Paris (France) (AFP) – Around 15,000 startups from around Europe and beyond are showing off their wares at the Vivatech trade show in Paris until Saturday. Here are just a few of the innovations being touted across the three floors of stands and displays:
– **Healing bone implants**
Berlin-based Blueprint Biomed is developing an artificial replacement for the grafts used in millions of patients every year to support bone healing. “With this, we don’t need to add any kind of autologous bone graft (from the patient’s own body),” chief executive Aaron Herrera told AFP. Grafts of the patient’s own bone can fail, requiring follow-up surgery, or result in complications, he highlighted. Blueprint’s artificial structures, which can be created in many different shapes, are built on a 3D-printed scaffold of a biodegradable polyester called polycaprolactone, which supports a collagen structure. Both substances are eliminated from the body within three months (collagen) to two years (polycaprolactone). The company is looking for $2.5 million as it heads towards human trials, hoping to implant its products into patients by 2028, Herrera said.
– **Nimble motors for drones**
Agile quadcopter drones are already prized in applications from coordinated aerial displays to battlefields in Ukraine. But Austrian startup CycloTech says it can make aircraft even nimbler with its motors — shaped like an open cylinder with the sides made up of several wing-shaped blades. “It can hover like a helicopter, fly forwards like an aircraft, but equally brake in midair or fly backwards,” marketing chief Andrea Marchsteiner told AFP. “It can move very flexibly in the air and land very precisely”. Applications could range from deliveries in built-up areas to transporting people through the air, she said — as well as military uses. The 65-strong company, which has already raised 40 million euros ($46 million), is currently looking for more funding and partners who could integrate its motors into their flying machines.
– **Deepfake screening**
French firm Whispeak started out as a tool to confirm customers’ identity by recognising their voice when they call a bank or other sensitive service. Founded long before the generative AI boom created the risk of calls using “deepfake” voices resembling real friends or family, the company is now working on filtering potentially fraudulent conversations. “With less than ten seconds of someone’s voice, you can imitate anyone, often for free,” chief executive Florent Van Calster told AFP. After three years of work, including with Whispeak’s own AI tools, “we now have the best detector of audio deepfakes in the world,” he boasted, citing the team’s first place in multiple contests. The company is working with French telecom operator Bouygues to screen calls for deepfakes and issue warnings to users where they are detected. On the available training data, “we average less than one percent errors,” Van Calster said — although “there’s a kind of cops and robbers race that’s never going to stop” as the fakers’ technology improves.
– **High-tech sweat**
Top athletes have long monitored indicators in their blood to check on their performance. But Hong Kong-based startup PointFit offers a less intrusive alternative using an adhesive patch, whose tiny sensor reads levels of biomarkers like glucose and cortisol from the sweat on users’ skin. Chief executive Kenny Oktavius told AFP he had been working on the technology since 2019, when he was still a student. The company builds an AI-powered “personal sweat index” for users that adjusts the expected results based on factors like their demographic background and the ambient temperature. Oktavius pointed to the example of professional marathon runners, who “already wear sophisticated, expensive (sensors), but still collapse.” “Heart rate does not tell you the whole picture of what’s happening,” he added. “When you go to the hospital, it’s about the biomarkers.” PointFit has been working with Red Bull’s Athlete Performance Centre and sportswear maker Puma’s Nitro Labs. “But later on, obviously we’ll go for consumer retail,” Oktavius said, citing potential partners like sports retailer Decathlon and eyewear firm EssilorLuxottica.
© 2024 AFP
