Product News: Hexagon’s Sixth Sense open-innovation start-up platform

Jan. 19, 2022

Promises to accelerate technology commercialization in the global manufacturing industry, leading the way for more open innovation in the smart-manufacturing space.

Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence Division, which provides engineering, production and quality technology and services to manufacturers from Audi to Boeing to Zimmer Biomet, has announced a new approach to supporting start-ups.

The open-innovation platform Sixth Sense brings together start-ups and industry-leading companies to create transformative solutions that benefit everyone, Hexagon claims. It promotes sharing resources, data and ideas to fast-track progress and solve real-world problems that address some of humanity’s greatest challenges, such as the journey to net zero. The challenge areas include sustainability, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, sensors and robotics.

Sixth Sense’s first themed challenge—artificial intelligence for sustainable smart manufacturing—encompasses all these areas and is also accepting dedicated applications, with start-ups encouraged to register their interest for future themed challenges and events.

Parth Joshi, chief product and technology officer of Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence Division, said, “We are searching for intelligent, efficient solutions that will not only enhance performance, but benefit people and the planet. Industry 4.0 is evolving and pushing to solve complex challenges, but the catch is that you cannot solve big problems without solving lots of little ones at each step with innovation.”

The 10 most innovative proposals will be chosen for an intensive innovate-on-the-job scaling program, supported by Hexagon, key clients and world-leading mentors. Three final concepts will be offered opportunities to globalize and scale their business as commercial joint ventures.

Milan Kocić, head of Sixth Sense for Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence Division, said, “Sixth Sense will build a bridge between small businesses and larger manufacturers; helping overcome start-ups’ challenges with scaling, while simultaneously meeting the industry’s need for new ideas.”

The platform has already partnered with a number of promising young companies, and is founded on the principle that diversity is fundamental to innovation and establishing such a thriving open ecosystem. The selection criteria for Sixth Sense include: