EPRI Tests VIA Data Privacy Platform Through Independent Evaluation Process

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VIA’s blockchain-based data privacy platform successfully passes independent validation

SOMERVILLE, Mass., March 2, 2022 — VIA, the only U.S. Department of Defense cybersecurity accredited blockchain provider, is pleased to share that after an objective evaluation process, the company successfully completed an independent validation of the functionality of key data privacy protection features of its blockchain-based software platform. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a leading energy R&D non-profit, began testing VIA’s platform capabilities at the request of multiple power companies to address the requirements of data analytics for clean energy rollout and individual consumer data privacy. Notable observers of the validation process included American Electric Power (AEP), Consolidated Edison (ConEd), Électricité de France (EDF), Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Salt River Project (SRP). 

“Data privacy and cybersecurity are critical challenges facing the grid, and are requirements for the clean energy transition,” said Matt Wakefield, director of information, communication, and cyber security (ICCS) at EPRI. “The energy industry needs to explore and evaluate privacy-preserving technologies like VIA’s to maintain reliable and affordable electricity.”

EPRI’s evaluation process used Advanced Metering Infrastructure (smart meter) data as a use case. Smart meter data has value to both traditional power providers and also new entrants to the energy sector (see chart below).

User of Smart Meter DataUse Case
System OperatorCalculating grid service requirements
Electricity RetailerTariff setting
Network OperatorDemand growth forecasting
Solar Installers and EV Charging CosCustomer targeting and pricing
Amazon, Google, City PlannersAmazon, Google, City Planners Proxy of citizens’ activity levels over time and geography to direct services, manage infrastructure, target marketing

“The value of smart meter data to make communities cleaner, safer, and more equitable is clear,” said VIA CEO Colin Gounden. “At the same time, individual consumer privacy is a top priority. Data privacy technologies, like VIA’s platform, enable a “no trade-off” solution where insights from data can be leveraged for good while individual data privacy is guaranteed.”

VIA’s platform passed several scenarios representative of typical requests made to power companies for their meter data. The specific data privacy protection algorithm employed “K-anonymity” along two dimensions: number of customers and amount of data per customer per request. Smart contracts that controlled the K-anonymity rules were stored on VIA’s blockchain, the first and only blockchain to have cybersecurity accreditation from the U.S. Department of Defense up to top secret level. In addition, VIA’s multi-cloud platform capabilities were demonstrated on both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.

As data privacy rules evolve, VIA continues to validate its software platform with the strictest regulations worldwide. As an example, VIA is currently working with legal experts in Switzerland to match recent Data Privacy Act enhancements passed in September 2020 due to be enforced later this year.

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About EPRI

Founded in 1972, EPRI is the world’s preeminent independent, non-profit energy research and development organization, with offices around the world. EPRI’s trusted experts collaborate with more than 450 companies in 45 countries, driving innovation to ensure the public has clean, safe, reliable, affordable, and equitable access to electricity across the globe. Together, we are shaping the future of energy.

About VIA

90% of the world’s data is trapped in silos. VIA makes it accessible. Trusted by leading government agencies and clean energy companies around the globe, VIA’s secure, digital collaboration platform overcomes the most common barriers to AI: lack of data, data quality issues, and data privacy risks. VIA enables decentralized energy data analysis at the locations where datasets are stored. Blockchain-based permissioning ensures that only anonymized or aggregated results are transmitted instead of the underlying datasets. VIA brings AI to data 100 times faster than alternatives. As the first and only U.S. Department of Defense-wide cybersecurity accredited blockchain application, VIA’s platform is the driving force to unlock data-driven business cases for power and energy service providers. VIA is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a technology center in Montreal, Quebec, and European offices in Denmark and Rotkreuz, Switzerland. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.

Three Years Running: VIA Again Named to Tech Tribune’s Best Tech Startups List

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We did it again! For the third year in a row, VIA was named to Tech Tribune’s Best Tech Startups in Somerville list. We join nine companies in Somerville, Massachusetts that are shaping the local tech scene with solutions in the engineering, AI, healthcare, robotics, and utility spaces.

Tech Tribune chose the companies for the 2022 list based on four deciding factors including, 1) revenue potential, 2) leadership team, 3) brand/product traction, and 4) competitive landscape. We recently moved our Somerville headquarters to accommodate our growing team and look forward to continued contributions to the community. 

