Ynvisible Interactive appoints industry leaders to advisory board

Ynvisible Interactive Inc., a Vancouver-based firm that specializes in creating ultra-low power displays in printed electronics, has created an advisory board and appointed its first members – Dr. Michael Okoroafor, Dr. Harlan Byker and Dr. Harri Kopola. 

“ynvisible’s Advisory Board is meant to provide strategic input and support to the Company as we grow our business. Therefore, we are honoured to have such highly acclaimed innovators and industry front-runners” says ynvisible CEO Jani-Mikael Kuusisto. “Their trailblazing work to build strong collaborative networks across different industries and disciplines has brought ground-breaking innovations to fruition and wide market adoption. They inspire our team and we look forward to their insights.”

Advisory Board members

Dr. Michael Okoroafor, vice-president, global sustainability & packaging innovation at McCormick & Company, is highly acclaimed for his achievements in the consumer packaging industry. This fall, Okoroafor was inducted into the Packaging and Processing Hall of Fame. Okoroafor is an innovation leader and has over 40 patents to his name and a career. With 30 years of experience building off his PhD in Polymer Chemistry from Michigan State University, Okoroafor has a unique background in working both with colour changing (chromogenic) systems, as well as novel packaging materials and concepts, including interactive packaging.

Dr. Harlan Byker, founder and CEO of Pleotint, LLC, is a leading expert on electrochromism and thermochromism. He has over 30 years of scientific research and development, invention, manufacturing and patent experience. Byker gained his PhD in Physical Chemistry at Montana State University. He is an inventor and/or co-inventor on 53 US patents. As a research scientist at Battelle Laboratories, Byker invented the chemistry portion of the first commercially successful electrochromic device, an automatic dimming rear view mirror for motor vehicles commercialized by Gentex, a company in which Harlan became a Board member and VP of research, before founding Pleotint, a company focused on self-tinting building windows.

Dr. Harri Kopola is a pioneer in the printed electronics industry, who started printed electronics research on flexible substrates in the late 1990s within VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, one of Europe’s leading applied technical research centers. Kopola  earned his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Oulu. He has publications and patents in various disciplines of electronics, optoelectronics and printed electronics. From 2006-2009, Kopola led VTT’s spearhead program ‘Center for Printed Intelligence’, and in 2008 headed the founding of the PrintoCent printed intelligence industrialization community, which to date has produced 26 spin-off companies and linked these to a network of global scale companies.

ynvisible’s proprietary electrochromic displays

Aiming to become a leader in the emerging printed electronics sector, ynvisible’s displays use almost no power. The firm’s proprietary electrochromic displays can be the face of every smart label. They are ultra-low weight, microscopically thin, flexible, yet robust. When combined with various sensors they bring functionality and life to smart products, ranging from smart cards to consumer-packaged goods.

Given the cost and power-consumption advantages over conventional electronics, printed electronics are a key enabler of mass adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT). Electrochromics-based smart labels offer simple non-obtrusive human interfaces to smart IoT objects.  ynvisible’s mix of services, materials and technology is a unique combination, which is winning favor among brand owners developing their IoT products for a huge market in its infancy. Since ynvisible’s displays are printed, product designers can easily adapt electrochromics to the desired product design and required user experience.