SBIR-STTR Award

The innovation of this SBIR project includes effective and efficient big data analytics and mining techniques to extract social and people related information from massive amount of Internet data. The advanced analysis algorithms in name dis-ambiguity, connection inference, information categorization, etc. can quickly capture and analyze people related information in real time to help organizations to establish, strengthen and accelerate their customer relationships and facilitate business deals. The tool extracts and infers information from a wide spectrum of data from the whole Internet to complement the limited and subjective data volunteered by users themselves in social network websites like Linkedin.

The broader/commercial impact includes enabling business people save valuable time in researching new prospects and identifying the best ways to connect with people, and ultimately close more deals by better understanding their prospects in less time. In other words, it simplifies business functions such as sales, recruiting, etc to be more efficient and effective.

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project results from its potential to transform professional networking from passive to pro-active. People-information is valuable for business professionals in sales, marketing, recruiting, fundraising, M&A and business development, to establish connections, generate leads, and generally maximize opportunities. This project will further commercialize big data analysis techniques to quickly capture, filter, and analyze people related information from the whole Internet, and present such information to users via mobile and web services for various use cases such as networking at events, etc. These services will enable mobile users to plan in advance whom they should meet at events, and equip them with much deeper insights regarding their prospects than are currently available, so that they can generate business more efficiently.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is intended to further develop and commercialize the company's big data analysis and mining technology for people-information, with specific emphasis on making professional networking at events/meetings more productive and efficient. It provides a real-time, instant, "people research" capability on mobile devices to enable effective networking at business events, trade shows, conferences and private/Meetup meetings. It goes beyond existing "name-based" keyword search provided by commonly-used search engines, and is complementary to social network sites, which rely purely on subjective information provided by users themselves. Based on the company's current collaboration with large event organizers and their marketing/sales teams, the project will further extend the event mobile solution for enterprise customers by providing an organizer self-service (SaaS) platform, integrating with their CRMs, and leveraging Beacon technology to track attendee activities and interests in trade shows. In addition, it will include more advanced features to motivate individual users to use the app more frequently, including outside such events. Finally, it will build a platform with APIs to allow OEM partners to generate and use the people-information in activities such as recruiting, marketing, etc.