First Prize to ITU Members’ Startup from EELISA

ITU members’ startup Syntonym won the first place at InnoCORE EELISA Next Level Demo Day competition held at FAU, one of our EELISA European University partners. ITU participated in the competition with 4 startups involving its students and graduates, and attracted attention among the 15 EELISA startups.

The entrepreneurial skills that Istanbul Technical University (ITU) equips its students with as part of its vision of transforming the future continue to bring success. Startups founded by ITU students and graduates competed in the entrepreneurship-focused event organized by EELISA at the Zollhof Tech Incubator in Nuremberg, Germany.

The “InnoCORE EELISA Next Level Demo Day” event hosted by FAU on March 22-23 was attended by 15 startups selected by Zollhof Tech Incubator from among 32 EELISA startups that applied. These 15 EELISA startups made investor presentations. The event aimed to enable late-stage startups to engage with the EELISA investment ecosystem and raise funds.

Syntonym, a startup of ITU members, won the first place with the votes of the jury consisting entirely of investors. Our students Emre Anıl Oğuz and Furkan Demirel take part in Syntonym.

In addition to Syntonym, ITU graduates Lal Polater and Buğday Çağlar’s startup “Hergele”, ITU students Çayan Baykal, Ünsal Uslu, Serkan Ulugönül and Efe Yıldırım’s startup “Hyperever” and Rim Khazkin’s startup “Eyecheckup” also competed at the InnoCORE EELISA Next Level Demo Day.

InnoCORE EELISA Next Level Demo Day provided an opportunity for productive interaction between the invited investors, participants, and startup teams. At the event, presentations on investor climate and investment tips were also made. 

 

INTERVIEW WITH THE COMPETITION’S WINNER SYNTONYM TEAM 

— Can you briefly tell us about the team and your startup process?

We founded Syntonym, one of Türkiye’s first Generative AI startups, in November 2019. We set out to find a solution to the problem that visual datasets containing personal data cannot be used in artificial intelligence training and data analysis due to regulatory restrictions. Thus, while protecting the privacy of individuals against the increasing rate of image recording devices and facial recognition technologies, we remove the innovation barrier in front of innovative technologies that require visual data. While preserving important metrics such as facial expressions, eye movements and head positions, we also eliminate biometric data from visual datasets. The outputs we produce can thus be turned into artificial intelligence training and analysis data for companies that need visual data in compliance with GDPR, KVKK and equivalent laws.

By focusing on R&D studies to reduce the amount of hardware and power required by our models that produce realistic synthetic faces, we managed to produce the highest quality outputs without loss on edge computing, cloud server infrastructures and finally on mobile and desktop devices. In this way, we also managed to develop privacy-protecting applications that end users can benefit from, as well as organizations that process visual data. While creating this privacy layer for end users, we use visible markings to prevent possible misuse of the synthetic faces we produce. This way, we inform users in online interaction areas such as video calls/meetings, customer services, and digital health and consulting services that synthetic faces have been created for privacy purposes.

In 2020, we had the opportunity to begin our startup’s journey at ITU Çekirdek by winning the first place at ITU Big Bang. With the mentorship and support we received at ITU Çekirdek, we started to grow our technology and company rapidly. We are still continuing our work within ITU Technokent. During this process, we were joined by our talented friends from ITU, and we became an experienced, well-equipped and dynamic team that complements each other.

— Can you briefly tell us about your observations and achievements during the preparation, activity and winning process of EELISA Next Level?

First of all, after completing our EELISA Next Level application, we learned that we were one of the 15 selected finalists. We were very excited that we would introduce our technology and its added value to Europe’s leading investors on the EELISA Next Level stage. We attended the event together with our teammates from ITU. When we learned that we came first in the competition, our excitement multiplied. We think that our success in the competition is very important for introducing Syntonym’s capabilities in developing high-tech products and showing that it is possible to meet the need for visual data of artificial intelligence technologies in a way that does not violate individuals’ expectations regarding privacy and protection of their personal data. We also believe that meeting investors and startups developing projects in different technology fields expands both our vision and our network of influence and provides Syntonym with new business development opportunities.

We would like to thank the EELISA European University family and the entire EELISA Next Level team for giving us this opportunity and organizing this valuable event.

— As a Çekirdek startup, you must be experiencing the presence of the “ITU Family”. So, what do you think about the EELISA Family? Were you able to experience this as well during the process?

We find it very valuable that EELISA Next Level brings together startups from different geographies on the same stage. In addition to the opportunities offered by EELISA, one of the most important gains for us was that it also created space for the sharing of experience between startups. We are proud that we will continue to be a part of the EELISA network in the future.