International Digital Lab celebrates at ICT Excellence Awards 2009
Three projects based at the International Digital Lab (IDL) were Highly Commended in the ICT Excellence Awards 2009 held on 10 November 2009.
Spin out companies; goHDR and Siglead were both Highly Commended in the Technology Strategy Board’s Special Award for High Growth Potential 2009 category and EPI International in the Best Knowledge Transfer category.
The ICT Excellence Awards, now in their fifth year, were designed to recognise and showcase the talents of West Midlands ICT businesses. This year the awards event was held in the National Motorcycle Museum, Solihull and took place following the annual ICT Conference, the largest event dedicated to the West Midlands technology industry.
All three companies benefit from the support of the Warwick International Digital Lab. The Digital lab is a state of the art research centre based at the University of Warwick, and aims to increase the use of digital technology in business by offering access to cutting-edge expertise, knowledge and technology to improve businesses in the region.
Based at the International Digital Lab, goHDR has the potential to provide one of the enabling technologies for the widespread adoption of HDR video for the home entertainment market.
In the near future, goHDR will run a number of workshops on HDR techniques with local businesses, to enable them to understand the benefits of capturing and displaying real world lighting. These workshops will be held in conjunction with the AWM part-funded small business Knowledge Exchange at the Digital Lab, the ICT cluster and other applicable Advantage West Midlands clusters such as the Niche Automotive Cluster.
Siglead Europe, is a start-up company with strong links to the Mathematics Institute at the University of Warwick. Oleg Zaboronski, a Reader from the Mathematics Institute, and Tom Parnell, Oleg’s graduate student, founded the company in January 2008.
Siglead Europe's area of expertise is research and development of high performance digital signal processing for the data storage industry. Siglead Europe is part of the Siglead Inc. group with its headquarters in Yokohama, Japan. The Digital Lab has supported the company from its early life by providing a dedicated space to operate from, advice and guidance from the SME team.
SME business, EPI International specialises in business improvement services and has been assisted to innovate and grow through support and guidance from the Simulation and Modelling team headed up by Professor Rajat Roy at the International Digital Lab.
IDL have facilitated and supported two knowledge and transfer partnerships which have substantially enhanced EPI’s internal capabilities to deliver leading edge business improvement solutions.
All three projects received support from the IDL’s SME Knowledge Exchange Team. Led by Dr Mark Swift, the team offers expertise in a range of technologies and helps SMEs in the West Midlands gain competitive advantage from accessing the Digital Lab Knowledge Exchange programme.
