Incubator Helps Start-ups take off

BenMcClure

 

The old saying goes: it takes a village to raise a child. In other words, to get it right a community effort is needed, shared by family and friends who pass on their experience and knowledge to the youngster.

The same saying applies to building technology companies. Budding technology entrepreneurs in Malta need plenty of nurturing and guidance to get their innovations off the ground and into the marketplace. A supportive and well-connected entrepreneurial community is what is needed to transform Malta’s innovations into start-up ventures that will expand the economy.

The good news for Malta is that the basic components of a technology start-up community already exist. The University of Malta is a hothouse of world-class scientific, engineering, and creative research that holds the potential to spin out exciting commercial ventures. A new generation of bright, technically-skilled graduates is starting to pursue entrepreneurship as a career path. Malta lacks a professional venture capital investment industry, but does have high net worth entrepreneurs and private ‘angel’ investors. Many of these have valuable experience gained abroad and are hungry to find and fund high-potential technology companies. The government is exploring ways of encouraging early-stage investment by way of tax incentives and seed fund development. Ideas, entrepreneurial energy, and money — the key ingredients for raising technology start-ups — are all here on the island.

“Tucked away in their laboratories, garages, and workshops, Malta’s innovators are not networking”

So, what is holding us back? I recently spoke to Steve Blank, a highly successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor. I asked him what he thought was missing. His reply: ‘much of the Valley’s alchemy lies in connectivity’.

Innovators, entrepreneurs, investors – Malta has got them all. Unfortunately, they are not finding each other. Tucked away in their laboratories, garages, and workshops, Malta’s innovators are not networking. They need skilled and experienced business people to push their technologies past the idea stage. Wealthy angel investors are here in Malta, but they frequently operate ‘under the radar’ and can be hard to access. In the absence of connections, both investors and innovators miss out on potentially rewarding opportunities. Promising young ventures, which might takeoff with a little support and funding, consequently get left to struggle on their own.

The University of Malta Business Incubator will start operations this year and create a platform for new start-ups. Opening its doors to researchers, students, and aspiring technology entrepreneurs, the incubator will provide them with space to plan, launch, and grow businesses. There, a network of seasoned entrepreneurs, business mentors, and angel investors will join them. These ‘parents and village elders’ will be mobilised to concentrate efforts to guide start-ups to create a company, raise capital, and reach the marketplace. We aim to make the incubator a lively hub to create businesses.

Building a company, like raising a child, is a lot of hard work. Bringing the community together under one roof, where it can do the job right, will ease the labour of start-up development, and improve the odds of scoring triumphs.

 

Ben McClure is Manager at the University of Malta Business Incubator

benjamin.mcclure@um.edu.mt

 

Immersive 3D Experience

Carldebono

Comfortably sitting in seat 3F, John is watching one of his favourite operas. This close he can see all the details of the set, costumes, and the movements of the music director as he skilfully conducts the orchestra by careful gestures of his baton. He is immersed in the scene, capturing all the details. Then all of a sudden, the doorbell rings. Annoyed, John has to stop the video to see who it is. This could be the mainstream TV experience of the future.

This scene is called free-viewpoint technology that is part of my research at the University of Malta (UoM). Free-viewpoint television allows the user to select a view from which to watch the scene projected on a 3D television. The technology will allow the audience to change their viewpoint when they want, to where they want to be. By moving a slider or by a hand gesture, the user can change perspective, which is an experience currently used in games with their synthetically generated content ­— synthetically generated by a computer game’s graphics engine.

“For free-viewpoint to work, a scene needs to be captured using many cameras”

Today we are used to seeing a single viewpoint. If there are multiple perspectives we usually don’t have any control over them. Free-viewpoint technology will turn this idea on top of its head. The technology is expected to hit the market in the near future, with some companies and universities already experimenting with content and displays. New auto-stereoscopic displays do not need glasses (pictured next page), these displays ‘automatically’ generate a 3D image depending on which angle you view them. A clear example was the promise made by Japan to deliver 3D free-viewpoint coverage of all football games as part of their bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The bid was unsuccessful, which might delay the technology by a few years.

Locally, my research (and that of my team) deals with the transmission side of the story (pictured). For free-viewpoint to work, a scene needs to be captured using many cameras. The more cameras there are, the more freedom the user has to select the desired view. So many cameras create a lot of data. All the data captured by the cameras has to be transmitted to a 3D device into people’s homes, smartphones, laptops and so on. This transmission needs to pass over a channel, and whether it is fibre cable or wireless, it will always have a limited capacity. Data transmission also costs money. High costs would keep the technology out of our devices for decades.

