5 tech companies put their innovations to the test in Product of the Year competition

The Product of the Year panel of judges include, from top left: Amanda Andrews, NH Business Review (judge); Tom Daly, Big Network (judge); Jeremy Stanizzi, NH Business Finance Authority (judge). Second row from the top: Dee Cleary, Sunrise Labs (committee member); Megan Lustig, Alexander Technology Group (committee member); Adam Rogers, First Light (committee member). Third row from the top: Christina Ladue, Primary Bank (committee member); Adam Jacobs, Sunrise Labs (judge). Front row: Lisa King, Cross Insurance (committee chair); Peter Antoinette, Xibus Systems (judge); and Ryan Warren, Berry Dunn (committee member). (Courtesy photo)

The NH Tech Alliance has announced the finalists of its 17th annual Product of the Year competition — a highly competitive contest that pits the best innovations from New Hampshire against one another in an effort to claim the title.

Focusing on new technology, the competition aims to offer an opportunity for local businesses to give a seven-minute pitch of their creations to a panel of judges and a live audience at the finale — available to watch via livestream on the alliance’s YouTube channel Dec. 6.

The winner of the finale will be announced at the live event, and will have their company name etched into the Product of the Year trophy. Additionally, the winning business will have their product on display at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, where thousands of people travel to and from the Granite State.

To qualify for the award, products must be new or upgraded within the last year; have been developed in New Hampshire within the fields of high technology or advanced manufacturing; have a strong business performance; fulfill an unmet market need; be easy to use and functional; offer high value to prospective customers; offer customer support; be unique; and have a solid connection to New Hampshire’s economy.

Previous winners featured products such as medical devices, space exploration modules, smart sensors, life support systems, communications tech, plasma cutters, visualization monitors to detect breast cancer, and more.

The five finalists going head-to-head in December are Allegro MicroSystems, Pristine Surgical, Geophysical Survey Systems, Rogue Space Systems and SportsVisio.

Allegro Isolated Gate Driver

Allegro MicroSystems’ Power-Thru Isolated Gate Driver

Allegro MicroSystems (NASDAQ: ALGM) was formed in 1990 in Manchester, and currently has 406 employees in New Hampshire. The company’s product — a high-voltage, self-powered isolated gate driver for vehicle electrification and clean energy systems — was designed in Europe, with all test engineering and production taking place at home base in Manchester.

The company’s isolated gate driver is a single-package solution that drives Gallium Nitride Power Switches with up to a 50% smaller size and a 40% efficiency improvement compared to competitors’ offerings.

This driver allows power system designers in automotive and industrial spaces to generate, store and use energy more efficiently, leading to reduction in design time, end product size and weight, plus a decrease in overall system cost.

In Allegro’s presentation to the judges, company representatives described how competitors’ solution involve an isolated direct current converter, plus a gate driver and a large transformer. Allegro’s Power-Thru technology is much smaller, measuring only 7.7 millimeters by 10 millimeters by 2.4 millimeters thick. This allows the driver to reduce the amount of isolated power required in an onboard charger system, and doubles its power density.

Allegro’s driver is able to me simplified at half of the size of other industry offerings, while performing more efficiently, becoming more reliable, and being less susceptible to environmental damage.

Pristine Surgical Summit Arthroscope

Pristine Surgical’s Summit Single-use Arthroscope

With six employees at their Manchester location, Pristine Surgical is a medical device company whose mission is to simplify endoscopy.

Summit is the world’s first 4K ultra-high-definition, single-use surgical arthroscope, which helps ambulatory surgical centers make minimally invasive surgery more efficient, consistent and safe. It is a 100% sterile scope ready to use right out of the box — eliminating the time-consuming, 35-step operating room setup and teardown process.

Summit comes pre-installed with Pristine Connect software for cloud-connected surgical image and video storage and automated inventory management. It is delivered via a scopes-by-subscription business model and transparent pricing that makes this medical device cost effective and impactful for surgery centers.

If surgical suites were to optimize Summit’s offerings, the company could reduce procedures’ costs by 30 to 40%, according to Pristine Surgical’s application.

As the current solutions stands in most surgical suites, the cost of new equipment would be more than $100,000, and would incur regular service, repair and maintenance expenses to upkeep that equipment. Sterilizing the equipment also adds time to medical staff’s schedule.

Pristine Surgical explains that, with its Summit product, surgical centers will have zero capital expenses for purchasing equipment, won’t need to shell out money to service and repair the equipment, and there is no added time for sterilization, since the product is single-use only.

The Food & Drug Administration granted clearance to the arthroscope in January of this year, with the first live demonstration occurring on April 20.

GSSI Flex NX

Geophysical Survey Systems’ Flex NX

Geophysical Survey Systems Inc. is based in Nashua with 71 employees, where the company develops and manufactures ground-penetrating radar equipment for use in concrete inspection, utility mapping, road and bridge deck evaluation, geophysics and archeology.

Its product is the Flex NX, a concrete scanning system to simplify the way building structural safety is tested.

Unlike other systems, the Flex NX gives users the full picture of what’s hiding within concrete structures using a one-pass cross polarization design that can easily locate such materials as rebar and other complicated setups or grids used in building structures.

With a user-friendly touchscreen, the Flex NX allows workers to mark their findings and create and send interactive reports right on the job-site, thanks to the company’s Nexus technology.

In addition, the updated design of the Flex NX offers more universal options for mounting with better ergonomics that prevents user fatigue.

Rogue Space Systems’ Barry-1

Rogue Space Systems’ Barry-1

With a staff of 10, Rogue Space Systems operates out of Laconia, designing satellite vehicles and subsystems that provide on-orbit services to satellite operators.

Barry-1 is an in-space demonstrator for Rogue Space Systems’ autonomous AI robots — called Orbots — that provide space sustainability services. Barry-1 is designed to test Rogue’s Scalable Compute Platform and its ability to aggregate data from multiple sensors and process that data in real time — the data compute platform was developed with funding from the U.S. Space Force’s Orbital Prime program.

Barry-1 was launched into space on Nov. 11, hitching a ride on the SpaceX Transporter-9 rideshare mission, with more launches planned in 2024 under a partnership with defense contractor SAIC — SAIC will also integrate two Rogue cubesats and will support the startup’s development of a fleet of satellite-servicing robots.

SportsVisio SV Hoops

SportsVisio’s SV Hoops

Based in Dunbarton with eight employees, SportsVisio was founded in 2021 to specifically develop its SV Hoops AI platform, which automatically creates stats, highlights and analytics for basketball games — with other sports to come.

Within the app, players can easily share clips, coaches and recruiters can gain insight into player/team performance, and fans/parents can celebrate their favorite players. The platform works well for players looking to get scouted, or vice versa, using the SV Hoops app that offers a seamless integration of all data captured at games.

Users will also be able to follow players on teams they like, view a summary of every game, watch game highlights, and view stats for easy tracking all in one location.

Each of these finalists represent the strong technology ecosystem New Hampshire fosters, which contributed $10.8 billion to the state’s economy in 2021.

“The Product of the Year competition always brings out the best innovations in New Hampshire, and each year the entries push the envelope for what is possible,” said Julie Demers, executive director of the NH Tech Alliance. “We are proud to show thousands of viewers across the U.S. and around the world what innovators in New Hampshire are creating.”

‘The Product of the Year competition always brings out the best innovations in New Hampshire, and each year the entries push the envelope for what is possible.’