StartupRealities

StartupRealities No 145 Academics&Professionals is an education consultancy which uses peer-review teams to carry out accreditation, consulting and benchmarking projects at university departments which have not had access to such services previously. Business schools (management departments), engineering schools and medical schools are already part of well-developed international (voluntary) accreditation systems and are not a target for the company. The primary target customers are departments in other fields that do not have such processes or systems in place, including: Natural Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Geology) Life Sciences (Agriculture, Biotechnology) Social Sciences (Sociology, Political Science, Media) Arts & Humanities (Languages, History, Philosophy) Technology (Computer Science) SERVICES OFFERING Academics&Professionals uses mixed teams of academics (professors, lecturers, researchers) and business practitioners related to the discipline to carry ...

StartupRealities No 144 EnemiesOfThePast is a political consultancy which helps unrecognised non-state entities and liberation movements gain wider recognition by declaring war on defunct evil states or barbaric regimes of the past, for example Nazi Germany, the Khmer Rouge or Genghis Khan. Unrecognised micro-states such as #Liberland (located on a Danubian island between Serbia and Croatia) and bigger entities such as Somaliland synchronise their declaration of war on past regimes, such as Nazi Germany, to gain maximum public exposure. CEO QUOTE "There aren't many organisations around the world that can say they are currently at war with Nazi Germany. Our clients, Liberland and Somaliland, are proud to have been waging war on the Nazis for several years now, to much popular acclaim."  - said EnemiesOfThePast founder and CEO Enemona Passy. Certificate of citizenship of Liberland (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 143 MetaTextbook is an artificial intelligence (AI)-led content producer which creates visual content for electronic textbooks customised to the interests and hobbies of the reader. For example, if a student likes football, most of the images in the physics or geography textbooks for this particular student will be related to football. PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING The customisation of imagery makes the content easier to understand and internalise thanks to two key factors: 1) The relevance and familiarity with the images creates a shortcut to existing knowledge in the student's mind; 2) The virtuous cycle of reassurance engendered by familiarity gives confidence to the student that the effort required to learn a lesson is minimal. Aristotle described this process in Rhetoric: " To learn easily is naturally pleasant to all people. " PRINCIPLES OF IMAGE SELECTION The company applies the principle of  conceptual metaphors to select or create images ...

StartupRealities No 142 WindfarmEcosystems installs giant brush-like metal structures on the underwater surface of offshore wind turbine pylons to create a habitat for fish, crustaceans, kelp and algae. The metal bristle-like structures go out sideways more than a dozen metres from the pylon foundations, creating a coral reef-like structure and a kelp forest around every wind turbine. The average wind turbine creates a habitat in a cylindrical shape of around 50 metres in diameter and resembles the vertical brushes used by a car wash. CEO QUOTE "Remember that story from 1972 when they dumped two million automobile tyres at Osborne Reef, off the coast of Florida, to enhance the ecosystem? The experiment failed spectacularly - no life stuck to the tyres as they had not tested the concept and there was no scientific foundation to this experiment. In contrast, we implement WindfarmEcosystems projects based on a solid foundation of proven and tested scientific research . And it wo...