For the full list of startups, check out Tech Tribune’s website.

U.S. Department of Defense Selects VIA for Seventh Contract

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VIA expands work with U.S. Air Force in multi-million dollar contract for JARVIS™, VIA’s cyber secure building and runway maintenance software platform

SOMERVILLE, Mass., February 17, 2022 — VIA, the only U.S. Department of Defense cybersecurity accredited blockchain provider for data privacy, integration, and analysis, announced today that it has been awarded a new two-year, multi-million dollar contract with the United States Air Force (U.S. Air Force). The contract solidifies the existing partnership between VIA and the U.S. Air Force to support data-driven decision-making for base safety, mission readiness, and comfort for personnel. Selected over more than 160 competitors, VIA will collaborate with the U.S. Air Force’s Air Mobility Command (AMC) to make JARVIS™, VIA’s blockchain-based building and runway maintenance software platform, the standard for analyzing infrastructure condition across multiple air bases worldwide.

Tasked with instantaneous global responsiveness, AMC supports missions through airlifts, air refueling, air mobility support, and aeromedical evacuation across air bases and air strips worldwide. 

Together with AMC, VIA will build and enhance dashboards that will serve as the one-stop-shop for all of AMC’s infrastructure strategy and decision-making processes. With the ability to access these critical insights from multiple data sources and locations in real-time, commanders will have what they need to make faster and better data-driven decisions about how to keep infrastructure safe, mission-ready, and comfortable while saving taxpayer dollars.

Brigadier General Thomas H. Blackstock, Jr. added: “When faced with mission-critical situations, it’s imperative to have best practices and trusted data ready to make timely, effective resource decisions. After seeing success at Tyndall Air Force Base and Al Udeid Air Base, it’s clear JARVIS will have a significant impact, improving our installation management on a global scale.”

Pictured above: A bird’s eye view of critical infrastructure statistics from JARVIS™.

“In partnership with AMC, VIA is adding to JARVIS leading-edge infrastructure management capabilities that will improve U.S. Air Force operations enterprise-wide. These enhancements will augment the ways airmen already use JARVIS to save significant time performing their civil engineering duties,” said Joe Babiec, VIA’s senior vice president of strategic initiatives. “Ultimately, JARVIS eliminates the data tasks that keep airmen from focusing on what matters most: safety, mission readiness, and the comfort of personnel.”

Already in use by Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, JARVIS enables airmen to make data-driven decisions 100 times faster than any other infrastructure decision-making support system by automating all data science tasks and quickly generating reports. 

Follow the latest from VIA by visiting https://www.solvewithvia.com/latest/ or on social media, including LinkedIn and @solvewithvia on Twitter and Instagram.

About VIA

90% of the world’s data is trapped in silos. VIA makes it accessible. Trusted by leading government agencies and clean energy companies around the globe, VIA’s secure, digital collaboration platform overcomes the most common barriers to AI: lack of data, data quality issues, and data privacy risks. VIA enables decentralized energy data analysis at the locations where datasets are stored. Blockchain-based permissioning ensures that only anonymized or aggregated results are transmitted instead of the underlying datasets. VIA brings AI to data 100 times faster than alternatives. As the first and only U.S. Department of Defense-wide cybersecurity accredited blockchain application, VIA’s platform, is the driving force to unlock data-driven business cases for power and energy service providers. VIA is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a technology center in Montreal, Quebec, and European offices in Denmark and Rotkreuz, Switzerland. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.

Wharton Selects VIA to Join Highly Competitive Blockchain Accelerator

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VIA has an all-access pass to the club. The blockchain club. VIA is proud to be one of only 10 companies accepted into Cohort 1 of Wharton University’s Stevens Center Cypher Accelerator program. 

In this prestigious three-month program, VIA will work with the biggest names in blockchain such as Mark Cuban and Tim Draper. Together with direct feedback and coaching from powerhouse investors including Andresseen Horowitz, Bain Capital, Dexterity Capital, and Pantera Capital, VIA will work to advance the blockchain ecosystem alongside academics and other Stevens center experts.

“We’re excited to have so much one-on-one access to the leading thinkers and investors in blockchain,” VIA CEO Colin Gounden said. “While customers first started using our blockchain application in 2018, we only launched our own blockchain in 2021. This was driven by the cybersecurity requirements for our U.S. Department of Defense customers. We see the Wharton program as a way for VIA to sharpen our differentiation, accelerate our growth, and expand our market leadership position.”

