Toronto company Datametrex AI Ltd. has been awarded $945K from the federal government’s Department of National Defence (DND) to continue the company’s development of its social media discovery and monitoring platform.
Funding comes from the DND’s Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS), a federal procurement program that supports the development of defence and security capabilities.
The $945K in funding will support the second phase of Datametrex’s project. For the first phase, Datametrex received $199K, for a total of $1,144,000 in government funding.
Datametrex is a technology-focused company that drives new developments in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning through its subsidiary, Nexalogy Environics. Nexalogy’s AI solutions scan and search social media data using proprietary algorithms to provide analysis that isn’t possible through traditional business intelligence technology. Datametrex provides AI solutions for governments and corporations globally.
Canadian Government Funding Will Support AI & Defense
The technology procurement funding from the DND will support the further development of Nexalogy SMART (Social Media Automated Reporting Technologies), while also expanding the firm’s fake news and narrative detection technologies.
Nexalogy’s current technology collects and analyses data from Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, web forums, blogs, news sites, Google Alerts, and RSS feeds to provide users with both quantitative and qualitative analyses, including lists of the most common words and hashtags, an interactive timeline, records of the most frequently mentioned accounts, and other contextual information.
The augmented version of the monitoring technology will allow users to input large amounts of text or social media data into the system and receive entity extraction summaries in relation to particular people, nationalities, organizations, geographies, events, languages, and other categories.
According to Datametrex Chairman, Andrew Ryu, the new technology will help keep Canada safe from cyber threats.
Nexalogy will work with the federal government to build the advanced monitoring tools, which will be first utilized by the military, and then applied to corporate environments.
Datametrex’s Strategic Use of Research and Development Funding
Datametrex already received $199K from IDEaS to complete the first phase of its project, which aimed to establish the merit and impact of its proposed technology. Upon successful completion of this first phase, the company was awarded $945K in additional Canadian government funding to complete the second phase, where researchers will progress the technology to a higher Solution Readiness Level.
Once Nexalogy successfully completes this second phase of the project, the company could be eligible for additional funding to continue development of its technology.
This latter stage could include advancing the solution to an even higher readiness level; demonstrating the technology, with feedback from the DND; and/or assessing the social media monitoring system in a realistic setting, where it may be procured, rented, or leased as part of the evaluation.
Datametrex has leveraged government funding before in order to support its growth. The company recently secured a contract from Innovation, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) to carry out research on social media related to ISED’s mandate. Further, in 2018 Datametrex received research and development funding from the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) to boost development of the earlier stages of the firm’s NexaIntelligence technology.
About the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security Program
IDEaS is a technology procurement program that supports the development of innovative solutions—from their conceptual stage, through prototype testing and capability development. As part of the program, Public Services and Procurement Canada administers calls for proposals on behalf of the Department of National Defence, inviting innovators to submit their solutions to specific defence and security challenges.
Applicants in the Competitive Projects stream of the program can receive up to $200K for the first phase of projects (Component 1a) and up to $1M for the second phase (Component 1b).
Successful companies could receive up to $20M more for a third project phase (Component 2), or an opportunity to demonstrate and assess their technologies.
The IDEaS federal procurement program also promotes collaboration between innovators, offers developmental resources, and provides opportunities to interact with DND’s science and military members.
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