StartupRealities No 141 StoryPrize  awards annual prizes for the best stories that occur and are reported during a year in a dozen categories, including the news media, scientific research, education, medicine, engineering, politics, business, the environment, art and culture. CEO QUOTE "Truth is stranger than fiction. Among all our StoryPrize categories, only two categories is fiction - literature and film. All other stories have to be real. We nominate and recognise the most striking and surprising sequences of events that take place in a year. Our prizes encourage the use of stories and storytelling in education and public communication by building a database of impressive and creative stories in the public domain," said StoryPrize founder and CEO Stormy Pritzker. Trophy cup (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 140 WorkMemoirs is a corporate storytelling company that records the story of all employees at a company before they leave. This creates an archive of valuable information and also relieves any negative emotions that may otherwise fester and lead to negative feedback on the market. CEO QUOTE "No one likes to prepare handover notes. But if you asked for people's stories, good and bad, most departing employees would not object to sharing their experiences. You can't imagine how valuable stories become 20 years later. Plus it is so much better if people vent their pent-up frustrations in a structured and useful way right before leaving than ranting about their employer on Glassdoor months later," said WorkMemoirs founder and CEO Worden Mempsted. Memoirs of a Geisha - movie poster (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 139 PrawnBurgers is an Asian fusion takeaway restaurant chain that prepares Asian-type food in a McDonald's-type format. The company makes burgers buns out of rice flour and instead of beef patty uses various prawn, fish, seafood and Beijing duck burger fillings. CEO QUOTE "Asian food has always been associated with eat-out-of-a-bowl dishes. This traditionally applies even to takeout and fast-food Asian restaurant chains. We are the first to ever offer the convenience of a McDonald's burger with the taste, flavour and ingredients of Asian cuisine," said PrawnBurgers founder and CEO Prairie Burgess. Cutting Beijing duck (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 138 WastewaterSeparator is an environmental technology company which produces equipment that separates household tap wastewater into reusable (clean) water and sewage-category (dirty) water. The equipment uses spectrometry to determine if wastewater flowing through the sink is reusable, in which case it is diverted and stored in a container for use in gardening or for flushing the toilet. The company also installs a separate container for storing all wastewater from washing machines, which is exclusively used for flushing the toilet. CEO QUOTE "When you wash your hands under the tap or when you wash vegetables, the water that flows out is perfectly usable for watering your garden, for example. About 80% of the tap water that flows down your sink and all shower and bathtub water is reusable, at least for flushing the toilet if not for gardening. Few people know that soap water is perfectly OK to use for watering your lawn and flowers. We help spread this me...

StatupRealities No 137 WaferBread is a bakery chain which makes wafer-thin toasted sliced bread. The company's patented slicing and toasting equipment produces more than 40 slices from an average loaf of bread. By slicing and toasting the bread immediately after it is baked, the company minimises the risk of wasting of bread as toasting reduces the water content and WaferBread never gets moldy. CEO QUOTE " Do you know how potato chips were invented? Rail magnate Vanderbilt once asked for his potatoes to be cut thin before they were fried and the chef sliced them paper-thin as a joke. Vanderbilt loved the result. That was in 1853. Some 160 years later, we are re-inventing bread in a similar way. Most people love a thin crunchy slice of toast but cannot make it themselves: it is difficult to slice bread so thinly with a kitchen knife, and it is hard not to burn a very thin slice in the toaster. This is why we have patented technology that automates these steps and delivers ...

StartupRealities No 136 HistoryBuffer is an international art dealership that buys controversial or discarded art works and later auctions them off to willing customers, galleries and museums. Examples include buying religious objects in countries with a different religion; or buying statues of slave traders brought down during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. CEO QUOTE "We are not arbiters of history. We just save history for posterity." said company founder and CEO Hisham Buffalo. The Thinker by Auguste Rodin in Copenhagen (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 135 FootballColosseum is a hotel complex developer which builds hotels encircling entire football stadiums. Instead of seats around the field, the complex has hotel buildings with thousands of rooms overlooking the field. The hotel buildings are up to 20 storeys high and the stadiums host top league football (soccer) matches in country's national championship. Guests choose their rooms in a similar way to buying football match tickets: the price depends on the location of the room around the field and the floor. CEO QUOTE "Imagine the Colosseum in Rome but filled entirely with hotel rooms and five times taller! This is what our FootballColosseums look like, " said company founder and CEO Forbes Colonel. Stadium in Los Angeles under construction (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 134 CornerIP is an intellectual property (IP) agency that has developed proprietary image processing algorithms that integrate in strategic locations on photos and graphs the name and logo of a company, so that they cannot be cropped out without detracting from the value of the image. The name and logo blend in with the rest of the image by being organically incorporated into the original photo. CEO QUOTE "You know those stock images with the copyright holder's logos strewn diagonally across the entire photo? Well, we avoid this format like the plague. It's nonsense. Instead, we still position the name of the owner on the image but our AI algorithm picks for it a prime unobtrusive space next to the focus point of the image, usually on a corner billboard, door sign or plaque that appear to be part of the image (see photo below). Thus the IP is protected but the image itself is not mangled beyond recognition," said CornerIP founder and CEO Corn...

