Tenant Profiles
Collexis
Software developer points the way to better searching
Collexis Holdings Inc.'s fingerprints will soon be all over Innovista.
As a pre-eminent developer of search software--including a patented technology called Fingerprints--Collexis is contributing to the University of South Carolina's research efforts even before it actually moves into Innovista's Horizon II facility.
The Collexis announcement was made Oct. 3. Horizon II will open in fall 2008.
Mining data in core research areas
Collexis, a Columbia-based knowledge software developer, creates applications that provide smarter contextual searching, data mining, and use of
industry-specific thesauri. Its latest project with the University, funded with $200,000 from the S.C. Research Authority, will develop an online portal, or dashboard, as a search interface for research data related to hydrogen fuel cells and other alternative energy areas.
The College of Engineering, the School of Library and Information Sciences, and SC Launch! -- a funding body within the S.C. Research Authority -- are partnering with Collexis on the search interface.
The University's School of Medicine is using Collexis search software in a pilot project that also includes locations at the National Institutes of Health, Johns Hopkins University, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Lockheed Martin, and the World Health Organization. Collexis applications target not only research in medicine, health care, and alternative energy, but also in law, and financial services.
'Exciting synergies'
"We have enjoyed a very productive partnership with the University through our joint projects with the Office of Research and Health Sciences and the School of Library & Information Science," Collexis CEO Bill Kirkland says.
"We are very pleased to grow our partnership as we join Innovista as one of the inaugural tenants. As Collexis is one of the world's leading High Definition Search and knowledge discovery technology companies, it is fitting that we join ... Innovista. We truly feel that new and exciting synergies will be born from this partnership."
Free searching for S.C. researchers
The development of Collexis' search dashboard will increase the efficiency of researchers accessing data on hydrogen fuel cells and other forms of alternative energy--one of the University's signature research areas.
The product will be available for free to the South Carolina research community and available online, for a fee, to researchers across the world.
"We are very excited about this new collaboration because it will provide our research community with the most advanced information and discovery tools for hydrogen fuels and give them a unique edge," says Dr. Harris Pastides, the University's vice president for research and health sciences.
'Needles in many haystacks'
Collexis' patented technology builds conceptual profiles of text, called Fingerprints, from documents, Web sites, e-mails and other digitized content and matches them with a comprehensive list of pre-defined "fingerprinted." Search results are more relevant and efficient because the matches eliminate the ambiguity and lack of priority associated with typical word searches.
The results are often described as "finding needles in many haystacks."
Collexis can build unique applications to search, index, and aggregate information as well as prioritize, trend, and predict data based on sources in multiple industries. Searches are not limited by language and dialect.
CEO Bill Kirkland, right, gives an interview after the announcement that Collexis will become an Innovista tenant.
