Tech Titans innovation chair Andrew Olowu, CTO of Axxess, presents a $20K verify for successful the Tech Titans Grand Challenge on edge computing to BALANCED | Media Technology’s CTO Dr. Corey Clark and CEO Robert M. Atkins. [Photo: Tech Titans]
The subsequent time you suppose a gamer is losing time blasting away at a display, suppose once more: They is likely to be looking for remedies for COVID-19. That intriguing chance is definitely a actuality—and it simply received BALANCED Media | Technology a $20,000 award from Tech Titans.
McKinney-based BALANCED has received Tech Titans’ second annual Grand Challenge competitors for its edge computing answer. The startup’s co-founder and CTO, Dr. Corey Clark, is the deputy director of analysis at SMU’s Guildhall and an assistant professor of pc science on the college.
“There’s a ton of information in medical purposes, instructional purposes—a lot that it’s unusable as a result of it must be preserved privately,” Clark mentioned in an announcement. “This information has discoveries and alternatives locked away in it that’s not accessible to us. So we’re right here to alter that.”
[Image: Tech Titans]
Partnering with Complexity Gaming to advance COVID analysis
BALANCED’s successful proposal centered on privacy-preserving edge-based machine studying. Using its HEWMAN crowd-computing platform, it partnered with Frisco-based Complexity Gaming and requested avid gamers to put in the corporate’s code, which was embedded in a small sport.
The HEWMEN answer pairs crowd-computing and AI to course of massive quantities of information to resolve complicated issues.
“While they had been on-line, they had been truly processing,” Clark mentioned. “We discovered about 30 completely different compounds that may very well be used for therapeutic remedies of COVID. We discovered this compound that’s now being examined in labs, which truly helps forestall the spike protein from interacting with the physique. And that is all by simply having individuals join their video games and their computer systems to our community.”
Team received over candidates from throughout the U.S.
BALANCED was competing with rivals from throughout the U.S. for the award. Reps from high tech firms did the judging to advance three finalists. Then the finalists offered stay/digital pitches to celeb judges together with Dallas Cowboys CMO Charlotte Jones; Luke Wallace, VP of app growth and edge-computing professional from Bottle Rocket; and Mo Katibeh, SVP of community infrastructure & construct at AT&T.
The combo of avid gamers having enjoyable as probably life-saving analysis crunched within the background received the day for BALANCED.
“Almost all the pieces that Corey articulated has been accomplished,” AT&T’s Katibeh mentioned within the assertion. “But making it repeatable, the place now you can exit to companies and say, ‘Hey, you may have a giant downside with a number of information. And you’re attempting to make use of AI to determine it out. We can use AI and people collectively.’ And the efficacy of that’s considerably greater than both by itself. It’s actually, actually intelligent, as a result of individuals suppose they’re having enjoyable, however they’re actually working for you.”
Data on among the work BALANCED is doing by combining gaming, edge computing, and most cancers analysis. [Image: Tech Titans]
Data safety is a key ingredient
One key issue within the BALANCED answer is information safety.
“Some of our companions expressed the necessity to use information for medical discoveries, purposes, drug discovery,” Clark mentioned. “What if, as an alternative of simply operating purposes with encrypted information, you might maintain all of your information encrypted, even whereas the applying is operating, and the outcomes that come out are encrypted? At no level was the info ever decrypted. That approach, nobody apart from the one that has the important thing can view it.”
The BALANCED group says its answer exhibits promise by combining individuals and human-guided machine studying with encryption right into a know-how that may be replicated.
Clark has raised virtually $20M in funding
Clark brings 15 years of expertise to his work at BALANCED, combining examine areas together with gaming, techniques biology, distributed computing, and AI/machine studying.
To date, he’s raised virtually $20 million in analysis, seed, and collection funding from authorities and personal entities. He’s additionally been the CTO of a gaming tech startup that was acquired—so his work with Complexity Gaming on this answer made for a pure match. He most lately led a group to a $2.5 million XPRIZE Grand Prize win, in response to the Tech Titans assertion.
BALANCED shall be honored on the annual Tech Titans Gala on Jan. 19. For extra concerning the gala and the opposite finalists, learn our story right here.
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