VIA Wins Swiss National Energy Project

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VIA, a leader in providing energy analytics while maintaining data privacy and security, has been awarded funding from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) for a project called KnowlEDGE. The joint proposal with Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), Romande Energie SA, and a major smart meter manufacturer, was the top ranked amongst submissions that were selected from a lengthy and highly competitive judging process.

“We are proud to have been selected as the top submission by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. Together with HSLU and Romande Energie, we will enhance VIA’s Trusted Analytics Chain™ (TAC™) capabilities to run AI algorithms directly on smart meters, also known as edge computing,” said Jeremy Taylor, VIA’s Chief Scientific Officer.

The project will be delivered in Switzerland and led by HSLU. Ben Bowler, from HSLU, said, “this project is an exciting opportunity to bring together leading technology and advanced data science in a way that will benefit utilities and clean energy adoption both within Switzerland and globally.” 

Through the support of SFOE’s program, the collaborative will develop edge computing capabilities on smart meters. This will enable increased data privacy since data from individual meters will not be centralized.

The project will also increase temporal resolution of data, meaning more data can be analyzed more frequently. Traditional methods only allowed for 15, 30, or 60-minute intervals of smart meter data analysis due to the size of data and privacy concerns. With edge computing, this data can be analyzed every minute. This will allow real-time feedback to consumers on their energy usage and better preventative maintenance (e.g., upgrades to transformers because EVs are readily detected).

About VIA

VIA helps governments, regulators, and power companies deliver $200Bn in energy every year to more than 100 million customers. VIA’s privacy-preserving analytics software, Trusted Analytics Chain™ (TAC™) reduces the cost and improves the quality of service of electricity transmission and distribution using AI and blockchain technologies. TAC™ (patents pending) is the bridge that securely connects power company data, distributed across many locations, to potential AI solutions. VIA established the Global Data Asset Collaborative™ (GDAC™), built on top of TAC™, to allow multiple companies to securely pool data for more accurate analytics. Headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, VIA has received an InnovateMass grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and has been featured in Wired and Inc. Magazine for its leadership in technology innovation. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.

VIA Listed Among 32 Technology Startups Redefining Energy by StartUS Insights

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VIA is proud to be recognized by StartUS Insights as one of 32 companies out of nearly 10,000 surveyed that are changing the energy landscape.

According to StartUS Insights:

“We analyzed 9.926 energy technology startups and emerging companies working on solutions for the energy sector that are highly relevant for accelerating the progress of the seventh SDG of ‘Clean & Affordable Energy For All’.”

For the full article including visuals and overviews of other companies, visit the StartUS Insights website.

 

VIA Interviewed for Carbotnic Podcast

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James McWalter of Carbotnic, a podcast that covers cleantech founders and investors, interviewed VIA’s CEO, Colin Gounden for a podcast titled, “Energy and Data Silos”.

In the podcast, Colin answers questions about how VIA solves problems for utilities, data issues that hamper machine learning, VIA’s 30-Minute Pilot process, how COVID-19 has actually increased efficiencies of VIA’s teamwork, and more on company culture and recruiting.

To listen to the podcast, visit the Carbotnic website or click the play button below!

Introducing SWEET: AI for Data Wrangling

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For the third installment of our blog series, Let’s TAC™ About It, we’d like to introduce you to SWEET, a built-in function on VIA’s TAC™ platform. So, are you ready to TAC™ about it?

SWEET stands for Smart Wrangling Engine for Extraction and Transformation. Check out the video (or the transcription that follows) to learn how we use AI to wrangle data!

Below is a transcription of the “Introduction to SWEET: AI for Data Wrangling” video.

Analysts need to transfer data from a spreadsheet to a database, often known as data wrangling. The analyst usually identifies a rule or multiple rules (such as: column x is data, row 5 is a header and can be discarded, and so on). The analyst then writes code to execute that rule. This works well when rules are easily identifiable. In most cases, however, this is incredibly time consuming.

Data scientists spend more time wrangling and cleaning data than on analysis and AI. The problem with that is analytics insights are of the highest value, but get the least amount of resources. The big leap in AI is being able to process information without humans writing all the rules.

