TechInvent wins SME Innovation Award
Stavanger’s Offshore Northern Seas exhibition highlights developments in offshore oil & gas
Photo: ONS / Morten Berentsen
TechInvent accepts the Innovation Award for their FluidCom technology.
Rasmus Falck
Oslo, Norway
TechInvent was the winner of this year’s SME Innovation Award at the Offshore Northern Seas (ONS) exhibition and conference for their FluidCom technology.
It all started in 2008 when TechInvent’s founder and CEO, Alf Egil Stensen, had an idea that he wanted to test out in the garage. This idea led to the invention of FluidCom, a chemical injection valve and metering controller that is a fully automated, simple, and reliable device equipped with integrated autonomous valve control, continuous flow metering, and self-cleaning functionality.
The unique design of FluidCom valves features minimal mechanical parts and is proven to provide operators with an accurate, reliable solution to controlling chemical injection applications without requiring regular maintenance. The application is a multipoint chemical injection using a single-unit device per injection point, individual integrated flow control, flow metering, local and remote operation, and wired and wireless communication.
Today TechInvent is still a small company, with just three employees including the founder. The company’s office is located in Norway’s oil capital of Stavanger. It is owned by Stensen (48 percent), Statoil Technology Invest (19 percent), Aarbakke Innovation (14 percent), and Innovation Park Stavanger (Ipark) with 7 percent.
Statoil Technology Invest was formed by Statoil to provide expert technical and financial guidance as well as project-based or venture capital funding. Aarbakke Innovation is a fast-moving and independent engineering company specializing in creative solutions for the oil and gas industry and manages the full product lifecycle, while Ipark is an international center for innovation with 130 businesses and about 900 employees.
ONS is a bicentennial event held in Stavanger, altering with Offshore Europe. Since its origin over 40 years ago, it has become one of the key industry exhibitions and conferences for the offshore oil and gas industry. This year they had more than 1,000 exhibitors and 450 different speakers on the program. Through the Innovation Award, the organizers give recognition to the crucial importance of cutting-edge products and solutions. In 2004 the SME Innovation Award was established to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises get the chance to highlight their new developments.
This year Innovation Norway and the Research Council of Norway invited visitors to learn about the latest Norwegian innovations in the oil and gas sector at Innovation Park, where 18 suppliers offering cutting-edge technological innovations were ready to share their products. Almost all of the companies present were among the nominees for the award.
At the Young Innovation Camp, 10th graders from secondary schools in the Stavanger region worked on solving relevant problems for the energy sector, increasing their interest in science in the process. The future looks promising!
Rasmus Falck is a strong innovation and entrepreneurship advocate. The author of “What do the best do better” and “The board of directors as a resource in SME,” he received his masters degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently lives in Oslo, Norway.
This article originally appeared in the Oct. 21, 2016, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.
