U.S. IT company considering Amherst as its research hub
NRVE Systems looking at industrial park as home for R&D facility
A U.S. company specializing in emerging technology is considering Amherst as its research and development hub.
NRVE Systems is a spatial analytics and marketing technology that offers radio signal detection and tracking in real time without apps or software specifically designed for internal envelope applications, such as buildings.
“We’re examining the feasibility of bringing our research and development labs to Amherst,” company CEO Jim Furlong said. “We currently have products that play in the marketing and analytics space. We have the ability to detect, collect and react to radio signals without the benefit of an app or software.”
Furlong said company officials from the United States were in Nova Scotia recently to meet with officials with Nova Scotia Business Inc. (NSBI) and representatives from Dalhousie University and Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.
They are also looking at a building in Amherst’s industrial park and hope to be in a position to establish a research and development hub by late this summer.
Furlong said one of the reasons Amherst is being considered is he’s from the community and wants to bring jobs here. It’s unknown how many jobs will be created but he’d like to start with 20 to 30. These will be highpaying positions in the IT and research and development (R&D) fields.
“This is a good fit because Nova Scotia is going all-in on technology. What we’ve done the last few months is work with the province through NSBI and other entities to bring this R&D facility here. We fill a void no one else can fill right now with our technology,” said Furlong.
The company, he said, holds a U.S. utility patent on the ability to collect radio signals and track them within a three-foot radius in real time and space and in multiple dimensions.
Furlong said NRVE hopes to establish relationships with Nova Scotia’s universities as well as the Nova Scotia Community College so graduating students can have the option of working at home in the technology field instead of leaving the province.
He said NSBI has opened doors for the company as it looks at setting up its Canadian operations in Nova Scotia.
Jason Rhinelander, head of technology and innovation at the David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retailing and Services at Saint Mary’s University, is excited about the potential.
“What I like about their technology is the mobile information collected is both anonymous and secure,” Rhinelander said. “Many cutting-edge sensor systems also require the installation of additional hardware while NRVE’s platform appears to be much lighter in terms of resources and required infrastructure.”
Rhinelander said NRVE Systems’ technology has many potential applications in retail, security, operations management, safety and supply chain management.
NRVE Systems’ technology is passive and anonymous and is something its co-founder, Jordyn Hollander, said is going to be an important piece of glue in a lot of companies’ projects.
“When you use an app like Find my iPhone it will give you a pretty good idea of where your phone is using a two-dimensional map using GPS technology,” Hollander said. “Our technology, if it’s available in a building, will not only say it’s in this 60-storey high rise, but it’s on the 42nd floor in this boardroom. It’s three-dimensional.”
Another potential use is guiding customers directly to where they need to go to get to a specific store without having to use dated technology or looking at a directory.
Furlong and Hollander met in Denver in 2015 or 2016 and have discussed the many potential applications for the technology.
“Our technology isn’t dependent on apps you’d have to download to a phone. We’re not using beacons that are driving by an app. Anything using a radio signal we can detect,” Hollander said.
For example, he said, by anonymously reading the MAC id from a user’s cellphone, his or her access could be approved or denied to a property. It could also be used in stadiums and concert theatres to serve customers who sign up for the technology.
It could also be used by car dealers to show where cars and keys are in real time.
One area where it could have promise is in health care by streamlining operations and making things quicker and more efficient for patients and hospital staff.