As an example, computer vision is used to identify a dog. Think of all the varieties of dogs and all the possible variations in context that those dogs could be in. There isn’t an army of people large enough to write rules to identify a random dog in a random photo.

And yet, AI can.

VIA’s approach to data wrangling is to use some of the exact same AI algorithms used in image recognition. This works across a much wider variety of contexts and spreadsheet or file formats. Let’s take a look at how SWEET works.

Here’s a spreadsheet. What SWEET is going to do is use a number of different machine learning algorithms to automate the process of getting the information into a database format.

The first model uses machine vision to map out the spreadsheet. Purple represents blank space, green is headings, yellow is actual data. Once that model has run, there’s a second algorithm that takes a look at the content.

The second algorithm skips over the purple. It looks at the green (which is the headers) to know which column to write where in the database. Finally, it would take a look at the yellow area to write the data to the database.

A third machine learning algorithm determines which column is derived from other parts of the sheet. For example, a total column is just the sum of the other columns and may not be necessary to write to the database. The third model separates these derived columns from the raw data.

In this example, the ACCOUNT column turns out to be the total of the other columns added up. It could be difficult for a human to understand immediately, but one of our models does this instantly.

SWEET’s approach works irrespective of the format. The model doesn’t have to be re-trained when it comes across spreadsheets that are new or in different formats.

So, what’s new and different here? AI algorithms have been evolving quickly. Many of the models that we implemented didn’t exist just a few years ago.

The other insight is that we broke the “convert this spreadsheet into a db” problem into multiple steps and have a different AI algorithm for each step.

Combined, SWEET, a built-in function in VIA’s TAC™ ingestion engine, helps make processes that used to take analysts days to do manually and makes them instantaneous.

Update: July 31, 2020

The image below shows the steps SWEET takes to transform raw files into a standard format.

Meet the Team: Ashley DaSilva, Team Leader, Product Development

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Through a Q&A-style interview, you will hear from VIA team members about things like a typical day at the office and favorite foods.

What does a typical day at VIA look like for you?

Typically I start my morning with coffee and code review. At VIA, we have a strong culture of peer review to help us learn from each other and improve our work. Reviewing my colleagues’ code is a good way to see all the amazing work my colleagues are doing, and setting aside this time makes sure I provide them timely feedback.

Once I’ve finished my coffee, I like to take a morning walk (before we moved to remote work due to COVID-19, this was the time I spent commuting to the office.) The rest of the day varies depending on the project I’m working on: it could be writing a software design proposal for a new feature, wrangling data, or automating deployments.

I spend a lot of my day working with my colleagues to solve technical challenges. Often this is pair programming, but sometimes it’s designing the solution together on a (virtual) whiteboard. I really like having the opportunity to work on such a variety of tasks.

What’s something you have worked on at VIA that you are most proud of?

I was the technical lead on VIA’s 30-Minute Pilot and am really proud of how much of a difference it has made for our partners. They were able to get valuable data analysis in less than 30 minutes, while learning about VIA’s privacy-protecting software.

What’s your favorite VIA memory?

At our last company-wide All Hands event, we did a scavenger hunt in the underground city of Montreal. It really fit VIA’s culture: we were split into teams, and each team had to collaborate to solve the puzzles and at the same time, we were competing to solve more puzzles than the other teams! I got to know a little more about Montreal, and got to collaborate with colleagues that I don’t work with day-to-day.

If you were given an extra hour in your day, what would you spend it doing?

That’s a tough one. I would probably practice painting. I love creating things, and that passion is not limited to software. I love the bright colors and rich textures of oil paints, and the challenge of exercising my creativity in a totally different way than I do at work.

What’s your go-to food?

Tacos! Since moving to Montreal, I have learned how to make corn tortillas from scratch, which is actually much easier than I thought it would be.

What’s something everyone may not, but should know about working at VIA?

VIA’s twice yearly All Hands events are held in an “unconference” style: all team members submit and vote on topics just a couple days ahead of time. Because everyone has input into the topics, and the fact that there’s not much time for session leaders to prepare a lot of talking points, the sessions focus on discussion, collaboration, and brainstorming.

