Wireless Grids in talks with new potential clients

SYRACUSE — A Syracuse University (SU) technology spinoff is aiming to land contracts in a number of new markets in the coming months.

Wireless Grids Corp. is in talks with potential clients in banking, information technology, and health care at the moment, CEO and founder Lee McKnight says. The firm, launched in 2004, develops technology that allows users to share information easily across multiple devices and platforms with no configuration.

In addition to business customers, Wireless Grids is also in talks with school districts and universities on potential uses for its technology, McKnight says.

The original research that led to the company was funded by the National Science Foundation. The firm also has garnered funding over the years from individual investors and is currently working toward a new round of financing, says McKnight, who is also a professor at SU.

He declined to discuss further details on the company’s financing.

Applications for wireless grids in general range from business use to social media.

The firm has tested much of its work at SU. Last year, the company ran a test on campus of a social radio application known as WeJay. The service allowed users to establish and share music on their own social radio stations.

Much of the interest in Wireless Grids from businesses is being driven by employees’ increasing use of personal devices for business purposes, McKnight notes. Tying those devices and business systems together through the use of a wireless grid offers a safer, more secure environment than what’s available now, he contends.

“People are going to use their own devices anyway,” McKnight says.

Using a wireless grid allows companies to partition data and information and keep everything safe in the event an employee’s personal device becomes infected with a virus or malware. The technology can also easily integrate a company’s legacy systems and can be useful for tasks like customer service as well, McKnight says.

The firm is also involved in developing technology known as iDAWG (Intelligent Deployable Augmented Wireless Gateway). Wireless Grids’ software helps power the system, which is being developed jointly at SU, Virginia Tech, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.

The system is designed to maintain communication among emergency responders even if cell towers and Internet networks go down during a disaster, according to SU. Designers tested the system in August during an emergency crisis exercise involving 44 agencies from Madison, Onondaga, and Oswego counties.

Wireless Grids employs less than 10 people at the moment. The company is once again based in New York, however, after having been headquartered in Texas for a period.

Wireless Grids merged with Austin–based Varsity Media Group Acquisition Corp., a subsidiary of Varsity Media Group, Inc., in 2009 and its headquarters relocated. McKnight remained in Central New York as did much of the expertise associated with the company’s technology.

It made sense for the company to be headquartered here once again, McKnight says. The region is home to students, faculty members, and potential business partners and customers that have been exposed to Wireless Grids’ technology over the course of its development, he says.

“That makes it a little easier for us to get traction,” McKnight adds.

The company is currently sharing space with AVIsion Consulting at offices in East Syracuse.

Wireless Grids’ board includes McKnight and Dale Meyerrose, a retired Air Force major general and former chief information officer and information sharing executive for the U.S. intelligence community. Bruce Lev, managing director and executive vice president at Loeb Partners Corp., is also a member.      

Contact Tampone at ktampone@cnybj.com