Tucson Tech: U of A program helps foreign firms set up US shops

And the UA’s Global Advantage program, run by the UA Center for Innovation, has landed success of its own with a recent international award.

Longan Vision, an Ontario-based company developing helmet-mounted “augmented reality” thermal vision systems for firefighters, and EcoBloc, a Newfoundland-based developer of sonic rodent-control systems, recently went through the Global Advantage program at the UA Tech Park on South Rita Road.

Last week, the UA announced that Longan Vision had decided to join the UACI’s incubation program, which for modest fees offers startups a structured program of mentorship, resources including business services, offices and labs and connections to potential customers and strategic partners.

EcoBloc also is enrolled in the UACI program virtually, after recently winning entry into Techstars, a major business accelerator program based in Boulder, Colorado.

Andrew Leaman, manager of commercial operations for Longan Vision, said the network of enthusiastic entrepreneurial support the UACI provided as the company went through the Global Advantage program earlier in the summer was a major factor in the decision to join the incubator.

“The network UACI has provided far exceeded our wildest dreams about what could happen here,” Leaman said. “This area, especially centered around Tucson, is full of entrepreneurial, supportive, kind people who want to see you succeed.”

Seeing through smoke

Leaman said he’s already begun to contact local fire departments, including the Vail-based Rincon Valley Fire District, to test his company’s Fusion Vision System.

The system adds a lightweight “smart visor” to firefighter’s helmets to provide enhanced thermal images — including multi-color and night-vision-like options — and data sharing tools to allow them to see through smoke, locate victims and find fire sources.

Though firefighters commonly use hand-held thermal cameras to see through smoke and assess fire scenes, they tie up one hand, and previous attempts at helmet-mounted sights have been costly, heavy and bulky, Leaman said.

The company — named after an Asian fruit also known as dragon’s eye — was founded by four graduates and student scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who developed the thermal-imaging technology during a “hack-athon” event in 2018, he said.

The company later won a grant of about $200,000 Canadian as part of a government challenge involving hands-free technologies, and have since been awarded a $1 million government grant to further develop the system.

The prototype, which has been tested by fire departments in Canada, Korea and Japan, is on its sixth iteration and the company plans to have its first commercial version available next year, Leaman said.

Repelling rodents

EcoBloc’s CEO, Jason Trask, said Arizona was barely on the company’s radar as it explored its options in the U.S., but he was interested in the Global Advantage program because of Tucson’s proximity to the California market and its lower base costs.

EcoBloc has developed a commercial-grade ultrasonic device designed to repel rodents and is aiming the product at food-storage facilities.

“After doing the program, I realized that Southern Arizona has so much more to offer than I expected,” said Trask, citing its significant position as a port for food and opportunities to manufacture in Mexico.

“We are now considering Tucson to set up an R&D and sales office because Southern Arizona could be a large market for us and it is adjacent to other large US markets,” he said in an email. “We could set up manufacturing right across the border; and the University of Arizona and others are producing high-quality technical talent.”

EcoBloc got a huge boost recently when it was named to Techstars’ “Farm to Fork” business accelerator, which is partnered on advancing food-tech startups with agriculture food giant Cargill Corp. and environmental services leader Ecolab.

Ultrasonic pest repellent systems claiming to exclude everything from rats to roaches have been deemed ineffective in past scientific studies, and Trask acknowledged existing research has been “either negative or inconclusive.”

But Trask says his company’s device, which is designed for industrial use outdoors, is much more sophisticated and uses a proprietary sound algorithm to ensure rodents don’t get used to the sound frequency.

The EcoBloc device has been found effective by clients in six different countries, and the company has been working with several universities in both the United States and Canada to conduct independent academic studies to confirm its field research slated for completion by the end of the year.

“We want to be a science-based company and we will continue to work with universities to independently validate our solutions as we continue to innovate,” Trask said.

Award-winning program

The UA’s Global Advantage program has been busy since an earlier version was re-launched under the auspices of the UACI a few years ago, and it’s reaped international recognition as a result.

Since 2019, four international companies who have worked with UACI have moved to Southern Arizona or set up a United States subsidiary in the region.

In 2020, the UACI earned the “Soft Landings” designation from the International Business Innovation Association, as one of 50 entrepreneur organizations to meet the group’s high-level standards for supporting international companies’ operations in the U.S.

And in late June, the UACI was named “Soft Landings Designee of the Year” at the InBIA’s 36th International Conference on Business Incubation in Atlanta.

Carol Stewart, UA vice president for Tech Parks Arizona, said the Global Advantage program has taken off since it was retooled under the UACI and executive director Eric Smith, who was tasked with focusing on attracting foreign companies.

The current Global Advantage program is a retool of a program of the same name launched in 2004, which aimed to attract foreign companies by working with technology business incubators in other countries.

“We wanted to revive it and we wanted to shift it, we wanted to focus more on inbound companies rather than outbound companies,” said Stewart, a native Canadian who was named head of Tech Parks Arizona in 2018 after leading entrepreneurial initiatives in Waterloo, Ontario, and co-founding the Association of University Research Parks Canada.

Besides Canada, Global Advantage has served companies from Mexico, Columbia, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and Stewart said the UA recently finalized an agreement with an Australian company.

“Obviously, its an economic impact,” she said. “Obviously there’s a great opportunity with Canada, because they’re not looking to sell to themselves with 30 million people, so they’re always looking to the U.S.”

Stewart, who sits on the Tucson Airport Authority board of directors, said new nonstop flights from Tucson International Airport to six Canadian cities launched last spring by Flair Airlines will only strengthen the business linkages.

“We’re looking at each one of those locations and reaching out to their economic-development people to see what opportunities there are for companies to expand to the U.S.,” she said.