VIA Moves Technology Team from Griffintown to Purpose-Built Center in Downtown Montreal

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VIA, a leader in providing energy analytics while maintaining data privacy and security, is pleased to share that the company is moving its technology center from Griffintown to downtown Montreal. The move follows several months of scouting locations and gathering team needs and “wishlists”.

“In the last twelve months, VIA has grown five-fold and is set to double again this year. With this period of explosive growth, we needed a new location that met the needs of both our current and future team,” said Emma Fechney, VIA’s Head of People and Operations.

She continued, “We are excited to be part of the thriving AI network in Montreal. We aspire to make our space not only better suited to our growth but appealing to the academic and technical community by creating dedicated space for hosting future events and meetups. We made a decision to take an entire floor. This provides us increased room to accommodate both social distancing and growth.”

Key features of the new space includes four mother’s rooms, shower facilities, a non-binary bathroom, private access to our own floor, car parking, and space for bike storage. The new office is located just across the street from McGill University’s campus, has an exceptional view of Mont Royal, and is highly accessible by public transportation. McGill metro station is just a two-minute walk away.

Construction and personalization of the office space is currently underway. VIA is planning to allow optional attendance to the new office space beginning August 15th.

About VIA

VIA helps governments, regulators, and power companies deliver $200Bn in energy every year to more than 100 million customers. VIA’s privacy-preserving analytics software, Trusted Analytics Chain™ (TAC™) reduces the cost and improves the quality of service of electricity transmission and distribution using AI and blockchain technologies. TAC™ (patents pending) is the bridge that securely connects power company data, distributed across many locations, to potential AI solutions. VIA established the Global Data Asset Collaborative™ (GDAC™), built on top of TAC™, to allow multiple companies to securely pool data for more accurate analytics. Headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, VIA has been featured in Wired and Inc. Magazine for its leadership in technology innovation. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.

Westly Group Invites VIA to Present During Virtual Demo Day

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The Westly Group, a key investor in VIA, has invited CEO Colin Gounden to present during their virtual demo day on July 30th. Colin will present an overview of VIA and progress to date to a group of 100 investors and senior energy executives.

VIA Hosts First Installment of GDAC™ Virtual Mini-Series

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Last week, VIA was proud to host the first session of its GDAC™ Virtual Mini-Series. The event was invite-only and had over 20 participants including members from founding utilities, Hawaiian Electric and Vector. 

VIA advisor and former ABB executive, Andrew Bright gave a keynote presentation on two topics: physical resiliency trends for power transformers and trends in sensors. 

In addition to Andrew’s keynote, VIA presented “GDAC™ By The Numbers” (click image below) that covered quick stats on data, equipment, portal enhancements, and more for members.

Given the success of this first event, VIA hopes to continue the series and open it up to external participants to allow for a better understanding of GDAC™’s value. If you are interested in learning more about GDAC™, please email gdac@solvewithvia.com.

VIA Hosting First Installment of GDAC™ Virtual Mini-Series

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VIA is proud to host the first session of its GDAC™ Virtual Mini-Series on June 24th at 5:oopm ET. Participants in the mini-series include GDAC™ founding members and features a presentation from Andrew Bright, former ABB executive and VIA advisor.

Need a laugh?

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We’re back at it – this time giving you some laughs from our remote team. See our video below for the funniest moments since working remotely.

 

 

Meet the Team: Annvie Nguyen, UX Designer

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Through a Q&A-style interview, you will hear from VIA team members about things like a typical day at the office and favorite foods.

What does a typical day at VIA look like for you?

The only typical part about my days at VIA is that it changes every day! As the go-to media person, I’m lucky to have the opportunity to collaborate with different teams and work on a variety of projects. Some days, I’ll be working on filming and editing videos for VIA (check out the careers video produced by yours truly). Others, I’ll get to flex my design eye and work with our developers to create user interfaces for our products. Today, I’m updating our website and writing a fabulous blog.

What’s something you have worked on at VIA that you are most proud of?