To learn more about the Cypher Accelerator program, visit the Stevens Center website here.

Guidehouse Insights Names VIA as Leader in Energy Asset Management

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The continued integration of renewables into global electricity grids is accelerating the need for asset management technologies such as blockchain to streamline transactions, share information, and allow data access. VIA is proud to be recognized by market intelligence firm, Guidehouse Insights, as one of the top companies in this space, alongside Energy Web and LO3 Energy, that are meeting this demand with blockchain-based solutions. To learn more about the role of blockchain in energy asset management and why power providers are turning to VIA’s Global Data Asset Collaborative (GDAC™) to predict transformer performance while preserving data integrity, read the full piece here.

The End of Pilot Purgatory

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We’re excited to have Andrew Bright, former ABB executive and VIA’s advisor to our Swiss office, contribute to our blog. Read on to hear his commentary on VIA’s GDAC™ Transformers: 3-Minute Pilot, which was recently upgraded to maximize the value of transformer data while minimizing time.

Many industrial digitalization projects suffer from “Pilot Purgatory.” The pilots seemingly take forever and never end because no one can decide if they are a success or a failure. Since the term Pilot Purgatory was first coined a few years ago, much has been written about how to avoid it. However, the vast majority of this advice seems to involve throwing more resources, money and scale at the pilot, until well it no longer looks like a pilot but a full-scale roll-out. The logic is clear if the monthly cost of a pilot project is high enough – no one can afford to let the pilot continue indefinitely. How refreshing then, that VIA has come up with a radically different and frankly opposing approach for avoiding Pilot Purgatory.

Their new GDAC™ Transformers: 3-Minute Pilot takes just 3 minutes to complete once data is gathered. If this were a recipe, you would be allowed up to 27 minutes to source the ingredients and just 3 minutes to do the cooking. Resources, time and money are all minimized. After this experience, VIA hopes to have delivered a valuable summary of the health of one of your transformers. If this has proved insightful, the pilot has been a success, if not then GDAC™ may not be for you. Either way, the pilot will have been concluded.

With their 3-Minute Pilot, VIA aims to demonstrate three specific concepts:

  1. show valuable insights about the health of one transformer and that the math really works;
  2. show that valuable analysis can be conducted whilst keeping data private and confidential; and
  3. provide an educational component about how VIA does what it does. VIA does more than provide recommendations, it also explains why & how a particular recommendation was made.

All three of these components are embedded in the 3-Minute Pilot. If you are interested in performing a full fleet analysis going back say 20 years, that’s more of a project and not the goal of this pilot. VIA’s 3-Minute Pilot is true to the spirit and literal about the term “proof-of-concept.” This seems to be an industry first and given the simplicity and radical reduction in resources, I hope that it becomes an industry standard approach.

VIA note:

If you are interested in learning more about VIA’s GDAC™ Transformers: 3-Minute Pilot and perhaps want to give it a try, feel free to contact us.

VIA’s 3-Minute Pilot provides valuable insights on the health of transformers in just 3 minutes.

 

Swiss Media Features VIA and HSLU in Article on Securing Smart Meter Data

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Smart meters are rich with insights that can optimize the operation of the power grid. Yet, the current practice of gathering energy consumption and production data from a centralized source carries data privacy and security concerns. Our partners at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) recently penned a piece for Bulletin.ch about our research through the Swiss Federal Office of Energy to solve this dilemma. A key component of the KnowlEDGE project, VIA’s Trusted Analytics Chain™ (TAC™), allows utilities to access distributed datasets while maintaining cybersecurity and regulatory compliance.

To learn more about this work with HSLU and how it’s supporting Switzerland’s decarbonization goals, read the full article here.

End of Year Reflection
Company

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As this year comes to a close, we are taking our readers on a journey through 2021 in this 3-part reflection series written by VIA’s co-founders. The series covers the incredible milestones VIA has achieved in laying the foundation for big things ahead in 2022 as we Scale Up!

If any of you are Ted Lasso fans, you’ll know the philosophy that he lives by, “It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about being the very best versions of ourselves that we can be.” This year we definitely had our share of ups and downs. I, personally, am most proud of the positive attitude and resilience that our VIAneers demonstrated this year. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to win too!

