. The need and desire exists for immersive experiences, virtual holographic meetings, remote operation of machinery (out of hazardous environments), PORTS–crane operators remotely operating machinery and not actually in cranes, and for digital twins–particularly for public services–running cities more effectively with 5G.“

During the event, the audience also heard from previous winners, including the CEO of Accelleran, Frederic Van Derme,and Richard MacKenzie, Principle Researcher at BT and Accelleran’s mentor for their program. Frederic shared his experiences as part of TEAC and the significance of working with TIP’s VRAN Project Group.

Attilio Zani, Executive Director of TIP and a competition judge noted, “TEAC is a strategically important program to bring telcos, investors and startups together, acting as the open end of the funnel for our TIP ecosystem. Real innovation is getting the opportunity to be accelerated into a commercial environment where startups’ technology solutions are tested and improved in labs trials through to field trials. TIP’s telco community support and coach while the investment community watch closely in order to deliver solutions that matter and are commercializable.”

This year’s competition represents the third wave of entries into TEAC UK. Last year, two companies, Tethir and Accelleran, were welcomed into the TIP community.

If you’re attending this year’s MWC, visit the TIP Pavilion in Hall 5 to connect with members of the TIP Community including the newly initiated TEAC members, DoubleMe and Ori Industries.