My job is to make a large amount of data fit in smaller packages. To fit video in a channel we need to compress it. Current transmission of single view video also uses compression to save space on the channel so that more data can be transmitted and save on price. Note that, for example for high definition we have 24 bits per pixel and an image contains 1280 by 720 pixels (720p HD standard), that’s nearly 100,000 pixels for every frame. Since video is around 24-30 frames per second the amount of data being transmitted every minute starts escalating to unfeasible amounts.

Popupology - double 3d / 3d squared my first attempt at an anaglyph photo of a paper structure. you will need those red/blue glasses to view it properly.
Popupology –
double 3d / 3d squared
my first attempt at an anaglyph photo of a paper structure. you will need those red/blue glasses to view it properly.

Free-viewpoint technology would be another big leap in size. Each camera would be sending their own video, which is the same amount of data as we are now getting. If there are ten cameras, you would need to increase channel size by a factor of ten. This makes it highly expensive and unfeasible. For the example above, the network operator needs ten times more space on the network to get the service to your house, making it ten times more expensive than single view. Therefore, research is needed to drastically reduce the amount of data that needs to be transmitted while still keeping high quality images. These advances will make the technology feasible, cheaper, and available for all.

So the golden question is, how are we going to do that? Research, research, and more research. The first attempts by the video research community to solve this problem were to use its vast knowledge of single view transmission and extend it to the new paradigm. Basic single view algorithms (an algorithm is computer code that can perform a specific function, like Google’s search engine) compress video by searching through the picture and finding similarities in space and in time. Then the algorithms send the change, or the error vector, instead of the actual data. The error vector is a measure of imperfections and how it is used by computer scientists to compress data is explained below.

First let us look at the space component. When looking at a picture, it is quite clear that some areas are very similar. The similar areas can be linked and the data grouped together into one reference point. The reference point has to be transmitted with a mathematical representation (vector) that explains to the computer which areas are similar to each other. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be sent.

Secondly, let us analyse the time aspect. Video is a set of images placed one after another and run at 25 or 30 frames per second that gives the illusion of movement and action. To make a video flow seamlessly images that are right after each other are very similar. If we have two images the second one will be very similar to the first, with only a small movement of some parts of the image. Like we do for space, a mathematical relationship can be calculated for the similar areas from one image to the next. The first image can be used as a reference point and for the second we transmit only the vector that explains which pixels have moved and by how much. This greatly reduces the data that needs to be transmitted.

The above techniques are used in single view transmission, with free-viewpoint technology we have a new dimension. We also need to include the space between cameras shooting the same scene. Since the scene is the same there is a lot of similarity between the videos of each camera. The main difference is that of angle and the problem that some objects might be visible from one camera and not from another. Keeping this in mind, a mathematical equation can be constructed that explains which parts of the scene are the same and which are new. A single camera’s video is used as a reference point while its neighbouring cameras only transmit the ‘extra’ information. The other camera can compress their content drastically. In this way the current standard can be extended to free-viewpoint TV.

Compressing free-viewpoint transmissions is complex work. Its complexity is a drawback, mobile devices simply aren’t fast enough to run computer power intensive algorithms. Our research focuses on reducing the complexity of the algorithms. We modify them so that they are faster to run, need less computing power, and still keep the same quality of video, or with minimal losses.

“The road ahead is steep and a lot of work is needed to bring this technology to homes”

We have also explored new ways of reconstructing high quality 3D views in minimum time, using graphical processing units (GPUs). GPUs are commonly used by high-end video games. Video must be reconstructed with a speed of at least 25 pictures per second. This speed must be maintained if we want to build a smooth continuous video in between two real camera positions (picture). A single computer process cannot handle algrothims that can achieve this feat; instead parallel processing (multiple simultaneous computations) is essential. To remove the strain off a main processing unit in a computer processing can be offloaded to a GPU. Algorithms need to be built that use these alternative processing powers. Ours show that we can obtain the necessary speeds to process free-viewpoint 3D video even on mobile devices.

The autostereoscopic display techinique without glasses. Depending on the position of the viewer, the filter directs the left image to the left eye and the right image to the right eye.
The autostereoscopic display techinique without glasses. Depending on the position of the viewer, the filter directs the left image to the left eye and the right image to the right eye.

Since free-viewpoint takes up a large bandwidth on networks, we researched whether these systems can feasibly handle so much data. We considered the use of next generation mobile telephony networks (4G). Naturally they offer more channel space, we wanted to see how many users they can handle at different screen resolutions. We showed that the technology can be used only using a limited number of cameras. The number of users is directly related to the resolution used, with a lower resolution needing less data and allowing more views or users. This research came up with design solutions for the network’s architecture and broadcasting techniques needed to minimise delays.

