- LRQA’s Safety Accelerator has just launched its latest Challenge Round, ‘Innovative Risk Detection Methods’, detailing three new safety and risk challenges facing the marine, energy and food industries.
- The Safety Accelerator is seeking applications from startups who have developed solutions to detect and prevent such industry dangers and risks.
- Successful startups will secure trial funding for collaborative industry pilots with leading commercial partners: Shell, Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Benugo.
- The leading startups will also be awarded additional post-programme support and guidance, from both LRQA and Plug and Play.
The LRQA Safety Accelerator is once again seeking applications from innovative startups, to help address and mitigate safety and risk challenges in industrial environments. This is the third round of innovation challenges launched by the Safety Accelerator, which was created to harness digital innovation and to enhance safety of life and assets, in safety critical industries.
The challenge partners for this round come from the marine, energy and food sectors. Employees in both marine and energy routinely work within dangerous environments, in fact statistically these sectors are some of the most dangerous globally. Similarly, the food industry carries a lot of responsibility, in ensuring food safety for consumers the world over. Without effective safety detection methods, dangerous yet avoidable incidents occur, potentially leading to loss of life. Technological advancements such as sensors, computer vision, and AI can radically improve the detection of risks to safety, from operational issues to human errors. These advancements are reducing risks in these sectors, preventing accidents and fatalities.
Three standout applicants will be awarded the opportunity to collaborate with commercial partners in an industry trial to accelerate the development of their technologies, as well as receive trial funding for their solution. Partners for this challenge round include: Shell, Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Benugo.
The successful startups will retain 100 percent of their IP, as well as receive access to domain expertise and entrepreneurial support, to help bring their solution to market though support from LRQA and Plug and Play respectively.
Learn more about our chosen partners and challenges:
- Energy - Early detection of gas leaks onboard a Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) tanker with Shell, managers of one of the largest fleets of oil, chemical and LNG tankers in the world. This challenge seeks innovative methods to detect minor ship gas leaks, using sensor technologies. Shell’s current detection methods are costly and not dynamic, so they’re seeking a more cost effective, innovative and altogether safer solution.
- Marine – Pre-Fire Heat Change Detection Onboard Ships with Wallenius Wilhelmsen, one of the world’s largest global vehicle carrier operators. This challenge seeks innovative solutions which could deliver real-time, early detection of small increases in thermal levels of transported vehicles. Such thermal increases can potentially result in a fire, so early detection can be key to saving lives and reducing risk to cargo and assets.
- Food – Tracking and communicating accurate allergen data in restaurants with Benugo, the hospitality provider that stretches from their own award-winning high street cafés, to concessions within some of the world's largest and most respected corporate organisations and public spaces. This challenge seeks innovative digital solutions, to address one or more of the following aspects of allergen tracking and communication, in a cost-effective user-friendly way.
- Safer purchasing for chefs from local sources by detecting allergens in foods that come without product specification sheets, ie; loose fresh produce
- Communicating accurate, relevant and up-to-date allergen information to consumers, in restaurants with regularly changing menus
- ‘Scanning’ and real-time detection for allergens in foods and menus, for restaurants and consumers
Richard Clegg, Chief Executive, LRQA Foundation, said:
“We are excited to support startups developing solutions to these challenges, which could not only solve these use cases, but also have potential to significantly improve safety across a wide range of commercial industries.”
Maurizio Pilu, Vice President of Digital Innovation, LRQA, said:
“We are delighted to be working with Shell, Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Westbury Street Holdings on these three risk detection challenges. One of the core values of the accelerator is to bring technologies from other sectors into safety and risk challenges; I am confident we will see very innovative starts up coming through in the next few weeks.”
The deadline for applications is 22 February 2019. Shortlisted entries will be invited to a pitch and Q&A with a panel of judges taking place on 27 March 2019. The launch of trials for successful applicants is scheduled to take place in May 2019.
The Safety Accelerator is a joint initiative between LRQA, one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology and LRQA Foundation, a charitable foundation helping to protect life and property by supporting engineering-related education, public engagement and the application of research, which is funding the programme.
The Safety Accelerator is run in partnership with Plug and Play, the largest global
innovation platform and most active venture capital fund in Silicon Valley.
For more information about the LRQA Safety Accelerator, including how to become an industry challenge partner, or applying to solve a challenge, please visit: https://www.lr.org/en/safety-accelerator/
ENDS
Notes to editors
Key dates
Challenges open: 28 January 2018
Application deadline: 22 February 2019
Finalists notified: 13 March 2019
Innovation Day: 27 March 2019
Winners Announced: 3 April 2019
Trials Launched: May 2019