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Tangent at Trinity College Dublin has chosen start-ups across retail, digital health, fintech and more for its new AI accelerator.
A new AI accelerator programme has been launched at Trinity College Dublin. Called Alsessor, the initiative will be delivered by Trinity’s ideas workspace, Tangent, in partnership with Altada Technology Solutions, a AI company based in Cork.
The programme will support early-stage start-ups and entrepreneurs in growing and commercialising their businesses. It will focus on retail, digital health, fintech, insurtech, regulatory and compliance. Within these categories, 10 start-ups have already been chosen to participate from hundreds of applications.
The programme was launched today (10 February) by Minister for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation Robert Troy, TD, who said that AI is “one of the most important technologies currently transforming our economy and society”.
Alsessor will sit at the “crossroads of higher education, industry and research”, he added, helping Ireland become a “leading country in using AI to the benefit of our citizens” through a “people-centred and ethical approach” to its adoption and use.
Tangent CEO Ken Finnegan said start-ups selected for the Alsessor programme will have access to funding, a support network, and to the “best minds across industry and academia to progress their organisation”.
“Artificial intelligence is changing the way we work and live,” Finnegan added. “The value and benefit for early-stage start-ups participating on this world-class accelerator is enormous and that was shown by the high number and calibre of start-ups that applied.
“We have had so much interest that our partners, Altada, have agreed to extend their support from one year to three years, which is incredible.”
The 10 selected start-ups are:
- AIMap IT: A GIS inventory mapping tool for telecos and other utility providers
- Empeal: A SaaS health risk and productivity platform for organisations and medical practitioners
- Field of Vision: A haptic tablet to assist people with visual impairments in an immersive sports experience
- Meta-Flux: An AI-assisted detection diagnostics platform for disease prevention
- Pepp1: A consolidated digital global pensions wallet
- RafiQ: A colloquial Arabic personal voice assistant
- Syze: A recommendation sizing tool for fashion retailers
- Tiro: An intelligent voice-assisted tool for creating meeting notes
- Voala: A virtual try-on tool to enhance the customer experience for jewellery retailers
- XR Concepts: An AI golf coach
Allan Beechinor, Altada co-founder and CEO, said: “Through Alsessor we will be able to nurture the up-and-coming AI talent, of which we have an abundance both here in Ireland and abroad. Having come through accelerator programmes ourselves, we can say first-hand that they make an incredible difference in that earliest stage of getting a business off the ground.”
