Lloyd's Register Safety Accelerator showcases innovative safetytech solutions at exclusive London event

LONDON, Oct. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- A digital innovation which assesses the psychological and emotional health of crew on one of the largest containership operators in the world, is one of seven exciting safetytech trials being showcased today, at the Barbican Center in London, as part of the Lloyd's Register Safety Accelerator's inaugural Showcase.

To date, the programme has launched a total of ten new digital innovation trials addressing real, critical safety and risk challenges across the Energy, Marine and Offshore and Infrastructure industries. The trials are between startups and leading corporate industry partners, who were selected and awarded by the Lloyd's Register Safety Accelerator. The safety technology trials last approximately three-months, as the startups work with the corporate partners to pilot unique digital solutions.

On October 8(th), the Accelerator hosted the inaugural Showcase to celebrate its one-year milestone that featured exclusive pitches from seven of the programme's safetytech startups. Startups shared pilot learnings and demo their solutions in front of industry leaders, investors and press at the exclusive London event.

The global Safety Accelerator programme, a joint initiative of Lloyd's Register, Lloyd's Register Foundation and run in partnership with Silicon Valley's largest global innovation platform Plug and Play Tech Center, selected its first startup cohort in September 2018. The programme has received an impressive 400 startup applications since then, with 40 advancing through the rigorous selection process getting the opportunity to live-pitch their solution at Safety Accelerator Innovation Days, in front of expert industry judges.

Austin-based startup Senseye.co will be showcasing its pilot, run in collaboration with Singapore's Pacific International Lines (PIL), one of the largest containership operators in the world. In an innovation challenge run in conjunction with the Safety Accelerator, PIL sought new digital solutions to assess crew's psychological and emotional health before starting an important task or scheduled watch, to ensure their safety and fitness for duty, and to prevent injury, death or damage to property or the environment.

David Zakariaie, CEO, Senseye, said:

"Before the Safety Accelerator, we had never considered the possible application of our technology for the Marine and Offshore sector. We are looking forward to working with PIL to adapt our technology to help improve safety onboard vessels as well as explore a new market for our company."

Maurizio Pilu, VP of Digital Innovation, Lloyd's Register, said:

"As we celebrate our one-year anniversary, the engagement of our clients, the quality and number of startups involved, and the resultant pilots are a testament to the strength and importance of the Safety Accelerator to these industrial sectors. I am particularly proud of the expert guidance provided by LR throughout, from helping our clients in the definition of their challenges, to targeting technology areas, to startup selection and subsequent pilot project definition and execution."

Richard Clegg, Chief Executive, Lloyd's Register Foundation, said:

"Accelerating the uptake and application of technology for the benefit of society is one of the pillars in the Foundation's strategy. The Lloyd's Register Safety Accelerator offers a great way to achieve this by bringing together people with challenges with those that have solutions. It's a win-win, and in the process makes the world a safer place. I'm excited to see what innovative investable ideas come out of it."

"We want to make the world a safer place. Throughout the past year we have seen real world challenges being solved by the introductions made in this program," said Michael Olmstead, Chief Revenue Office at Plug and Play. "When you bring together high-quality startups and corporations interested in making change, magic can happen."

The programme was set up to combat innovation barriers in dangerous safety-critical industries and to help to de-risk innovation projects. The programme's pioneering work transfers and accelerates best-in-class solutions and learnings from other industries, expertly applying them to safety and risk applications. By providing the opportunity for industry partners to be early adopters of innovation without the associated financial risk, and also offering technology companies both funding and a route to market, the Lloyd's Register Safety Accelerator has been hugely successful in addressing unmet, industry-wide safety and risk issues.

Notes to editor

Learn more about some of the safetytech global trials:

Sensye/PIL: Determining master's and crew's psychological and emotional health.
Austin-based Senseye won the challenge set with Singapore's Pacific International Lines (PIL), the ninth largest containership operator in the world, to trial a digital solution to assist in assessing the psychological and emotional wellbeing of a crew member before he or she is assigned to an important task or go on duty, in real-time whilst they are onboard, to ensure the safety of crew and prevent injury, death or damage to property or the environment.

Workerbase/LR: Ensuring marine and offshore crew competency
Munich-based Workerbase won the challenge, set in conjunction with Lloyd's Register, to trial a new industrial smartwatch, enabling crew to perform jobs competently, reducing risks and injuries by providing them with use of dynamic job-related information and feedback.

NeuroControls/KOTUG International: Navigating gas vapour clouds
Munich-based NeuroControls won the challenge set in conjunction with Dutch company KOTUG, a leading provider of safe offshore, harbour and terminal towage services. The pilot trial will test a new oceanic-use Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) imaging camera to detect and visualise gas clouds, enabling vessels to visualise a gas cloud, for example near floating LNG facilities, and safely navigate around it.

Numberboost/Omexom (Infratek): AI-driven real-time error detection
Cape Town-based Numberboost successfully pitched for and won a challenge defined by Omexom (Infratek), a leader in building, operating and securing of critical infrastructure. In the pilot, Numberboost will use computer vision inspection technology to build a real-time error detection and feedback solution to automatically detect anomalies in photos of work done on critical infrastructure, to ensure the job is done right the first time and improve safety for the worker and third parties.

LexaTexer/LR: Enhancing dynamic risk assessment
Berlin-based LexaTexer won a challenge set in conjunction with LR seeking innovative solutions to keep personnel better informed about operational risks affecting them in their work environment. In the pilot, LexaTexer will read and process unstructured past incident report data, to identify root causes of incidents, and predict incidents in the future.

Ohalo/Discovering Safety Programme
London-based Ohalo won a challenge set by the Discovering Safety Programme, run by Great Britain's Health and Safety Executive to desensitise and anonymise 1.5 million health and safety documents, predicted to take almost 70 person years of time if done manually. It is being done in about 15 days of time on a modest server. This project could ultimately enable a more diverse set of health and safety data to be curated, unlocking much higher value knowledge outputs and reducing accidents and fatalities in the UK.

The process of the Safety Accelerator
Every three months, the Safety Accelerator works with new corporate partners to set safety and risk innovation challenges which are important to them, and their industry. With partner Plug and Play, the largest global innovation platform and most active venture capital fund in Silicon Valley, the program then expertly sources innovative startups from around the world with promising cutting-edge technology to solve the challenges. Through a competitive application and pitch process, the program selects startups to solve each challenge. Successful startups receive received trial funding from the program to trial their solution with the corporate challenge partner, as well as access to domain expertise and entrepreneurial support to help bring their solution to market, though support from Lloyd's Register and Plug and Play respectively, all the while retaining 100 percent of their IP.

- For more information about the Lloyd's Register Safety Accelerator, including how to become an industry challenge partner, or apply to solve a challenge, please visit: https://www.lr.org/en/safety-accelerator/

- For more information about the Safety Accelerator Programme, please email Programme Manager Serena Connor - serena.connor@lr.org

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lloyds-register-safety-accelerator-showcases-innovative-safetytech-solutions-at-exclusive-london-event-300937686.html

SOURCE Plug and Play