The road ahead is steep and a lot of work is needed to bring this technology to homes. My vision is that in the near future we will be consuming 3D content and free-viewpoint technology in a seamless and immersive way in our homes and mobile devices. So for now sit back and imagine what watching an opera or football match on TV would look like in a few years’ time.

Etna

The ancients saw volcanoes as the wrath of their mighty gods. Volcanoes have been blamed for clearing whole towns, even planet-wide extinctions. A local team based in Gozo has just found out if Etna affects the Maltese Islands. Words by Dr Edward Duca.

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Space: the final frontier for Malta

Think meets up with Dr Kris Zarb Adami to have a chat about Malta’s space opportunities. His research covers subjects from searching for extraterrestrial life to new theories of gravity.

How can a small country like Malta have a role in Space?

As an EU member Malta can continue strengthening our existing cooperation agreement with the European Space Agency to full membership. This will automatically give us access to all its projects. By participating in these projects, we will be able to leverage so that research and development for future space missions is carried out in Malta. In Malta we are already contributing to a European Space project, namely EUCLID. This satellite is due to be launched in 2017 and will be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Researchers at the Department of Physics are developing image-processing algorithms that can accurately measure the shapes of the Universe’s furthest galaxies and its expansion.
Moreover, they also collaborate with the University of Bologna to monitor ‘space debris’ and near earth-objects. This is important to ensure the successful navigation of satellites to prevent accidental collisions, which cost millions of euros. Collisions are not as rare as we might think.

space

What are the benefits of Space research for Malta?

From the invention of disposable diapers to the development of laptops and satellite TV, space research has traditionally been a very strong contributor to everyday technology. For Malta space research can help us monitor our climate and atmospheric pollution, while providing an early warning system for tidal waves.
Conducting space research locally would bring us to the forefront of technology: ranging from biotechnology and long-lasting foods for space journeys, to the development of faster and more sensitive communication systems capable of receiving signals from deep space. Malta has just been awarded ERDF funding for new laboratory facilities at University and will contribute significantly to the future of the European Space Programme. In return, Malta will be able to leverage significant funds from this programme and also funds designated to commercialising the technologies. We need more support to get involved in more projects and attract funds to Malta.

What is the future of Space Research?

The next step lies in the development of space vehicles capable of running commercially feasible missions, such as turning the space shuttle into a commercial ‘airliner’ business. Such programmes are beginning to emerge in the US, but Europe lags far behind. Commercial spaceflights will certainly play an important role in future space research. Apart from research into transportation, researchers are trying to figure out how to live on a planet besides our own. How can future generations be able to create food products and live in space?
In Malta I would like University and the whole country to become more involved in space technology and biotech. We could also contribute to landing and docking systems for satellites and shuttles, plus space-traffic control through the University’s expertise in the Engineering Faculty.

Is there anything to lose?

The danger with taking on some new research area is that funding from other streams is spread too thinly. However, if we can manage to leverage extra funding from large Europe-wide space programmes we will be able to launch Malta’s name into space!

The key to networking

I first heard about COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology, a networking platform for scientists www.cost.eu) way back in 1996 during a pharmacokinetics meeting in Athens. Some participants mentioned that their attendance had been funded by COST. So on my return I contacted the Malta Council of Science and Technology to try and obtain more information. When I learnt that COST funds EU networking I quickly applied to become a member of a COST action (this is what COST calls a network). After bureaucratic leaps and bounds I become Malta’s representative on a COST action. It certainly opened new horizons to me and the networks I formed with top researchers in Europe were unique.

By 2010 my enthusiasm resulted in MCST nominating me as Malta national contact point for COST. It has been of huge satisfaction that in these three brief years Malta’s participation has risen from 6 actions to over 100. Over 150 Maltese researchers take part in COST.

Why is COST so important for Malta?

The complaint I hear most often in Malta, not only in academic circles but also among SMEs (small to medium enterprises), is that research in science is only for the elite, that it is too high brow and that it is not relevant to Malta. COST proves otherwise. What else could link disaster bioethics, to colour and space in cultural heritage to the comparison of European prostitution policies, with submerged prehistoric archaeology? Other links include the quality of suburban building stocks, integrated fire engineering and response, and language impairment in a multilingual society. COST also funds networks across a whole spectrum of research from the humanities to the fundamental sciences including string theory to childbirth in various cultures.

Participating in a COST action involves very simple administrative and funding procedures. For once, our small size is an added advantage since every COST country is allowed to nominate two members to participate in each action, putting Malta COST researchers at par with researchers from much larger countries. Achieving these results has not been easy, since many researchers hesitate and require persistent prodding. There are frequent reminders and one to one meetings to persuade them to participate. It has been a real eye-opener meeting researchers in Malta from different disciplines and learning about their research.

