Vital Spark Creative and TouchByte: A collaborative success story
Unlocking Potential grad tackles touchless tech face-first
Having relocated Vital Spark Creative Ltd to Cornwall in 2015, Chris Booker has found the business help and support on offer in Cornwall of huge benefit, propelling his product design business forwards, building a strong team and designing for a number of big brands and companies including Sainsburys, Lakeland, Watson Marlow, Peak NDT and Exeter University.
Support for Vital Spark Creative has included mentoring and 1:1 business development, and has enabled them to recruit graduate product designer, Tom Bolton, through the Unlocking Potential InFocus programme. Andrew Barnett, InFocus Business Development Manager said:
The recruitment of Tom has enabled Chris to expand his team, growing capacity to accept new projects and ultimately contributing to the growth of his business.
Since the COVID lockdown, graduate Tom has been first-hand in a collaborative project with Cornish tech software company, TouchByte, to develop a contactless ‘face-first’ facial recognition entry system for building sites called ‘Facentry’.
TouchByte owner, Jeremy Sneller said:
Your face is now the key!
We were awarded a 50k grant from Innovate UK to develop ‘Facentry’ replacing existing non-Covid friendly devices such as keypads and push button building entry systems.
Jeremy continues;
The prototype hardware developed by Tom will be used on our first building site by the end of August. Additionally, we’re seeing interest in Facentry from other business sectors such as hotel groups, so that guests can access their hotel rooms securely and without the need for a keycard.
The future is looking bright for both businesses, having identified that a worldwide pandemic presents other opportunities to apply innovative, tech-driven solutions for businesses and consumers.
Chris explains;
Alongside TouchByte’s Facentry project, Vital Spark Creative has also secured its own grant from Innovate UK. We are developing an innovative method of rapidly sterilizing Chip and Pin Payment Terminals between uses. We’re hugely excited about this internal project, designing something for ourselves and building some internal IP.
Closing, TouchByte owner, Jeremy Sneller said:
In addition to rolling out the Facentry hardware, we’re also building facial recognition software into Microsoft Teams. So, if you are a doctor for example, and conducting a remote consultation you can use the software through Teams to securely validate that the patient is who they say they are.
If you are interested in finding out more about how Unlocking Potential can support your business growth through a Graduate placement, contact Unlocking Potential Jobs on jobs@unlocking-potential.co.uk