This year VIA turned five. It seems like the perfect time to review in “ABC format” a few of our company wins. For D and E, see the blogs of VIA’s CSO, Jeremy Taylor, to learn more about the technical Distance we covered this year and COO, Kate Ravanis, to learn about Employee related milestones. 

A is for Series A. Earlier this year, VIA closed our $10M Series A equity financing round. While cash is always good, we’re privileged to have what we consider to be the premier clean energy fund in North America to lead the round. We also had one of the top 3 largest Silicon Valley-based B2B software companies in the world co-invest. We think quality begets quality. It’s an honor to have this level of support and growth capital to continue to scale VIA. You’ll see investments in our people and technology as we continue to keep up with increased customer demand.

B is for Buildings (and infrastructure). Our mission is to enable cleaner, safer, more equitable communities. Buildings and infrastructure are clearly the biggest physical components of our communities. While infrastructure was in the headlines for almost the entirety of 2021, this is a sector where VIA started to gain traction last year. In 2020, we won a significant contract to support the efficiency and improve the quality of life of a community of 800 buildings by analyzing and monitoring daily the 15,000 associated subsystems (utilities, HVAC, etc.). That expanded this year and in 2022 you’ll see a ten-fold increase in the number of buildings and other critical infrastructure that we support.

C is for Customers. VIA’s customers doubled in 2021 and we are on track to double again in 2022. For our critical infrastructure application, JARVIS™, we were able to add Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida as a customer and in December have a new multi-million dollar award that we will announce fully in January. 

It’s also the most positive endorsement of our value that two of our power customers have not only renewed their contracts but grown from an annual commitment to a three year contract. You’ll see new announcements in the first quarter of 2022 regarding our work with the U.S. Space Force. For obvious reasons, you won’t see anything about work that we won recently with a U.S. intelligence agency. Those are also both great endorsements of VIA’s value proposition: data analytics that’s cyber secure and privacy protected.

This past year was really a breakthrough year from a people, technology, and customer perspective. 2022 will be all about building on that base and continuing to scale. In the meantime, thank you all for your support in creating the solid foundation that VIA has laid. We sincerely wish all of you the very best to you and yours for 2022.

 

End of Year Reflection
Research and Technology

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As this year comes to a close, we are taking our readers on a journey through 2021 in this three-part reflection series written by a variety of VIA’s leaders. The series covers the incredible milestones VIA has achieved in laying the foundation for big things ahead in 2022 as we Scale Up!

In 2021, VIA began to harvest some of the fruits of our research and previous development efforts of years past. We’re proud to share with you our technology accomplishments and what will make 2022 another record breaking year.

Technology Platform: Security and Agility

2021 was a year filled with major accomplishments for our technology platform.

Our VP Architecture, Jesus Cardenes, along with the entire DevSecOps team, pioneered a number of significant security enhancements to our data privacy-preserving analytics platform,  TAC™. In 2020, we released the capability to run TAC™ in a multi-cloud environment and continued to enhance these capabilities this year. In 2021, thanks to a robust container hardening pipeline, VIA celebrated having the first U.S. Department of Defense-wide cybersecurity accredited blockchain application. As part of our cybersecurity accreditation, we ensured that we migrated TAC™ to a Zero Trust Architecture and implemented Least Privilege Principle cybersecurity practices throughout our full product suite.

This year, TAC™ scaled as an application platform and currently supports multiple distinct analytics capabilities. Technical Architect, Ashley DaSilva, and her team put the TAC™ Ingestion Engine into production. This enables applications to orchestrate complex data ingestion and transformation workflows like taking thousands of files and automating their wrangling into an AI-ready database format. Early in 2021, execution auditability was demonstrated by our Technical Architect, John Muddle and his team, and was further developed by fellow Technical Architect, Madjid Aoudia, and his team demonstrating a highly scalable and auditable analytics system for satellite image data. These new features are key enablers for VIA’s full solution range, including VIA Insights Market™, GDAC™ Transformers, SWEET™, and JARVIS™.

There’s a Patent for That

In 2021, we were proud to have been granted our first patents developed by our VP Engineering, Kai Cheung, and fellow collaborators. These initial patents protect innovative technologies for homomorphic encryption and machine learning model evaluation. We also filed three new patents, ranging in scope from encrypted search, decentralized aggregation, and workflow threat mitigation. This brings VIA to a total of more than ten pending patents. We look forward to positive news on several of these filings in 2022. These technologies make TAC™ more secure, improve model execution performance, and lower power consumption. You’ll hear more about our efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of AI in 2022.

