Middletown, RI (September 16, 2019) – Rite-Solutions, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a second Innovation Voucher by Rhode Island Commerce Corporation (RICC) as part of the Rhode Island Innovation Initiative program.
The program helps businesses tap into the native R&D capacity here in the Ocean State. Rhode Island enterprises with fewer than 500 employees can receive grants to fund R&D assistance from a Rhode Island university, research center, or medical center. RICC selectively funds projects to access the state’s outstanding intellectual capital in areas of technical need, based on their potential to grow the state’s business base.
“Access to research and development is essential to ensuring that our state ever advances new technologies and products,” said Rhode Island Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor. “Rite Solutions already leads the way in several undersea categories. This voucher will help ensure the company’s continued progress by leveraging emerging technologies and URI’s expertise to address a specific need for the defense industry. This is one of 75 such projects that have been supported by vouchers, adding 161 new jobs to and nearly $10 million in follow-on funding to our state. These vouchers are among a set of tools the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation utilizes to help small businesses succeed in our state, including the Small Business Assistance Program, Industry Cluster Grants, Network Matching Grants, and our Small Business Hotline – 401-521-HELP.”
Rite-Solutions received its first innovation voucher in 2017. Working with the University of Rhode Island (URI), the company developed ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict failures in complex computer network environments.
Rite-Solutions and URI have teamed up again on this year’s winning application. Their plan is to use AI to address a specific undersea warfare problem—the identification of submerged mines. Professor Noah Daniels and his team in the Department of Computer Science and Statistics at URI will utilize machine learning algorithms to help submarines combat this underwater threat.
“We are very excited for the opportunity to take cutting-edge ideas in applied mathematics (computational topology) and computer science (deep learning) and bring them to bear on image-recognition problems that are intrinsically hard but also have real-world applications,” noted Noah M. Daniels, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at URI’s Department of Computer Science and Statistics. “Essentially, we are investigating the problem of identifying three-dimensional objects without regard to their orientation or position, which has clear applications to the undersea detection of mines, shipwrecks, or other navigational hazards or objects of interest.”
“We are excited about working with Rite-Solutions and providing rewarding career opportunities for URI students in Rhode Island,” said Katharine Flynn, Executive Director of the URI Business Engagement Center.
Tom Santos, Rite-Solutions’ Chief Technology Officer, added, “We’re looking forward to working again with Professor Daniels and his team on such a critical application. Integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence into submarine systems will help the Navy stay ahead of its adversaries.”
For media inquiries, contact John Thornell at (860) 415-4882 or johnthornell@bosunmarketing.com.
Rite-Solutions, Inc. is an award-winning Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) concentrating on system engineering, software development, learning and performance, information assurance (cyber security), and system life-cycle support for government and commercial segments. Rite-Solutions has offices in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Washington D.C. and Virginia. For more information, please visit www.rite-solutions.com.
