Covert Defenses among three Purdue startups taking 1st place at Indianapolis Innovation Showcase
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Anti-spoofing, ransomware and cyberattack-defense technology born in the Purdue University lab of Hany Abdel-Khalik, professor of nuclear engineering, has grown into an award-winning startup called Covert Defenses. The company, with offices in Lexington, Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee, in addition to its West Lafayette headquarters, recently received first-place recognition at the Venture Club of Indiana’s Innovation Showcase competition, as did two other startups that originated at Purdue. The June competition featured 20 promising startup contenders, 240 entrepreneurs, investors, industry leaders and innovation enthusiasts.
Covert Defenses LLC, which took first place in the competition’s Digital Tech category, offers novel technologies that monitor, prevent and self-correct whenever bad actors, whether inside or outside an organization, attempt to digitally disrupt or take down operations. The technologies’ origins, explained here in 2021, also are explained in a 2020 paper that Abdel-Khalik, an affiliate of CERIAS, Purdue’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, wrote for the journal Nuclear Technology. The company’s dual-use Covert Cognizance platform also ensures zero downtime during cyberattacks on military drones; diverse industrial systems, such as oil and gas manufacturing; and utilities. Covert Defenses was founded by Abdel-Khalik and Arvind Sundaram, who received his PhD in nuclear engineering at Purdue in 2022. The company licenses Abdel-Khalik’s intellectual property through the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization.
The second Purdue-related first-place win, which came in the Life Sciences category, went to Amplified Sciences. The life science diagnostics startup is focused on accurately detecting and preempting the risks of debilitating diseases, including lethal cancers. With R&D operations in Purdue Research Park, Amplified Sciences’ diagnostic tests are based on technology invented by V. Jo Davisson, professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology in Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy and a faculty member of the Purdue Institute for Cancer Research and the Purdue Institute for Drug Discovery. Davisson serves as the company’s chief scientific officer. The company licenses Davisson’s intellectual property through the Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization.
The final first-place win, which was in the Ag Tech/Hard Tech category, went to Insignum AgTech, a Purdue-rooted startup with technology that enables a farmer’s crop to use its pigment to talk. No matter the problem nature presents — be it disease, insect pests or fertility loss — plants can “show” the farmer what it needs to thrive. Using technology approved last year by the USDA, the startup, founded by former Purdue postdoctoral researcher Kyle Mohler, has been characterized as “reenvisioning the future of farming.”
In April 2023, Insignum AgTech and Beck’s signed an agreement to test Insignum’s corn traits in Beck’s elite varieties. In 2022, Insignum AgTech received a $100,000 investment from the Purdue Ag-Celerator, an agriculture innovation fund operated by the Purdue Foundry, with assistance from the Purdue College of Agriculture, the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization and the agricultural industry. Foundry and OTC are now part of the Purdue Innovates network.
About Venture Club of Indiana
The Venture Club of Indiana has thrived on the ideas and efforts of its members since its inception in 1984. We are dedicated to helping investors convene to network and make an impact. Creating an entrepreneurial, business-friendly environment attractive to investors is critical to the continued success of Indiana’s emerging companies and established businesses. It’s that principle that guides the activities of the Venture Club of Indiana, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and investors succeed. Join us for the 16th year, and experience firsthand the energy and innovation shaping Indiana’s entrepreneurial landscape.
About Purdue University
Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.
Writer/Media contact: Amy Raley, araley@purdue.edu
Source: Hany Abdel-Khalik, abdelkhalik@purdue.edu