LEWISTON — The name’s a little hard to say, but not nearly as hard as describing what they do.
Company President Rob Dolci describes aizoOn USA as working in craft beer automation, industrial cybersecurity, manufacturing efficiency and prototype development, bringing a rock-solid, 3-D-printed tennis shoe as a go-to demo of the latter.
From office space in the Pontiac Building on Lisbon Street, the consulting company clearly does a bit of everything — and could do even more.
This winter, it will attend an invitation-only Texas technology showcase, pitching to the U.S. Department of Defense and a dozen other government agencies on its threat-detection software and competing for $100 million in seed capital.
AizoOn (pronounced “eyes on” and meaning “forever alive” in Greek) has four branches in the U.S. and Italian headquarters.
Seven employees, mostly software developers and electromechanical technicians, work in Maine.
“Maine is strategic and so is Lewiston,” said Dolci, who opened the office here a year ago. “The connectivity we have in fiber throughout the New England channel is really good. That means the ability to work from Lewiston on a customer in Boston without needing to travel, therefore saving time and saving lots of costs, compared to property prices, office prices and parking fees (in Boston.)”
aizoOn has 40 U.S. clients, companies like Lockheed Martin, Philips and AstraZeneca, according to Dolci, as well as a number of smaller firms.
The company works in several broad specialties. In one called “smart factories,” Dolci said they may fine-tune older machines for greater efficiency, install sensors to better track goods’ movement or introduce prototype shortcuts by designing for 3-D printers.
“As a consulting company, all you provide to your customer is knowledge,” Dolci said. “We don’t go in a shoe company trying to teach them how to make shoes. We go in a shoe company to show them what technology can do for them.”
His bright, demonstration-ready tennis shoe took about $1,000 and five hours to produce, based on the company’s colors and design. The 3-D-printed detail is so fine you can make out the squiggles in the faux-rubber tread and the cotton fiber threads in the lacing.
“Normally, it would take you two months to build a prototype of a new shoe; of course, it would be a shoe that you can walk in,” he said.
In its cybersecurity work, Dolci said the company has focused on the potential for industrial hacks.
“You’ve had entire factories shut down by cyberattacks, and they’re very different attacks from the ones (on companies like) Target to steal credit cards,” he said. “Hacking a factory, you don’t need to steal any data. You just change some working parameters and so, all of a sudden, the recipe for making stuff can be changed. You can actually create way worse damage than just by stealing data.”
Hackers can reroute deliveries, change inventory totals, tweak electricity usage.
Next, comes blackmail.
“‘I can shut down your factory’ or ‘I can ruin your product, just give us some money,'” he said. “The problem with cybercrime is it’s extremely cheap and easily available. You don’t need to have a wireless connection to the Internet (to be vulnerable.) When you have an electric connection, you can go through. And that means basically every company is opened up to (that.)”
aizoOn was invited to apply and then earned a spot at the Defense Innovation Technology Showcase in Austin, Texas, in December, one of about 250 companies that will pitch wares to the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a dozen other governmental agencies.
Dolci said the company is also in the finals of the NSTXL (National Security Technology Accelerator) challenge happening during the event. aizoOn will pitch military experts and other investors on its cyberthreat detection system called Aramis for part of $100 million that comes via the Department of Defense.
“Basically, it scans all that is coming through the network and raises the flag of alarm,” Dolci said. “There is in excess of 160,000 pieces of malware that hit the Internet everyday. Our solution shortens the time it takes for an expert to realize that is actually an important threat. As soon as you realize that, then you can defend yourself.”
He’d like to grow the local company to 15 to 20 employees over the next two years. Dolci, though, doesn’t have any desire to move out of the space beside the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce. It’s better for networking, he said, and helping get the word out about what they do and how to say their name.
“The subjects that we’re bringing to the table are pretty new,” he said.
kskelton@sunjournal.com
“As a consulting company, all you provide to your customer is knowledge. We don’t go in a shoe company trying to teach them how to make shoes. We go in a shoe company to show them what technology can do for them.” Rob Dolci, president, aizoOn USA
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