Spinout News / UCLB News

UCLB spinout Satalia backs optimisation research unit

3 February 2016

An exciting European collaboration between industry and academia has been announced as award-winning optimisation researchers of the Institute of Mathematics at the University of Klagenfurt join forces with Satalia.

Satalia, a UCLB spin out from the Department of Computer Science at UCL (University College London) has awarded funding of €465,000 to the academics at University of Klagenfurt’s Institute of Mathematics. Sub-auspiciis graduate and award-winning researcher Assistant Professor Dr. Phillip Hungerlander leads the team on this two-year project, which will generate disruptive innovations in Artificial Intelligence and Optimisation Solutions.

The pairing of the Hungerländer academics with Satalia’s own scientists forms a strong multidisciplinary research team of optimisation experts, which will apply methods such as constraint programming and hybrid heuristic optimisation. Termed SORT (the Satalia Optimisation Research Team), their primary goal is to build a state-of-the-art platform for solving large-scale problems with multiple real-world constraints, including in real-time. These types of problems are core to many business efficiency challenges such as vehicle routing, staff scheduling and infrastructure planning, in which Satalia already boasts a number of high profile customers.

Dr. Philipp Hungerländer commented, “Producing non-academic impact from research is an imperative to demonstrating science’s positive contribution to society. This element is now fundamental to attract funding.

Dr. Daniel Hulme, Satalia CEO said, “Satalia will always recognise the importance of building strategic relationships with academic researchers to access new innovations and accelerate them into industry. Our mission at Satalia is to empower talent to develop innovations that solve hard problems. We have a unique culture and organisational structure that appeals to scholars as we operate without hierarchy and bureaucracy. This gives academics the freedom to pursue research that inspires them and to feel a genuine connectedness to an amazing community of problem solvers. For Satalia this includes some of the best business brains, data scientists, modellers, mathematicians, coders and software developers you can find across the globe.

Dr. Hungerländer and Dr. Hulme have been invited to address the President of Austria about the collaboration during Philipp’s sub-auspiciis graduation ceremony in April this year.

Visit the Satalia website for more information on current SORT projects: www.satalia.com

About Satalia
Satalia provides clients with large-scale, end-to-end optimisation solutions in areas such as routing, scheduling, planning and verification. The organisation includes a multifaceted team of business analysts, academics, data scientists, optimisation modellers and software developers.

In 2016 Satalia will launch a new service, the SolveEngine, which enables algorithms from academia as Optimisation-as-a-Service.

Satalia has a unique self-organising culture that links teams across Europe and London and supports challenging intern opportunities for business and science students wishing to gain industry experience with Artificial Intelligence and solving hard problems.

Founder and CEO, Dr. Hulme is an advisor to the UK Home Office and has a global reputation for his insights in emerging technology. He is also the Director of Business Analytics MSc at UCL, and has teaching positions in Computer Science and Business at UCL and Pearson College London.

www.satalia.com – @SataliaSolves

About UCL Business
UCL Business PLC (UCLB) is a leading technology transfer company that supports and commercialises research and innovations arising from UCL, one of the UK’s top research-led universities. UCLB has a successful track record and a strong reputation for identifying and protecting promising new technologies and innovations from UCL academics. UCLB has a strong track record in commercialising medical technologies and provides technology transfer services to UCL’s associated hospitals; University College London Hospitals, Moorfields Eye Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the Royal Free London Hospital. It invests directly in development projects to maximise the potential of the research and manages the commercialisation process of technologies from laboratory to market.

For further information, please visit: www.uclb.com – Twitter: @UCL_Business