BCBusiness

T H E K I C K O F F : Designing video games sounds like a dream job for many software developers, but after a decade in the biz, Cyrus Greenall was looking to level up. "I was attracted to the idea of doing something with more meaning," he says. So he ventured into health care, where he, Jason Buck, Michael Campsall and Michael Long collaborated on a digital tool to support physicians in diagnosing and prescribing for infectious diseases. "We were black sheep, in a way, because most people start health-care technology companies with a background in health care—we came with a strength in technology and design," he explains. A C T I O N P L A N : Through surveys and research that account for what Greenall calls "the human factor," Firstline became an intuitive, efficient app that hospitals (and physicians themselves) actually wanted to use. While visiting with a customer—the New York City Department of Health—Greenall heard about a new virus spreading through Wuhan. "Potential customers didn't have time to talk to us about our solution, because they were focused on preparing for COVID," he remembers. "I realized very quickly that if we didn't somehow adapt to support this, our business would stop." Under Greenall's guidance, the company switched gears, serving as a tool focused on supplying physicians with the latest updates available on symptoms, research and treatment for COVID-19. "They needed something to get this information out quickly, so that became our tool," he says. C L O S I N G S T A T E M E N T: Vancouver-based Firstline has a team of 20 staff and over 500 current customers, who range from small hospitals to the World Health Organization. This spring, the com- pany announced its partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada—they're working to develop the country's first official anti- microbial prescribing guidelines. "The results that we've seen— that's what's most important," says Greenall, noting that Firstline is improving the accuracy of prescribing for infectious diseases worldwide. –A.H. n F I N A L I S T Cyrus Greenall C O - F O U N D E R A N D D I R E C T O R , F I R S T L I N E 39 BC BU S I N E S S .C A N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 24 A d a m B l a s b e r g ; D a r k V i s i o n Te c h F I N A L I S T Stephen Robinson C O - F O U N D E R A N D C E O , D A R K V I S I O N T E C H N O L O G I E S I N C . T H E K I C K O F F : Aside from a few electro-mechanical (now called mechatron- ics) engineering co-ops at UBC, Stephen Robinson has never worked for anyone other than himself. During his final year of university, he launched ClearVision, an imaging-based quality inspection system for the packaging industry. Seven years later, in 2011, that company was acquired by a big U.S. competitor. After that, Robinson was itching for a new project. So, he embraced his dark side. Robinson partnered with co-founders Graham Manders and Osman Malik to build North Vancouver-based Dark- Vision Technologies. The new venture built on Robinson and Manders' previous experience with industrial imaging systems, but with a twist—as a first in the industry, they tapped into ultrasound technology. "There was a lot of potential in acoustic or ultrasound-based imaging in a lot of different industrial sectors, but starting with the energy sector," Robinson says. A C T I O N P L A N : Robinson and his team "started developing this really high- resolution, high-fidelity acoustic imaging system, targeting upstream energy assets—specifically, oil and gas wells and pipes," he explains. The tool, called HADES, produces high-resolution, incredibly detailed (sub-millimetric) maps— say, of an entire oil pipeline. Think X-ray vision, but using ultrasound: HADES can capture detail right down to the individual threads inside a connection. "[It is] analogous to early-stage cancer screening—we're looking for cancer in industrial assets and we can find it at a very early stage with a very high degree of accuracy and very high resolution," says Robinson. Because its proprietary technology creates such massive datasets (the biggest ultra- sound datasets in the world, in fact), DarkVision also built its own software that can render, store and process the files. Customers then use the images to avert potentially disastrous oil spills or leaks—and the resulting profit losses and environmental consequences. C L O S I N G S T A T E M E N T: DarkVision was acquired by American corporate giant Koch Industries in 2020 with "the vision of creating a world-class indus- trial asset imaging platform," explains Robinson. Since then, DarkVision has expanded across the U.S. and into Australia, Norway and Saudi Arabia. But Robinson isn't single minded about what the company can do. Dark- Vision has over 130 patents, and is putting them to good use. "We've tailored a couple of product lines to the energy sector... but we're also making our own handheld devices out of [the proprietary technology] and a lot of manufactur- ing-based devices out of it... The technology applies to a whole spectrum of product lines for different sectors."–D.W. n DE S CR IBE Y OUR DR E A M E MP L O Y E E IN T HR E E W OR D S : Mind-reader, courageous, independent. Q+A

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