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Local AI start-up to contribute to Houston's smart city vision

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 30 Aug 2019
Ricardo Ludeke and Wihan Booyse, co-founders of Kriterion.
Ricardo Ludeke and Wihan Booyse, co-founders of Kriterion.

South African-based artificial intelligence start-up Kriterion has been selected as part of the first cohort for the Houston city, Ion Smart Cities Accelerator.

The Midrand-based company is part of the first 10 selected AI start-ups and the only start-up from outside of the US to be chosen to participate in the Ion Smart Cities Accelerator sponsored by Microsoft and Intel.

Kriterion uses AI to provide actionable intelligence to digital enterprises in heavy industries.

In November last year, Kriterion joined the Nvidia Inception programme, which is designed to nurture start-ups revolutionising industries with advancements in AI and data sciences.

At an Ion Smart Cities event, Sylvester Turner, mayor of Houston, Texas, announced the city would launch the Ion Smart Cities Accelerator – a programme that would task a set of start-ups and entrepreneurs with creating digital and technical solutions to key problems within Houston.

“As a result of incorporating smart technologies, Houston will have the ability to create a more resilient and mobile-friendly city, and in turn accelerate our city's economic growth and prepare for the needs of 21st Century citizens,” Turner said.

“Being selected as the only African and non-US-based start-up as one of the 10 participants in the first cohort of the Ion Smart Cities Accelerator, in such an enormously competitive process and environment, is both a privilege and validation of the Kriterion innovation in AI,” says Dr Wim Booyse, managing director of Kriterion.

“The selection of the three solutions submitted by Kriterion will contribute significantly to the smart city vision of Mayor Turner of Houston.”

The 10-month Ion Smart Cities Accelerator programme will be broken down into three phases. The first three months will be a time of discovery and ideating, with a structured curriculum designed around mobility and resiliency.

Next, the start-ups will prototype and validate their products. The second half of the accelerator will be pilot programmes within the City of Houston.

“The opportunity for Kriterion, as an African AI start-up, to participate in the Ion Smart Cities Accelerator curriculum, will provide it access to superior mentoring from the accelerator; interaction with other start-ups of similar minds; ability to incubate solutions in a laboratory environment; ability to deploy and rollout solutions in the City of Houston; and learn valuable lessons that we may bring back to Africa and apply,” Booyse says.

The founders of Kriterion are Wihan Booyse (25), director AI; Ricardo Ludeke (28), director digital; Ernst Dreyer (57), director; Ian Theron (51), director; and US-based Dr Wim Booyse (60), MD.

According to Wim Booyse, Kriterion is entirely self-funded to date. However, he says the start-up company is presently engaging with six parties that have expressed interest in participating in a seed capital round to fund market traction.

Two interested parties are based in SA, two are US-based, one is Moroccan-based, and one in Japan, he says.

“Kriterion is currently in a market traction phase of growth with a very strong sales pipeline across three continents. Seed capital investment will be explicitly used to fund market traction for the next 18 to 24 months.”

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