Editor’s note: Innovation Thursday – a deep dive into a newly emerging technology or companies such as our Startup Spotlight – is a regular feature at WRAL TechWire. RIoT serves as a convener for the IoT community, leads an industry consortium of over 90 corporate partners, offers free startup accelerator services, an R&D prototyping lab, and more. RIoT leads an emerging technology industry consortium that creates jobs through startup acceleration, purposeful networking, and education as well as the RIoT Accelerator Program (RAP) to teach companies how to grow and scale their business. 

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RALEIGH – RIoT is thrilled to announce RAP XV – the Summer 2023 cohort of the RIoT Accelerator Program (RAP). This exciting program will be held at the Cary Urban Design Studio in Cary, creating an ideal environment for innovation and collaboration.

The RAP XV cohort represents a vibrant mix of individuals from diverse industries, backgrounds, and cities across North Carolina. These talented entrepreneurs are spearheading technological advancements in healthcare, energy, education, entertainment, transportation, and smart cities. With such a broad range of expertise, founders have a unique opportunity to tap into the diverse knowledge and experiences of their peers as well as RAP mentors.

Over the course of the 12-week program, starting in May 2023, the founders will participate in a series of workshops, mentoring sessions, and networking events tailored to their specific needs. This immersive experience will equip them with valuable skills, insights, and connections crucial for their startups’ success.

The program will culminate in August 2023 with an pitch event in Cary, where each startup will have the chance to showcase their progress and innovations.

Learn more about the startups of RAP XV below.

OpenPlains is an online platform that helps communities plan for a more equitable and resilient future by democratizing interactive geospatial modeling. OpenPlans provides the latest scientific data and models to increase climate resilience and promote environmental justice. OpenPlains’ scenario-based community engagement platform enables people to make informed decisions about the future of their communities by allowing them to visualize different scenarios and outcomes. It’s an easy-to-use tool that empowers individuals and communities to take control of their future and make a positive impact on the world around us.

  • Living Water Faucets  | Greensboro, NC

The transmission of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) among patients remains a notable concern for healthcare systems. It is estimated that 1 in 31 hospitalized patients acquire at least one healthcare associated infection. Infections caused by germs not only potentially lengthens patient hospital stays but consequently increases overall cost for healthcare systems (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2016). However, effective hand hygiene has been identified as the single most effective way to mitigate germs and their transmission within healthcare settings.

Hand-washing procedures that removes germs from your hands typically requires a person’s hands to be washed with soap and water for twenty seconds or longer (CDC, 2020). While this requirement is well understood adherence is often poor. According to the CDC, (2016), many people wash their hands for less than ten seconds a time insufficient for proper cleaning.

Living Water Faucets is novel technology that can be used in touch-less faucet designs for healthcare and other high usage commercial facilities. We combine innovative technology to flow-controlled faucet designs help approximate the recommended time for effective hand hygiene, (increasing proper hand hygiene compliance), identify specific germs on a user’s hand, detect water consumption levels and legionella bacteria levels in hospital water supply systems and,  track trends in hand washing in healthcare employees.

Nanode is developing a next-gen battery material with the highest energy density at the lowest cost using a streamlined manufacturing technique with simpler supply chains. We power electric vehicles to go further and consumer electronics to last longer. Nanode delivers a more powerful battery at a low cost and significantly reduced carbon emissions.

Varsity Bridge improves engagement between universities, their volunteer-based alumni chapters, and their vast, global alumni bases. We do this by providing a platform solution built to complement and scale the way universities organize their volunteer networks. With improved outreach and support, universities can expect improved communications and reporting, decreased organizational costs, up-to-date demographic data, increased alumni engagement metrics, and more. This engagement is essential to developing lifelong relationships with graduates that can lead to strong reinvestment back into the university.

Katabasis is a non-profit educational technology company that brings education resources to rural and low-socioeconomic communities in North Carolina that do not have the same access to resources and support as more affluent cities such as in the Triangle and Charlotte. Our work has two focuses: (1) getting computers into homes that do not have computers or too few computers for the number of children and, (2) developing educational software that children can interact with to support their education. We accomplish the first focus by offering free computer building camps in rural and low-income communities across NC where we teach the participants how to build and fix their very own computer. We accomplish the second focus by partnering with universities, non-profits, and ed tech companies to develop cutting edge educational software that deepens engagement, personalizes feedback and support, and allows the user to test their understanding in scenarios that demonstrate real world applicability/utility of this knowledge.

Bid the Beat is a platform designed to match supply with demand and bring music to the people. Venues list open dates, artists select cities to compete for shows, and fans promote and directly control what concerts come to their areas.

We are developing bike powertrain components, including motor and motor control technologies using wide-bandgap semiconductors, and an IoT bike interface and tracker that integrates Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and LoRa protocols, via Amazon’s Sidewalk IoT connectivity platform.

We’re currently exploring development of the IoT device in partnership with insurance companies as a combined theft prevention and vehicle insurance offering. Low-cost/low-power remote IoT is crucial for theft prevention and insurance applications, as customers need continuous monitoring of the bike location without draining the bike battery.

Since 1988, Instantiations has been building and maintaining software solutions for the diverse and evolutionary needs of global businesses. At Instantiations’ core is the VAST Platform: an advanced software development environment and language runtime used by developers to make cross-platform, enterprise-grade software. In addition to regular updates and enhancements to VAST, Instantiations provides custom development, software support, consulting, and training services for businesses of all sizes across various industries.

*Instantiations is a corporate innovation team leveraging RAP to progress strategic initiatives

(C) RIoT