# Giatec Scientific

Giatec Scientific Inc. is a Canadian-based company with headquarters located in Ottawa, Ontario. It is a developer and manufacturer of nondestructive testing quality control and condition assessment devices for the construction industry.

## History

Giatec Scientific Inc. was co-founded by Pouria Ghods of Carleton University and Aali R. Alizadeh of the University of Ottawa in September 2010. The pair began working with advisers at Invest Ottawa, who arranged sources, funding and ideas to bring Giatec's products to the market.
The company's first product was a sensor to detect corrosion speed in the rebar/steel inside concrete. Unlike other non-destructive testing methods available at the time, Giatec used mobile-based applications software and smart technology to collect and analyze data.
In 2012, Giatec became independent of Invest Ottawa. That year, after the collapse of the Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake in 2012, Giatec's equipment was used in the forensic structural examination that was initiated as part of the public inquiry.
Giatec has developed a variety of testing devices and sensors for measurement of concrete permeability, electrical resistivity measurement of concrete, half-cell corrosion, corrosion rate, concrete temperature, and concrete maturity. In 2014, Giatec won the Rio Info 2013 Innovation Award, and in 2014, the company was included in the Ottawa Business Journal's annual list of "Startups to Watch". Giatec is also the recipient of Ottawa's Top 10 Fastest Growing Companies, and Canada's Top 500 Fastest Growing Companies in 2018.
Giatec also began to develop Internet of Things (IoT) applications for the construction industry through wireless concrete temperature and maturity sensors. In March 2015, the company released a new electrical resistivity monitoring device that sends data directly to a smartphone through a downloadable application. In October 2016, Giatec released Smart Concrete, a new IoT-based solution for ready-mix concrete producers. Giatec later changed the name of their product due to opposition from Kryton International Inc., which holds trademark registrations for "Smart Concrete".
Giatec was awarded a $2.4M grant by the SDTC to commercialize a new clean-tech solution to optimize the amount of cement used by readymix concrete producers. On Nov. 19th, Paul Loucks (Ottawa tech veteran and former CEO of Halogen Software) joined Giatec as the new CEO of the company.
After 11 years of organic growth, Giatec raised single-digit million Euro strategic funding from HeidelbergCement in May 2022 followed by $5M from BDC Capital to develop and commercialize new software and sensor solutions for concrete monitoring and AI-based concrete mixture optimization.

## Products

The Giatec product range of nondestructive testing devices can be divided into three areas: laboratory devices, which include products that can be used to measure the permeability of concrete specimens; hand-held portable field inspection devices that can be used to conduct in-situ condition assessment of concrete structures such as bridges; and embedded wireless sensors for real-time monitoring of concrete properties such as temperature, humidity, maturity, and strength.