MAX CRANSTON
News Writer

Started last summer, TandemLaunch Technologies is on a mission to help university researchers, professors and students incubate ideas and find industrial buyers for their innovations in the multimedia sector.

“We provide university inventors everything they need to commercialize their ideas,” said TandemLaunch CEO Helge Seetzen.

TandemLaunch shows no preferences or dividing lines between stakeholders. They aim to work with “dedicated and highly skilled inventors and investors with a keen interest in commercializing the technology,” according to their website.

“If the project seems viable to us, we start working on it along with the inventor to develop the project,” TandemLaunch project manager Alexander Junk explained.
The company’s primary focus is the consumer electronic market with a special interest in video and audio encoding and transmission. They also work with 3D and touch screen development and screen projection, among other things.

The company is interested in ideas with protectable intellectual property, which means that they can secure a patent for the idea. The prototypes for their projects have an overall budget of less than $1 million.

Seetzen has a history of producing quality ideas into money-making projects: he’s previously worked as the director of technology at Dolby Canada, and various other tech development companies.

While he was still in school, Seetzen worked to commercialize display technologies developed at the University of British Columbia. With the technology, known today as a “local dimming LED TV,” Seetzen co-founded BrightSide Technologies, which he later successfully sold to Dolby for a high return at reportedly over $28 million U.S. — with a substantial portion of the proceeds going to professors, students and schools, including UBC. Seetzen is a regular speaker at universities, and his message to students is clear: get started now, while you’re still in school — don’t wait for a degree to start building a business.

“There’s no better time to do it,” said Helge.

“You’re surrounded by world experts, cash for research funding is available, you have no financial obligations, flexible schedules, nothing to lose. It’s good for you and even if it fails, it will help you later. It certainly worked for me.”

TandemLaunch has worked on projects with schools, students and professors in Montreal, Vancouver, Germany and the United States. They also offer many challenging opportunities for interns and co-op students.

The nature of their business enables students to have a significant impact on the success of individual projects and companies as a whole. The company is looking to work with students from computer science, physics, mechanical and electrical engineering, information technology and commerce backgrounds.If you have any project ideas, they can be sent to projects@tandemlaunchtech.com

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image: Crestock