There are so many cool things I want to talk about, it’s difficult to choose!

For one, I really enjoyed working on the interface for the GDAC™ Transformers  30-Minute Pilot. In that project, I designed the user experience for a data analysis demo. It presented an interesting challenge: how can we make complex analysis simple for others to understand, operate by themselves, and see the value? I was able to participate from the conceptualization stage all the way to the user interface and experience. It was so rewarding to see the pilot go from its baby stages to a full-fledged site.

What’s your favorite VIA memory?

My favorite VIA memory might have to be this past holiday party. We made gingerbread houses, ate some delicious desserts (essential to the VIA brand), and played a ridiculous reindeer ring toss game that had us crying with laughter. Hats off to Jackie for being our star party planner!

via GIPHY

 

If you were given an extra hour in your day, what would you spend it doing?

I can’t deny that I’d be playing Animal Crossing on Nintendo.

What’s your go-to food?

Nothing can outrank my comfort food of choice: a nice, warm bowl of pho. It’s Vietnam’s most famous noodle soup, light but also flavorful. But to me, it’s like getting a hug from Grandma.

What’s something everyone may not, but should know about working at VIA?

You should know that at VIA we’re always working on improving ourselves. With retrospectives at the end of each sprint, open ears during one-on-one’s, and offsites each year, being open to feedback is an essential part of VIA culture.

Working Remotely? Us too!

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Along with people all over the world, the VIA team has adjusted to a new normal over these last few months. 

Given our distance apart, we asked some of our team members what they look forward to each day of working remotely.

Check out our video below to see what our team has to say (spoiler: this will give you all the feels!)

 

 

Tracxn Includes VIA in “Top Renewable Energy Tech” List

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Tracxn, a market research platform that tracks startups, private companies, and innovative sectors, has included VIA for the second time this year in one of its 2020 Emerging Startups lists. In January, VIA earned a spot on their “Top Emerging Blockchain Startups” list. This time, VIA is among nine companies in the “Top Renewable Energy Tech” list and is again considered a “Minicorn.”

Tracxn describes what it means to be one of their Emerging Startups:

“Tracxn Emerging Startups provides a handpicked selection of high growth and high potential companies, founded since 2013, that are making an impact in the new-age sectors. The shortlisting is based on a combination of multiple publicly available signals and detailed analysis of the company by our internal sector specialist teams. The companies that make the cut are the ones that show promising performance on multiple parameters – market size, investment by marquee investors, execution excellence and future growth prospects.”

For more on the “Top Renewable Energy Tech” list, visit the Tracxn website.

 

VIA and HSLU Co-Presenting at Virtual SUEID 2020 Event in June

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VIA’s Joe Babiec will be co-presenting alongside Ben Bowler and Antonios Papaemmanouil of the Lucerne School of Engineering and Architecture at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences (HSLU). VIA and HSLU met during the SUEID event in 2019 and have since been working on a collaboration. The virtual event will take place on June 4th beginning at 10:30am ET, with VIA and HSLU’s joint presentation at 11:15am ET.

Kate Ravanis Interviewed for Profile of a Founder Blog

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VIA’s Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, Kate Ravanis, was interviewed by The Tech Tribune for its Profile of a Founder blog. The blog features founders of companies selected by The Tech Tribune as the “Best Tech Startups,” from cities in the US. VIA was included as one of eight companies on the 2020 Best Tech Startups in Somerville list.

In the interview, Kate gives some insight on how VIA got its start, challenges along the way, and what the future holds for the company. She also gives some thoughtful advice for aspiring entrepreneurs:

“We have lots of values at VIA that I live by every day. I think the one that is most important and has made the most impact on my career is “love in = love out”. The idea behind the value is if you love what you do, it will show in all your interactions with colleagues, clients, and work. There are so many challenges that you will encounter on your journey, and it is often hard to see how you will get beyond them. I have found just focusing on the things that I truly believe in and the reasons that got me started in the first place have translated to stronger partnerships, customer relationships, and ultimately a team of colleagues who will stick by you until you come out successful on the other side.”

For the full interview, check out The Tech Tribune’s blog.