Research: Setting the Stage for Big Things

In 2020, we began work with our university research partner HSLU, smart meter manufacturer Landis+Gyr, and the Swiss Federal office of Energy. We finalized our first use cases that will help Distribution System Operators (DSOs) understand how technologies like electric vehicles, solar power generation, and battery storage are driving changes in the Swiss power system. In 2021, the team developed novel privacy-preserving algorithms to detect congestion in power systems, and completed a study of federated learning and model personalization for improved energy consumption forecasting. These technologies are being deployed at the edge, directly on smart meters and will be field tested in the first half of 2022. 

In 2022, we look forward to the start of a research collaboration with the University of British Columbia (UBC) on demand response for grid stabilization. The project will include the development and testing of blockchain-based algorithms for coordination between distributed energy resources across multiple distribution feeders. At VIA, we see this project as the start for a number of avenues of research collaboration into data-driven and privacy-preserving AI solutions for power system stabilization.

With all of our technology advancements in 2021, we were able to meet the needs of our customers, accept prestigious awards, and set the foundation to scale in 2022. The last blog in this series will highlight these major milestones we achieved as a company this year.

SwissInfo Highlights VIA in Article on Switzerland’s Shift to Renewables

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Switzerland aims to rely solely on renewable energy by 2050. Artificial intelligence (AI) is crucial to making this a reality, according to a recent SwissInfo article. The piece featured in Switzerland’s top English language news outlet highlights how VIA and our partners at Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts (HSLU) are putting AI into practice through smart meter research. With this work, utilities have a way to securely analyze smart meter data while protecting customer privacy.  

“No country in the world has a longer history or stronger reputation for data privacy. At the same time, no single utility has enough data on its own for AI,” noted VIA CEO Colin Gounden in an interview for the piece.“With so many utilities (650), Switzerland is a great proving ground for VIA’s collaborative technology (VIA Insights Market™).” 

VIA’s recently launched Insights Market brings AI models to data to increase data privacy and cybersecurity. It enhances security as power companies do not need to send  data to the cloud or to analysts. 

To learn more about our work and implications for creating a stable, carbon neutral energy system, read the full article from Swissinfo here.

VIA Invited to Speak at Swiss-US Energy Innovation Days 2021

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We’re strengthening our presence in the Swiss energy market — learn more about how we’re supporting the Energy Strategy 2050 from VIA’s SVP, Strategic Initiatives, Joe Babiec at Swissnex in Boston and New York’s Swiss-US Energy Innovation Days 2021 event. Learn more on their website: https://swissnex.org/boston/event/swiss-us-energy-innovation-days-2021/

VIA Participates in Deeptech Showcase Energy Event

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Our team shared the value of solving with VIA during the Deep-Tech Showcase on July 15th. We joined companies from across the clean energy landscape to discuss what’s possible with innovations in renewable and alternative energy, as well as power management and supporting systems.

VIA Presents at Westly Group Summer Summit

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VIA presented at The Westly Group‘s Summer Summit in California. The talk was about the work we are doing to accomplish our mission of increasing clean energy adoption. We enjoyed this opportunity to connect with our partners – thank you to the Westly team for having us!

VIA Attends Hanscom Air Force Base Invite-Only Event

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Our CEO Colin Gounden and SVP, Strategic Initiatives, Joe Babiec represented VIA at Hanscom Air Force Base (Bedford, Mass.) in today’s invite-only event. Hanscom AFB is a long-time innovation hub for the USAF and the headquarters for Program Executive Office (PEO) Digital and PEO C3, Intelligence and Networks. We were excited for the opportunity to share more about JARVIS, our proven base operations and infrastructure application, and its underlying data integration, data security, and data analysis platform with United States Department of Defense leadership!

Leaders at VIA Present at Deeptech Showcase Smart Cities

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VIA leaders Colin Gounden and Joe Babiec presented at Deep-Tech Showcase’s virtual Smart Cities event on June 17 at 2:15pm. The team covered our mission and technologies, as well as how we are leading the clean energy revolution. View the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7DuekF3V3U