The Difference Engine produces first round of digital upstarts

The Story of the Difference Engine: Spring 2010 from The Difference Engine on Vimeo . Reflecting on 91 days holed-up in an intense business hub in the North East, entrepreneur Paul Rawlings exhales heavily. "It was the most rewarding experience of my life. Seriously, I can't emphasise it enough," said the ScreenReach co-founder. Rawlings' feet have barely touched the ground for the past three months. Along with entrepreneurs from eight other fledgling companies, he has just completed the first 13-week programme of new start-up incubator The Difference Engine . "When we started The Difference Engine we started with a technology which we had high hopes for," Rawlings says. "Being part of the Engine has really helped us focus our technology into a series of products, given us access to some of the North East's finest mentors, and given us the confidence to sit in front of global businesses and tell them why they should be using ScreenReach." Using Reach XML code, ScreenReach offers an "audience engagement technology", ripe for content companies and retailers to interact with their customers. Having secured £250,000 first-round investment through the programme, Rawlings and fellow co-founder Chris Farrell are in talks with big-name potential clients with partnerships expected to go live in the next two weeks. As well as the access to mentors, initial funding of £20,000 (in return for 8% of future stock) and being surrounded by like-minded digital upstarts, Rawlings said being squirreled away in Middlesbrough – away from the hustle-and-bustle of London – helped focus attention on the product. The importance of this can be understated, says Jon Bradford, who originated the idea of The Difference Engine two years ago, eventually launching the first programme in December last year. "There are significant advantages of being outside London," Bradford says as he catches a breather inbetween catching trains and aeroplanes marketing the Engine. "One of the key elements of being up north is for them to concentrate on their start-ups for a short period of time. We make sure we have all the right people for the right companies so there's no distractions. "You have to have the right people to do the programme. Most good small businesses start and work up to 25 people then start fragmenting – that's why we only have around 10 teams, to create a more cooperative atmosphere." Bradford says that he actively encourages people to launch similar incubator setups around the UK. "The model we've adopted is similar to TechStars in the US, that kind of open-source spirit to help build an ecosystem of mentorship. "That's the hard part of Europe," he says. "Culturally, we're people who are not warm and friendy, we're quite reserved people. When we get over that and not feel there's something in it for us, I think we genuinely can compete with the Americans." The Difference Engine are now accepting applications for the second programme, based in Sunderland and starting on September 20. A shortlist of around 25 start-ups will be whittled down to around 10 who will complete the 13-week programme ending on December 17. UK-based Difference Engine early alumni CANDDi In it's own words, CANDDi "turns anonymous aggregated analytics into a rich list of targeted individuals". The team threw away their software two weeks before the end of the Difference Engine programme and started from scratch, having realised that it wasn't what people wanted! Curated.by Curated.by is a curation platform for the real-time web. The crowd are given the tools to create handpicked streams of updated, tagged and categorised content. Similar to Wikipedia, users sort the best content into bundles of information to be shared and consumed by other people. Curated.by currently supports Twitter, with additional social networks and microblogging services coming soon. Recite Recite says it allows any website to become more accessible to people who are dyslexic, visually impaired or who have a "young reading age." By intercepting the webpage content, Recite instantly adds and outputs accessibility features such as voice, high contrast text, and alternate word options. Rock Control Rock Control encourages the public to launch and manage a band from scratch. From deciding the final line-up, "the public" will decide the look and feel of the band and manage their PR. Ultimately, one song will be created and simultaneously released into every chart around the world with the intention of gaining a global number one slot. ScreenReach ScreenReach is pitched as "the next generation in presentation and interaction technology," allowing real-time delivery of media content to a smartphone via any digital display (TV, outdoor advertising, PC, kiosk etc). Service providers - such as museums, broadcasters, fashion retailers - can engage and interact with customers instantly and reward them for interacting with their content. Secured £250,000 first round funding. Tagorize The Tagorize system apparently describes online information so accurately that it can provide a level of search relevancy that is more valuable and accurate than existing systems. Using the Tagorize indexing system substantially increases search accuracy and relevancy, leading to higher search conversion rates. Tagorize is the most natural and flexible way to store and retrieve data of large, unstructured datasets. Wishlist wishli.st is a Facebook application that helps people give gifts. Users can create a list of the people they buy presents for and invite them to create wishlists. Then they receive email reminders before birthdays and buy them things they want.