Kognitiv Spark and T4G were big winners Monday at Microsoft Canada’s 2018 Impact Awards in Las Vegas.
Fredericton-based Kognitive Spark, which uses augmented reality to help workers in remote locations, won the Innovation with Hardware category.
T4G, a Toronto-based company with large offices in Saint John, Moncton and Halifax, won twice – in the Data and AI Innovation category, as well as Industry Innovation for Manufacturing, Retail, or Financial Services. It was founded by Geoff Flood in 1996 and now employs 230 people.
Kognitive Spark only launched its product last year, and months ago said it had already booked more than $1 million in sales. It has also closed a round of funding – the full amount was not disclosed – that included a $200,000 investment from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation. The company in the past couple of months has graduated from two different tech accelerators – the Creative Destruction Lab Atlantic in Halifax and the Plug and Play accelerator in Silicon Valley.
What Kognitiv Spark does is assist industrial companies and other clients in helping workers in remote locations understand how to use or repair complicated machinery.
Founded by Ryan Groom and Duncan McSporran, the technology uses Microsoft’s HoloLens holographic visualization headset to help an instructor in head office show the remote worker the details of the machinery.