CCI Recognizes Spinout Companies
April 17, 2023
Three companies orginated at Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Military Institute.
The Commonwealth Cyber Initiative recognized three companies that formed with the help of CCI at the CCI Symposium on April 17, 2023.
CCI is a key part of Virginia’s startup ecosystem, providing seed money to help researchers take their first steps in taking their research from the lab into the commercial space.
Two companies were founded by Virginia Commonwealth University professors and supported by CCI and the VCU Dreams to Reality Incubator. A third is from the Virginia Military Institute and a winner in our Virginia Cybersecurity Challenge.
Symple Solutions Inc. is creating the next generation of safe and secure instrumentation and control systems for critical infrastructure, including nuclear power, autonomous systems, and more. The company was founded by Carl Elks, VCU associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and VCU Engineering alumni Rick Hite.
Virtual PLC is designed to mimic programmable logic controllers to provide threat intelligence for industrial control systems to protect the critical U.S. infrastructure, such as nuclear plants and gas pipelines. The company was founded by Irfan Ahmed, a VCU computer science associate professor, and Syed Qasim, a Computer Science Ph.D. candidate.
Network Sense offers a web-based modeling and analytical environment for running network dynamics and predicting the spread of malicious behaviors and computer viruses on communication networks. This Virginia Cybersecurity Challenge winner was founded by: Sherif Abdelhamid, Virginia Military Institute assistant professor, Computer Science; Tanner Mallari, Computer Science 2022 graduate; and Kolby Quigg, Computer Science major, who will graduate in 2024.