StartupRealities No 133 CountryBranded is a brand agency which helps companies develop products and services under brand names that contain relevant country references with positive associations, e.g. ScottishWindpower, JapanElectronics, BrazilBeach. The agency also helps such companies establish a credible association with the given country, including procuring raw materials from there, setting up an office in the country or hiring local staff. CEO QUOTE "Don't we all have country associations in our minds? Champagne and luxury goods must be French; fashion is Italian; automotive technology is German; and robots must be Japanese. CountryBranded steps on these associations and builds on them. Small wealthy countries are an easy sell: no one has anything against Scotland, Belgium or Norway as they are not in the news much and most people around the world have never even met a Scottish, Belgian or Norwegian person. So even if the product is not directly associated with the ...

StartupRealities No 132 FlexibleDrains  produces bendable gutters and downpipes that allow harvesting rainwater from rooftops by channeling the flow of the downpipe into a container. The biggest obstacle to the productive use of rainwater at present is the fact that the drain pipes attached to the exterior of house walls are fixed and inflexible, which does not allow inserting the lower end into a container to store the water. CEO QUOTE "When it rains, our roofs collect copious amounts of rainwater. Instead of an asset, this becomes a liability as the water goes virtually down the drain and into urban sewage systems, leading to overflow and flooding. The additional water also means extra volumes that become a burden on the wastewater treatment capacity of the sewage network. We turn the situation around by replacing the lowest two metres of fixed downpipes above ground with flexible pipes that allow moving the end of the drain to a nearby container. Simples!" said Flexi...

StartupRealities No 131 NonBranding is a marketing agency which helps companies launch brands with names that describe them with what they are not, for example NonMilk, NonSchool, NonBank. The company runs year-long brand awareness campaigns to get a new non-brand established on the market. CEO QUOTE "NonBranding as a concept originates from the limitations imposed by trademark-protected brands or registered denominations of origin, for example many food products in the European Union . If a German sparkling wine cannot be legally referred to as champagne, it can perfectly legally be called NonChampagne. My favourite brand name is NonPlusUltra, which is Latin for 'nothing further beyond the pillars of Gibraltar' and a play on the national motto of Spain: Plus Ultra, or Further Beyond" said NonBranding founder and CEO Nona Brangelini. Diet and NonDiet Coca Cola (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 130 BillboardsOnSkin is an advertising agency which paints company logos on the skin of paid volunteers who are then sent to attend mass events. The company benefits from huge media publicity around the use of human skin for advertising, even if this is done with the free will of the participants. All materials used in painting the logos can easily be washed off afterwards under the shower. The only inconvenience caused to the ' human billboards ' is that the logos need to be applied on smooth skin, so hairy chests, arms and legs need to be shaved beforehand. CEO QUOTE "Event organisers sometimes ban our 'human billboards' from entering some events. In that case, they are requested to gather at a reasonable distance from the entrance and stay there for the duration of the event. This usually creates more media publicity than if they were allowed to attend the event." - said BillboardsOnSkin founder and CEO Bill Skinner. The Wikipe...

StartupRealities No 129 SaturnHoops is an equipment maker which designs and produces plastic crinoline -type hoop-skirt frames worn by both men and women for the purpose of adhering to the 2-metre rule of social distancing at outdoor concerts and mass events during the Covid-19 post-lockdown period. The skirt frame, composed of several hoops suspended around the hips, resembles the rings of Saturn which is why both the company and the product were named SaturnHoops. The hoops have a 2-metre diameter and form a protective virtual cylinder around the body that guarantees the person wearing it 2 metres of personal space when everybody else is wearing one. The company has patented its invention as both a garment and a wearable device. USE AT EVENTS Wearing #SaturnHoops is mandatory at music gigs, concerts and political rallies as this simple piece of equipment is the only mass device that can guarantee that the 2-metre rule will be maintained. As a result, concert organisers normally...

StartupRealities No 128 TribalArtisans  is a primitive art auction house which procures artesanal objects from hunter-gatherer societies and auctions them to museums, anthropology galleries and private collectors. The company obtains the majority of the handcrafted objects by seeding and growing an emergent cargo cult in tribes with little contact with the outside world. MYTHOLOGY & EXCHANGE TribalArtisans does not trade with tribes directly. Instead, company drones periodically deliver colourful glass objects, basic metal tools and simple colourful jewellery and deposit these manufactured goods in the roots of the oldest tree near the tribal village. When the tribe discovers these objects, the tree begins to acquire a supernatural status in their belief system and mythology and the tribe seniors and shamans often start making sacrificial gifts of their own artesanal tools and handcraft works to the tree. These gifts are picked up by drone at a time when the drone will no...

