EMS@C-LEVEL
As Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and SCOOP writer, Philip Stoten, continues to talk to EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) executives he learns more about their individual and collective experiences and their expectations for their own businesses and for the entire electronic manufacturing industry.
EMS@C-LEVEL
Electronica 24: Mo Mirvakili's Journey from Bathroom Lab to Breakthrough Technology
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What if a pandemic experiment could lead to a groundbreaking innovation in power supply technology? Join me as Mo Mirvakili from Seron Electronics shares his story of necessity and invention, which began in the unlikeliest of places—a bathroom lab during a global pandemic. With an impressive academic journey from UBC to MIT, Mo's drive to solve complex research challenges birthed a precise power platform that's now catching the eyes of markets worldwide, including optics and stretchable electronics.
At Electronica 2024 in Munich, Mo reveals the unique features that set Seron's system apart, emphasizing its precision and intuitive software interface. As he reflects on the competitive landscape and the growing significance of electric vehicles, Mo provides insightful commentary on how Seron Electronics is carving out a niche in a crowded marketplace.
EMS@C-Level at electronica 2024 was hosted by IPC (https://www.ipc.org/)
EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.
hello, I'm philip stoughton. I am at electronica 2024 and I'm joined by mo from sarin electronics. Mo, you're way over in uh b5. Thanks for making the journey over. Um, is this your first electronica? Yes, exciting show. What have youiting show? What have you seen this week? What's taken your eye? So we?
Speaker 2came here to kind of see where the market is heading, to expand our presence in Europe and kind of learn what the competitors are doing, to maybe see our value proposition better in practice. They have the devices here and see how they operate. So it was pretty good for us and we are thankful to the government of Ontario for bringing us here. Okay.
Speaker 1Okay, and you're a startup, You're based out of Canada. Yes, tell me a little bit about the company and what you do, and kind of the founder story, if you like.
Speaker 2Yeah. So I did my undergraduate and master's at UBC Canada, then I went to MIT for PhD and postdoc. So during my research journey I realized there is a need for precise power supplies or you call it power platform that can have multiple features for different fields. One of them is constant power, constant current, constant voltage, constant charge, etc. The solutions in the market they could not satisfy the needs I had during graduate school, so I had to come up with my own device like bundling a bunch of things, making things happen. So that was the motivation.
Speaker 2And then, you know, covid happened. There was a shutdown, so I had to do experiments in my bathroom and I made a small lab. You built a lab in your bathroom. So after talking to people in the field, I realized, okay, it's not only me who needs this device, there are other people as well. So that was the genesis. I started working with one of my old friends. He's a software engineer and I did the hardware, the software, the device, and just started receiving traction from people around the globe. So we are here also to see how better we can penetrate to the global market.
Speaker 1Yeah, and what the demand looks like. And the people that you found were really interested in the product initially. What markets were they in? What applications did they?
Speaker 2have. They are not in the markets that we could predict at best, but it's pretty interesting. It's a very kind of a horizontal market. It's not having a bunch of vertical buttons, Optics, you know, stretchable electronics. These are two of the things that people have shown most interest, but robotics and actuators and others are also interesting. Okay.
Speaker 1And what are the unique features of the system that's attracting people?
Speaker 2The precision and the functionalities we have, and aside from all of those, we have a very easy plug-and-play software that you can use to do anything you want. But the constant power feature at lower power ratings and the precision are what people are looking for yeah.
Speaker 1and when you say lower power ratings, does that mean there's like a sustainability aspect of power saving there? No, no, no. But what?
Speaker 2I mean is we don't operate in kilowatts, okay, so you cannot use this for I don't know, for a huge battery or anything but the researcher scale, lab scale pretty good device, yeah.
Speaker 1And super, super, super precise, and you came to find out what the market thought, how the market would respond.
Speaker 2What have you learned? I learned a lot. So we kind of learned where the market is going, where it's going to be the innovation for next maybe five, ten years. Ev is becoming big, how these companies are evolving to satisfy the needs for researchers and EV is something that you know we learned is very important. Yeah, and when you know, when you talk to different companies, you see, okay, each of them there are so many power supply companies, but each of them they have their own value proposition and we kind of learned how we can articulate our value proposition better so we don't come across as another power supply.
Speaker 1Yeah, you've absolutely got to stand out. I'm glad you got here and uh and got to see electronica probably one of the biggest electronics shows in the world yep, uh, and I'm glad it was positive experience for you. Thanks for stopping by. So thank you very much.