Deciding to participate in COST may seem a small step to some, an added administrative burden to others, while some see it as another travel commitment. COST offers the response to the conundrum of how to overcome our physical (and perhaps in some instances also mental) insularity.  You should not let this opportunity pass…

COST in Malta is managed by the Malta Council for Science and Technology. For more information see www.mcst.gov.mt/networking/cost or contact Dr Janet Mifsud, COST CNC, (+356 23402582/2845, janet.mifsud@um.edu.mt) or cost.mcst@gov.mt

Hotline Miami

Game Review_Costantino

Push start. Grab a weapon. Get shot. Repeat… ad infinitum. ‘Punishing’ hardly describes a session of Hotline Miami. Typically, within 10 seconds you could die three or four times. It is just as frustrating as it is challenging. Addictively, you will not give up until you pass that sneaky little passage. 

Hotline Miami is an ultra-violent, psychotic game, where your only aim is to kill all the ‘bad guys’.

Yet, every little move counts, and deciding which weapons to use or which door to open first will reveal the deep strategic possibilities of the game’s intense experience. As you make your way through a pile of corpses, the suspense builds up to unbearable levels as you risk losing all in-game progress for just a little mistake. The massacre is only interrupted by brief moments that reveal details of our mysterious ‘hero’s’ back-story. Keeping true to expectation, even these interludes are awkward if not disturbing, and hardly shed light on our displaced, faceless avatar

The excellent game tops it all with an irresistible ‘80s aesthetics and a neurotic electronic soundtrack. You’ll quickly find out why this game has stolen the show winning so many awards, and has hooked fans of Grand Theft Auto and of good old shoot’em up games. Hotline Miami is a joy in repetition, providing that being stuck in a Clockwork Orangelike scenario is your idea of joy. 

Screenshot from Hotline Miami
Screenshot from Hotline Miami

www.hotlinemiami.com 

Moving objects with your mind

Decades-long research into the field of brain to computer interface (BCI) devices seems close to bearing fruit. These devices could provide communication tools to Malta’s growing number of older people and the disabled, while local gaming companies could exploit a new niche entertainment market. Words by Dr Edward Duca.

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LOOKING UP TO THE SKIES

Malta is involved in the creation of the largest telescope ever built, the Square Kilometre Array. The telescope will be composed of 10 million antennas, process petaflops of data per day, and cost 1.5 billion euros. When built the array will peer deep into space to see how the first stars were born and attempt to solve the riddle of our origin. Words by Dr Kris Zarb Adami and Dr John Abela.

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The making of Offshore Wind Energy

Malta has a problem. It relies heavily on fossil fuels such as oil to meet its energy needs. Whenever oil prices increase, either the people or the government take the brunt of the cost. The country also faces a strict deadline: by 2020 it needs to supply 10% of its energy needs from renewable sources such as wind, solar, or wave. To help reach this goal, a new project at the University of Malta is custom-designing offshore wind turbines.

Malta’s territorial waters are quite extensive but deep. The Hurd Bank area is the most suitable site at a depth of 50 to 70 metres. These depths are beyond the reach of current commercially available technology and the latest  project in the windy, turbulent North Sea reaches 45 metres (The Beatrice
Project). Windmills_D1-D4_(Thornton_Bank)

To construct a wind turbine for the Maltese region, Thomas Gauci (as part of a team consisting of University academics and industrial partners) is designing a structure specific to Malta. Seventy-metre deep waters will increase costs. On the other hand, the Mediterranean is relatively calm compared to the North Sea, so the support structure keeping the wind turbine in place can be lighter, which shaves off tons of raw materials and reduces the final price.

An offshore wind turbine needs to resist waves, corrosion, and storms. The design process of an offshore support structure is essential to keep it in place and starts with determining exactly where the turbines will be embedded and how they will be supported. After these questions are answered, the turbines’ exact specifications need to be determined, such as material, height, width, and what forces it can resist over a number of years. Speed of blade rotation also needs to be checked to make sure it does not cause discomfort to nearby humans and animals. Mr Gauci’s concept design meets all of these needs in compliance with international and EU standards. At this stage, the design needs to
be costed, right down to the installation and maintainance of the turbines.

If Malta builds these offshore wind turbines it would easily meet the 10% baseline set by the EU. Undeniably, such a large project will face numerous challenges, but perhaps Mr Gauci said it best: “not a day goes by when I don’t learn something new.”

Read more HERE.

This research was performed as part of a Masters of Science from the Faculty of Engineering
and is supported by MCST (Malta Council for Science and Technology).