StartupRealities No 127 IslandSaviour is a sea defence construction company which builds breakwaters around private islands to insulate them from the effect of sea level rise. Global sea levels are forecast to go up by 0.75 metres by 2100 as a result of climate change and melting polar ice caps. Building underwater sea walls along vulnerable coastline reduces beach erosion and protects land from being taken over by the ocean. CEO QUOTE "Wealthy individuals and cruise companies own many islands and are willing to pay for their preservation. Whereas governments that award public works to us to protect coastline generally are not too picky about the looks of a breakwater, private owners usually demand an unspoilt view. In such cases, we build the breakwaters a dozen centimetres below the mean ocean surface. In other words, we create a giant infinity pool around the island. This is also good for the environment, as it allows fish migration." - said IslandSaviour founder and...

StartupRealities No 126 LogoExpander is a graphic design consultancy which improves brand and company logos by maximising the space that the logo takes up and minimising the blank space around letters and symbols. The company's specialty is designing logos in a 16:9 aspect ratio, which optimises space use compared with square logos. An example of a logo of similar proportions is the eliptic horizontal logo of Samsung. CEO QUOTE "When you display your logo on your website, you are in full control of the layout and will clearly make it work. However, when other people display your logo on their website, say, in a list of partner or client institutions, this list puts square logos at a disadvantage because someone with the horizontal Samsung logo will take up twice the amount of space. There is no malice in it; the format simply doesn't work for square logos. We help to fix this by redesigning logos in the most sensible format possible." - explained company founder...

StartupRealities No 125 Storypedia is an online publisher which produces collections of the world's most interesting non-fiction stories. The company has a range of publications of the format "Top 100 Most Fascinating Stories in ...": History, Nature, Science, Art, Politics, Business; as well as of a similar format: "Top 100 Hidden Stories in ...". A key part of the successful storytelling format is the length of each story, which does not exceed half a page. CEO QUOTE "Everybody knows Cinderella and Snow White. Which is why we don't include banal fiction stories like this in our collections. We aim to educate and inspire our readers, not bore them to death. However, we do incorporate some mythological stories where the line between history and fiction has been blurred. Our primary objective is to surprise you, to tell you something new, to reveal a world of wonder," said Storypedia founder and CEO Stormie Pedralbes. Medieval encyclopedis...

StartupRealities No 124 KidsExplained is an online education and media company that uses YouTube and TikTok videos to educate children, with the role of presenter or host being played by children. The company maintains that children pay more attention to what other children say, rather than to adults, as children are usually fed up with the orders that adults give. CEO QUOTE "KidsExplained democratises education. Who said that only adults can be the teachers? If adults prepare the material, children can easily present on video and can even have some input into the customisation of the material. Furthermore, children are more enthusiastic presenters than adults and this enthusiasm can be contagious and lead to some viral videos." - said KidsExplained founder and CEO Kieran Exposito. Children in an outdoor classroom in Angola (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 123 CorporateJour is a publishing house which helps major corporations launch and run peer-reviewed scientific journals in the field closest to the company's industry. For example, the Salesforce Journal of Digital Marketing and the Google Journal of Online Advertising are two of the company's existing or potential corporate journal projects. These scientific journals are different from a corporate magazine as they publish proper scientific research and the papers are reviewed by a board of editors. CEO QUOTE "A corporate magazine massages the ego of the CEO and the Board of a company. A corporate journal advances the scientific agenda of the industry by publishing relevant research, experiments, debates and conference proceedings. Our journals bring the future closer and sooner," said company founder and CEO Corazon Journaux. Peer review (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 122 NudeTheatre is an arts and events company which runs a combination of performing arts centres and art galleries at the same venue. When at NudeTheatres, all performers, staff, audience and visitors are naked on its premises. CEO QUOTE "Nudity is liberating. This applies to our artists, actors and performers as much as to our guests and patrons. Traditionally, people used to go to faraway naturist beaches or secluded places to undress and be naked. NudeTheatres bring nudity to the world's major cities, as there is nothing to hide when you are naked... the pun intended!" - said company founder and CEO Nunzia Theaker. Lucien Freud painting (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 121 EducationJoints is a higher education company that builds and runs a network of new university campuses along the coast of Africa. The company delivers affordable online education programmes with localised tutoring in big classrooms on its campuses. The programmes are developed and recorded in a central hub, while the localised coastal campuses provide programme administration, classroom management and exam invigilation. The company's online courses are available in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Swahili. REAL ESTATE & EDUCATION The greenfield campus sites are the centres of new cities built around university campuses, so the company is able to cross-subsidise the education programmes with revenue from the sale and renting of real estate. The company's higher education licences and degree-awarding powers in various African countries are linked to 99-year leases on the campus sites and the new city development areas around the campuses. ...

