Tech Tuesday: Converting Waste to Revenue, Taking Back the Network & Making People Happy

Tech Tuesday is an on-going series profiling the Forum’s Technology Pioneers. The Tech Pioneers are companies that have been recognized by the Forum for ground-breaking and innovative approaches in tackling some of the world’s most wicked problems. Each week leading up to the Annual Meeting in Davos, we will be showcasing some of the 2011 Tech Pioneers. You can learn more about the Technology Pioneer Program on the Forum's website.

 

1.    Energy and Environment:  Converting Waste to Revenue

The Wicked Problem:

Wastewater treatment plants concentrate large quantities of phosphorus and ammonia in their sludge handling streams. These dissolved nutrients combine with magnesium to form struvite scale in piping, pumps and valves, which is difficult and expensive to remove.

 

The Tech Pioneer: Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc.

 
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Number of employees: 25
Year Founded: 2005
Origins: Technology licensed from the University of British Columbia

 

The Wicked Solution: 

Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies has developed a new generation of wastewater treatment systems that not only helps treatment plants run more efficiently but also solves major environmental issues and provides a new revenue stream for municipalities: commercial fertilizer.

Ostara’s technology is positively impacting the environment by “mining” phosphorus from human wastewater, which does not contribute to the carbon footprint, and producing a fertilizer product which helps grow the world’s food supply, while avoiding polluting adjacent waterways through its unique crystalline, slow-release properties.

Ostara’s technology solves the clogging problem and, through a chemical reaction, extracts the phosphorus and ammonia from liquid wastewater at treatment plants and transforms these otherwise polluting nutrients into a slow-release fertilizer called Crystal Green that Ostara markets and sells, generating revenue for municipalities. By recovering phosphorus from wastewater, Ostara is augmenting the available supply while reducing carbon emissions. The slow release process in its fertilizer reduces agricultural run-off, which can cause excessive algae growth in lakes and oceans, killing aquatic life.

 

2.    Information Technologies and New Media: Taking Back the Network

The Wicked Problem: 

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a 25-year-old crucial part of the Internet’s infrastructure, which encompasses the routing system used to transfer data, such as e-mails. Today, companies are struggling to secure their networks from online threats, reduce costs and enforce Internet use policies. These measures can require costly software and appliances.

 

The Tech Pioneer: OpenDNS

Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Number of employees: 26
Year Founded: 2005
Origins: Entrepreneurial start-up 

The Wicked Solution:

Originally designed and deployed as a superior DNS service to the default service of Internet service providers, which often includes downtime and slow Web page load times, OpenDNS now additionally offers security services. It is the first and only DNS service providing built-in anti-phishing, anti-malware and anti-botnet service, giving users an added layer of protection and taking the guesswork
out of identifying dangerous websites.

In just four years, OpenDNS’s customer base has grown to 20 million users, accounting for 1% of the world’s Internet users and is on track to soon double. It offers a free consumer service, supported by advertising and a fee-based service for big enterprise customers.

OpenDNS gives consumers and businesses a choice, providing fast, reliable global DNS service with built-in security as an alternative to spotty service provided by local Internet service providers. The company has developed a number of innovations in the security and network space that make the Internet more resistant to disruption and catastrophe. These innovations are now being standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force for global adoption.

  

3. Health and Life Sciences: Making People Happy

The Wicked Problem: 

Despite major advances in treating depression, nearly 30% of patients do not benefit from drug therapy
and more than one-half report side effects that lead to non-compliance with medication such as sexual dysfunction, weight gain and sleep disorders.

The Tech Pioneer: Neuronetics

Location: Malvern, PA, USA
Number of employees: 115
Year Founded: 2003
Origins: Entrepreneurial start-up

The Wicked Solution:

Neuronetics is offering an important alternative treatment to people suffering from depression, without many of the debilitating side effects of current depression treatments. Neuronetics has developed the NeuroStar Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Therapy System, which uses magnetic field pulses to stimulate nerve cells in an area of the brain that is linked to depression. This stimulation increases brain activity and releases neurotransmitters which are known to elevate mood.

The treatment is typically administered daily over four to six weeks to patients who have not responded to traditional treatments; it is free of systemic side effects. In 2003, Neuronetics licensed a family of patents from Emory University and completed the largest clinical trial ever performed using TMS. In clinical trials, approximately one in two patients experienced significant improvement in symptoms and one in three said their symptoms disappeared.

Although TMS to the brain has been studied for 25 years as a means of treating depression, Neuronetics is the first to create a clinical system to provide reproducible results for the treatment of depression and the first to gain US Food and Drug Administration approval of this technology.

The NeuroStar TMS Therapy System is being used in 200 hospitals and physician offices throughout the US, includingseven of the country’s top 10 psychiatric hospitals.

 

Know an innovative start-up that’s solving a wicked problem? Nominate them.