Two companies that graduated from the University of New Brunswick’s Energia Ventures startup program this month, Chick Pick and Solyntek, are receiving $50,000 each from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation as part of its backing for the accelerator.

Energia, which is based in Fredericton at UNB’s J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology Management and Entrepreneurship, is aimed at energy, cleantech, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence companies.

Founded in 2022 by electrical engineers Ryan Whitney and Frederik Pare, Chick Pick sells technology to help poultry hatcheries sort chicks via machine learning and computer vision technology. The business originally began as a university project, with a pilot project now underway.

Solyntek, meanwhile, is a Montreal-based workplace safety startup that aims to use AI to identify and mitigate hazards. Led by CEO Iskander El Amri, its technology relies on a combination of video from security cameras and computer vision. For example, it can act as an early warning system for coal storage fires.

“Solyntek’s innovative AI-powered Danger Zone Detection Solution offers a cutting-edge approach to construction site safety,” says the company. “By integrating AI and computer vision technologies, the system constantly monitors construction sites, detecting any instances of danger zone intrusion (by workers).”