StartupRealities No 120 NicheRankings is an online media company which produces a range of "Top-10" format rankings in niche areas. For example, in the education space the company produces rankings such as "Top 10 British Universities for Chinese Students" or "Top 10 Portuguese Universities for Brazilian Students." The company rarely goes beyond the "Top-10" format given the specialist niches that its rankings inhabit. CEO QUOTE "Top-1,000 or even Top-100 of anything is too much information in a crowded world. On the other hand, the three winners model that sports championships adopt and award medals for is too simplistic. So we've zeroed in on the golden mean with the NicheRankings Top-10 format," - said company founder and CEO Nic Rankard. Top 3 places at a sports podium (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 119 WaveCancellation is a swimming pool and garden pond design company which has developed equipment that cancels out waves on the water surface, creating a permanently still mirror-like expanse of water despite any wind or mechanical disturbances. The company has installed its premium infinity pools at the fanciest resorts and hotels in the world. CEO QUOTE "Waves are natural. But an absolutely still water surface is simply divine." - said WaveCancellation founder and CEO Waverley Cancellieri. Lake with still surface in British Columbia (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 118 CreatingSeating  is an innovation and design company which helps airlines rebrand and upgrade their economy-class plane seats. The company's key focus is renaming window seats as #CreativeSeats, as these seats allow maximum privacy for the passenger, while gazing out of the window of a flying plane is known to enhance creativity and ideation. For passengers who would use the window blinds as a headrest to help them sleep, the company has designed additional headrests that are fitted at the top of aisle and middle seats. The company recommends that windows blinds should not be pulled down or the windows darkened (depending on the plane model) during flight to allow passengers in window seats to interact with and be inspired by the outside world. CEO QUOTE "Passengers who want to doze off on the plane usually ask for a window seat. But that's such a waste. Windows exist for a reason: to allow us to look out of them, not to prop our sleeping heads...

StartupRealities No 117 ImagePerfector is a digital imaging company which is developing a voice-recognition driven image-editing algorithm for use by the general public. The AI has the typical features of an image-editing programme, such as Photoshop, but relies on verbal commands and finger contact on a touchscreen to manipulate an image. The algorithm also uses Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to synthesise elements of images from scratch where stock image databases cannot provide such or where there are copyright restrictions on the use of existing images. CEO QUOTE "Using ImagePerfector is like having a virtual digital assistant. All it takes is give commands and point with your finger on the touchscreen: 'Put an Emirates plane in the sky here. Paintbrush this cloud. Place the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the lake.' And voila! Here is your perfect image." - said company founder and CEO Imogen Perfetto. Image manipulated with Photoshop (image...

StartupRealities No 116 MultiCommercials is an advertising agency which produces video commercials that advertise multiple brands of different products in a single video. This allows a multi-faceted ad story to appeal to different target audiences with different brands and products that are advertised, so that every viewer will pick up in the video only what is relevant to the person. CEO QUOTE " We brought the linear world to an abrupt end. Before us, it was 'one commercial = one brand.' Since MultiCommercials was founded, the 'equal' sign has been broken. Just as most movies don't tell a single story, so a commercial no longer needs to advertise a single product. For example, if you see a video made by us where champagne and strawberries are served in a hotel room to a guest with a pearl necklace, this video will most likely be advertising brands in all four categories: champagne, strawberries, hotels and jewellery. In the past, one brand would have been...