Cyber Acceleration (CATAPULT) Program
As part of our innovation mission line, CCI supports the Cyber Acceleration, Translation, and Advanced Prototyping for University Linked Technology (CATAPULT) Fund.
Its purpose is to advance collaborative translational research projects among CCI partners, identifying potential commercial results and speeding them to the marketplace.
In addition to these seed grants, participants can participate in the Commonwealth Cyber Incubator + Accelerator (CCI+A), which can provide opportunities such as:
- A bootcamp-style program to rapidly move new technologies forward.
- Support for customer discovery efforts.
- Chances for cyber startups to engage with potential industry and government partners, as well as regional and Virginia-based customers.
- Collaborations between university innovators with industry and government for feedback, technical work and product testing.
- Training and experiential learning opportunities for students.
- Cybersecurity-focused workshops, meetings, and collider events with government agencies and industry.
At a CCI+A Bootcamp Roundtable held on Sept. 27, 2024, several teams that received grants to develop their discoveries presented proposals to investors. The pitches included:
Cyber SeQurity
A team from George Mason University discusses their company Cyber SeQurity, which aims to enhance the security and privacy of users’ models and data on cloud-based quantum computers. They would do this through a comprehensive framework that provides encryption for quantum circuits. Their customer base is health care providers and medical research facilities.
Privacy Guard
A team from Old Dominion University discusses their company Privacy Guard, which produces software that accelerates privacy-preserving deep learning by up to a hundred times while maintaining accuracy. It ensures real-time data processing and compliance with data-protection regulations. Their customer base includes health care IT directors, chief information security officers and data managers.
EngineeRD Solutions
A team from George Mason University discusses their company, EngineeRD Solutions, which developed Carepilot, an AI-powered caregiver assistant software that offers personalized support in daily care tasks. Carepilot also offers insight and proactive care suggestions.The customer base includes unpaid family caregivers challenged by burnout due to caring for family members with special needs.
The CATAPULT Fund can also provide financial support to help discoveries survive the critical “Valley of Death” phase of commercialization, when lack of sufficient resources for product development and market testing can block new technologies from reaching their potential.
CATAPULT supports innovators by providing essential resources, personnel, product testing, and initial market feedback, helping them attract investors.
“It is truly exciting to tap into the breadth of innovation from academic institutions across the Commonwealth and introduce these faculty inventors to the opportunity to expand the impact of their research through commercialization,” says Liza Wilson Durant, CCI’s Northern Virginia Node director and a professor in George Mason University's College of Engineering and Computing.
“It is just the right time for Virginia to support and accelerate cybersecurity innovation as the Commonwealth establishes its role as a magnet for new companies with the best and brightest solutions to the nation's greatest cybersecurity challenges.”
For more information about CATAPULT, contact Sarah Solari Hayes, CCI's director of Innovation and Workforce Development, at sshayes@vt.edu.