Vivent is developing products and services for two distinct sectors.
The Medical Solutions division is developing products and services for researchers, health care providers and individuals, based on the recording of electrical signals emitted by individuals and the subsequent manipulation and playback of these signals.
The Plant Monitoring division is developing biosensors and related services for academic, agricultural and industrial plant researchers, professional plant growers and farmers in all types of growing environments, to grow higher quality crops more sustainably.
Vivent’s Team
Carrol Plummer, the Tech Enthusiast (P.Eng, BSc Mechanical Engineering, MBA INSEAD), brings to the Phytl Signs team years of experience participating and investing in, as well as advising, small high technology businesses. She is a Mechanical Engineer with an MBA from INSEAD with substantial knowledge of product development, launching new products, marketing and manufacturing processes. She began her career with Proctor and Gamble. Phytl Signs takes up nearly all of her time but she is involved in other high growth businesses and encourages and supports other female entrepreneurs. She previously held senior management positions in the UK paper sector, including Managing Director of Donside Paper Mill and Commercial Director of UK Paper Group plc and worked as a business strategy consultant with Monitor Europe.
Dr Nigel Wallbridge, the Tech Entrepreneur (Ph.D, MIMechE, MBA INSEAD) is an internationally renowned serial entrepreneur with extensive experience founding and growing companies in both North America and Europe. A chartered engineer, he holds a doctoral degree in medical engineering from the University of Leeds in the UK and also an MBA from INSEAD, France. Apart from his current work at Vivent, he is also an Executive Director of Nomad Digital Ltd and is on the board of a number of other technology businesses. He previously held senior managerial positions in the telecommunications industry, including CEO of Interoute, and President of Cable& Wireless Americas. He also lectured in medical engineering at the University of Leeds.
His leadership and technical contributions have been key to the success of a number of start-up companies. At Vivent he is using advanced machine learning techniques to interpret plant electrophysiology signals. He is creating machine learning models whilst keeping computer system requirements to reasonable levels.. His approach is innovative and very effective.
He brings in-depth knowledge of molecular biology and microscopy to Vivent’s team. His strong analytical and data processing skills enable him to quickly gain insights from the large data sets in Vivent’s world leading plant electrophysiology library. He holds a PhD from Marie Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin Poland and worked as a post doctorate fellow in Prof. Edward Farmer’s laboratory at the University of Lausanne and as a researcher at the Institute of Agrophysics in Lublin Poland. He has a strong publishing record and 1 patent for a device used to assess fruit and vegetable quality.
Nick Barker (MA Engineering, MBA) has spent many years making computers interact in real time with the real world, and has invented and developed applications and systems ranging from safety critical monitoring systems, to mobile communications systems, indoor positioning systems and process control. Nick has worked in many sectors including oil and gas, nuclear power, road transportation, rail transportation, aerospace, food production and agriculture. Nick brings to Vivent a rich base of experience and skills – which bridge the gap between analogue domain of real world plants and the digital domain of today’s Internet of Things. This includes interdisciplinary research and algorithm development, systems architecture and development, digital signal processing, data acquisition, and modern communications technologies.
He is a member of the strategic committee at Sud Telecom Paris and has conducted an extensive number of international assignments for Fortune 500 companies in Europe, Asia and in the Americas. Olivier has held international business development functions with Cable & Wireless, TeleBilling A/S (Denmark) and Orga Systems (Germany), Nomad Digital and others. He has an MBA from the EAP-ESCP School of Management in Paris.
The process of researching, discovering and applying new ideas and concepts to business are what drive Hubert. He believes innovation should be in the DNA of management bringing energy to companies and their employees, this will attract talent and offer opportunity for sustainable growth to businesses.
She has worked as a consultant since 2001 in areas relating to sustainability: from environmental reporting to assessing community investments for corporate clients. She holds the first PhD in corporate social responsibility from the University of Edinburgh. More recently she has lectured and worked on start-ups in the textile and clean energy sectors.
In order to satisfy her curiosity, she came to Lausanne for a PhD in root development on a new model plant for wheat. Having developed and optimised many research protocols by herself and having worked on extremely time-consuming and slow plant processes, she decided it was time to move to fast-paced industry, where also teamwork was more essential. She focused on the research of new fungicides and biological coatings to protect fruits. Now, to dive back into plant research and acquire new skills in programming, she joined Vivent as a Plant Physiologist. She uses her expertise in plant development and enthusiasm for teamwork to connect the machine-learning team, plant research, data analysis, costumer reporting and student projects.
He holds a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Lausanne where he investigated novel methodological and analytical approaches to analyze the brain electrical activity during sleep. He also worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the sleep research center of the CHUV where he studied the electrophysiological correlates of insomnia states. He decided to further deepen his analytical and data processing skills and obtained an EPFL certification in applied data science and machine learning. He brings his joint knowledge of signal processing and development of machine learning algorithms to Vivent’s team.
Natalia Voltchkova (Msc,MBA, Advanced diploma Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) has substantial experience of working with a wide range of organisations from Start-ups to NGOs through to large Corporations. She also brings to Vivent her extensive knowledge of setting up & managing financial accounting, HR,quality control and sales management systems.
RESEARCH COLLABORATION
Vivent is enthusiastic about collaborating with other individuals and organizations active in harnessing biosignals for both medical solutions and plant monitoring.
Please contact us if you are interested in collaborating on this exciting process.
