Meet the power behind the machine and those who imagined it.
CDC AND DARPA PROJECT
The story of Virolens starts in 2015 with the CDC and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). The mission: Develop the technologies needed for a national pathology surveillance programme for early detection of novel pathogens entering the United States. At the time, Ebola was the primary concern.
Fast forward to 2020 and the last flight from Dubai before lockdown. Virolens inventor, Greg Compton, looked at the other passengers and had the frightening realisation that there was no way of knowing who was and was not carrying COVID. Why not, he thought, do exactly what you do in the lab and look at a sample under a microscope? That’s exactly what he did, along with creating a hologram and clever AI to look for COVID .
“Virolens is based on a new application of existing technology and has been developed in partnership with TT and powered by Intel.”
iAbra
Founded in 2010, iAbra’s focus is deriving utility from the ever growing amounts of sensor data in the world.
Artificial Intelligence is moving from the cloud to embedded applications. This is enabling a wide range of use cases including automotive, defence, manufacturing, healthcare and agriculture.
Machine Learning ecosystems have been built mostly on GPUs for the cloud, where neural networks are generally very large and inefficient. These cloud based neural networks and power hungry GPUs make the AI use cases requiring embedded inference more difficult or impossible to engineer. The FPGA’s efficiency and low power consumption are better able to deliver embedded applications.
iAbra’s tools ensure that efficient neural networks are created and optimised for embedded FPGA silicon, delivering low power AI inference for a variety of applications.
TT Electronics
TT Electronics is a global provider of engineered electronics for performance critical applications. TT solves electronics challenges for a sustainable world. TT benefits from enduring megatrends in structurally high-growth markets including healthcare, aerospace, defence, electrification and automation.
TT invests in R&D to create designed-in products where reliability is mission critical. Products designed and manufactured include sensors, power management and connectivity solutions. TT has design and manufacturing facilities in the UK, North America, Sweden and Asia.
“TT’s leading-edge products and flexible manufacturing capabilities provide significant support to critical aspects of the Virolens® device.”
GREG COMPTON
CTO iAbra
Greg’s vision combined with design skills were at the core of founding I-Abra as a revolutionary technology company and he leads all aspects of product development.
SHANE TINGEY
COO iAbra
Shane joined iAbra to develop and build Virolens. His extensive experience in the aviation industry, building businesses and developing teams, helped him take an idea and turn it into reality.
“Moving from the aviation and travel sectors (both decimated by the pandemic) to bringing a technology solution that opens the world is a humbling experience. The ability to test individuals in 20 seconds and in many different environments changes the dynamics of travel and movement across the globe. COVID is only the first chapter of Virolens.”