LONDON, Oct. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — The Lloyd’s Register Safety Accelerator has opened a call to find innovative solutions to improve how complex safety risks are detected and managed in challenging industrial environments. This latest round of innovation challenges from the Safety Accelerator is designed to improve safety of life and assets in heavy industries.

Marine, offshore and energy jobs are some of the most dangerous in the world, where the consequences of errors are high, potentially deadly. Developments in technologies such as computer vision, artificial intelligence, and wearables are opening up the opportunity to radically improve how safety risks are identified and managed, from human factors to operational issues.

Up to four startup winners will receive trial funding for their solution as well as the opportunity to collaborate with commercial partners to accelerate the development of their technologies. Partners for this challenge round include: Scorpio, Pacific International Lines, Infratek and Odfjell Drilling.

The winning entrepreneurs 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 Lloyd’s Register and Plug and Play respectively.

The four challenge areas and partners are:

• Marine Incident Insights with Scorpio, a leading global shipping company. This challenge seeks to help ship operators gather and analyse data about crew behaviour and the onboard work environment, whilst safeguarding user privacy, to develop a deeper understanding of why wrong decisions happen and ultimately to improve processes, training and staffing to reduce risk of human error incidents.
• Determining Master’s and Crew’s Psychological and Emotional Health with Pacific International Lines (PIL), the 9^th largest containership operator in the world. This challenge seeks innovative methods to assess the psychological and emotional wellbeing of individual crew members in real-time whilst they are onboard and before they are about to go on duty, whilst protecting user privacy, to ensure the safety and health of the concerned seafarer as well as the safety of others onboard, the vessels and the marine environment.
• AI-Driven Real-Time Error Detection with Infratek, a leading total supplier in the Nordic region in the fields of electrical grids, lighting and railway systems. This challenge seeks innovative proposals for solutions to offer real-time feedback to infrastructure workers to ensure a job is done completely and correctly before leaving a site, to improve safety for the worker and third parties.
• Video Detection of Physical Asset Changes to Prevent Falling Objects with Odfjell Drilling, an international drilling, well service and engineering company. This challenge seeks to enable oil and gas drilling operators to use drilling sites’ existing closed-circuit camera network to detect significant changes to a rig’s infrastructure that could result in falling objects injuring workers and damaging the asset.

Richard Clegg, Chief Executive, Lloyd’s Register Foundation, said:

“We are delighted to launch the Innovation in Detecting Safety Risks in Critical Infrastructure Industries’ Challenge Round which is focussed on harnessing new and emerging technologies to identify safety risks, from human factors such as mental health which could affect a seafarers’ ability to perform their job safely, to operational factors, such as the potential for falling objects from assets.

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, Lloyd’s Register, said:

“Digital technology is transforming the world in which we and our industry partners operate, providing the opportunity for develop radical, life-saving tools and approaches. The Safety Accelerator brings together startups and the industry to work together to explore these opportunities and test innovative digital solutions to some of the toughest safety and risk challenges, and accelerate the adoption of cutting edge safetytech to create safer working environments, and a safer world.”

The deadline for applications is 19 October 2018. Shortlisted entries will be invited to a live pitch and Q&A with a panel of judges taking place in London on 28 November 2018. The launch of trials for successful applicants is scheduled to take place in February 2019.

The Safety Accelerator is a joint initiative between Lloyd’s Register, one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology and Lloyd’s Register 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 Lloyd’s Register 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/

About Lloyd’s Register Foundation

Lloyd’s Register Foundation: Connecting science, safety and society

Lloyd’s Register Foundation is a UK charity, established in 2012, which funds the advancement of engineering-related education and research and supports work that enhances safety of life and property. It is funded partly by the profits of its trading arm, Lloyd’s Register Group Limited, a global engineering, technical and business services organisation.

Its vision is to be known worldwide as a leading supporter of engineering-related research, training and education that makes a real difference in improving the safety of the critical infrastructure on which modern society relies. In support of this, it promotes scientific excellence and acts as a catalyst working with others to achieve maximum impact.

Lloyd’s Register Foundation’s strategy for 2014-2020 focuses funding on four strategic themes: promoting safety and public understanding of risk; advancing skills and education; supporting excellent scientific research; and accelerating the application of research. Four research themes have been prioritised: structural integrity and systems performance; resilience engineering; human and social factors; and emergent technologies.

www.lrfoundation.org.uk

About Lloyd’s Register (LR)

We started out in 1760 as a marine classification society. Today, we’re one of the world’s leading providers of professional services for engineering and technology – improving safety and increasing the performance of critical infrastructures for clients in over 75 countries worldwide. The profits we generate fund the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a charity which supports science and engineering-related research, education and public engagement around everything we do. All of this helps us stand by the purpose that drives us every single day: Working together for a safer world.

In a world of increasing complexity – overloaded with data and opinion – we know that our clients need more than technology to succeed. They need an experienced hand. A partner to listen, cut through the noise and focus on what really matters to them and their customers. Our engineers and technical experts are dedicated to assurance. That means a commitment to embracing new technology, and a deep rooted desire to drive better performance. So we consider our customers’ needs with diligence and empathy, then use our expertise and over 250 years’ experience to deliver the smart solution for everyone.

After all, there are some things technology can’t replace.

www.lr.org

About Plug and Play

Plug and Play is a global innovation platform. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we have built accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and an in-house VC to make technological advancement progress faster than ever before. Since inception in 2006, our programs have expanded worldwide to include a presence in over 20 locations globally giving startups the necessary resources to succeed in Silicon Valley and beyond. With over 6,000 startups and 280 official corporate partners, we have created the ultimate startup ecosystem in many industries. We provide active investments with 200 leading Silicon Valley VCs, and host more than 700 networking events per year. Companies in our community have raised over $7 billion in funding, with successful portfolio exits including Danger, Dropbox, Lending Club, and PayPal.

www.plugandplaytechcenter.com

For media enquiries contact:

Steve Price
Lloyd’s Register Safety Accelerator
Steve.price@lr.org
0044 7791 617963

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SOURCE Plug and Play