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Research Fellow Wins PIER71’s Smart
from Annual Report - 2019
by NUS-CDE
Start-up Founded by NUS Engineering Research Fellow Wins PIER71’s Smart Port Challenge 2019
Dravam emerged as the top three start-ups at PIER71’s 2019 Smart
Challenge Grand Final under the leadership of Dr Vivek Kolladikkal
Premandhan, a Research Fellow at NUS Mechanical Engineering.
Also on the team are NUS
Mechanical Engineering PhD students, Peter Farouk Ramzy
Beshay and Nisim Shushan.
Pitching to an audience of over 300 investors, corporate partners, venture capitalists, and maritime professionals, the team impressed judges with their proposed innovative fuel quality monitoring solution, business model, market opportunity, impact to the maritime industry and overall team capability.
Through providing real-time information regarding fuel quality by scanning the entire fuel transfer in the bunkering pipeline, Dravam addressed challenges in the bunkering sector with its online fuel quality monitoring solution. Eventually, they beat 23 other international entrants from USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore to win a cash prize of $10,000 and a grant of up to S$50,000 from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) to develop and pilot their solutions with maritime companies.
The technology is patented by NUS and exclusively licensed to Dravam, a deep-tech start up under NUS’s Graduate Research Innovation Programme (GRIP).
About PIER71 Smart Port Challenge
Organised by MPA and NUS Enterprise, PIER71 Smart Port Challenge is an annual innovation competition for global technology start-ups to address challenges of maritime companies in Singapore. One of the highlights of PIER71 is PIER71 Accelerate – a five-week market and business model validation programme that comprises a two-day bootcamp.
“It has been an exhilarating experience being part of Smart Port Challenge. PIER71 Accelerate is such a unique programme – the quality of mentorship, workshops and networking opportunities is second to none. The last five weeks has brought us closer to being market-ready and we are very honoured by this win and excited to be part of this ecosystem.”
– Dr Vivek Premanadhan, Dravam Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Winner of the Grand Final
Dravam, start-up led by NUS Engineering Research Fellow, won the Grand Final of PIER71’s Smart Port Challenge 2019.
