Airbus Bizlab start-ups showcase ‘transformative’ ideas for aerospace
Airbus BizLab announced the successful culmination of its second season through a flagship event in Bengaluru.
At the event, the start-ups who were selected to work with different Airbus teams…
Airbus BizLab announced the successful culmination of its second season through a flagship event in Bengaluru.
At the event, the start-ups who were selected to work with different Airbus teams in India and across the world over the last six months showcased their concept models and ideas for transforming the aerospace sector.
Bizlab is a part of Airbus’ strategy to bring together start-ups and Airbus “intrapreneurs” to work together and turn innovative ideas into businesses faster. Through its six month “acceleration programme” for early-stage projects, Airbus Bizlab gives access to coaches, experts and mentors in various domains
Season two was launched in January 2017. It received 137 applications from nine countries. All the five selected start-ups – Neewee, Stelae Technologies, EFLIGHT, SYmbosim and Qualitas Technologies – have either started working with Airbus or are associated with the aerospace sector.
- Neewee – developed a solution “procuSense” which helps companies identify bottlenecks and optimize/improve performance from their supply chains
- Stelae Technologies – created artificial intelligence software which transforms unstructured content into structured, searchable and indexable output – partnered with Tech Mahindra to propose a digitilisation project for Airbus
- Symbosim – specialises in the accelerated design of composite materials/structures – currently in discussion to run a pilot with one of the Airbus teams
- eFlight – integrates flight planning, filing and logging for business aviation pilots – signed a partnership with one of the Airbus subsidiaries
- Qualitas Technologies – a machine vision and deep learning start-up that automates visual processes in manufacturing – recently delivered a pilot for an Airbus team in Toulouse and is awaiting final approval for implementation
The event was attended by Bruno Gutierres, Head of Airbus BizLab; Pierre de Bausset, President and MD at Airbus India; Srinivasan Dwarakanath, President, Commercial Aircraft at Airbus India; and Siddharth Balachandran, Airbus BizLab Leader, India. The importance of B2B start-ups across various sectors was also discussed during a panel discussion.
“Exciting start-ups”
Bruno Gutierres said, “We are thrilled to have worked with such exciting start-ups in season two. It is reassuring to see the potential and quality of entrepreneurs in the Indian start-up ecosystem. We are hoping to create more opportunities for start-ups to work in the aerospace and defence sectors.”
As well as working with the start-ups in the cohort, Airbus BizLab in India will soon be launching a community of B2B start-ups working in areas such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, electric propulsion, factories of the future, space tech and solutions, image processing, cybersecurity, IoT and robotics.
Siddharth Balachandran said, “Every season we can accelerate only five or six start-ups but we keep receiving adhoc requests from Airbus teams globally checking if we have a start-up working on a specific problem that they face. So, from now on, we will have a ready pool of registered start-ups in the community to pick from. We will also organise regular events for the community to help these start-ups better understand the world of aerospace and defence.”
The call for applications for season three in Bengaluru is now open and BizLab is inviting interested B2B startups to apply for the acceleration programme.
