Helavation to lead innovations in apparel sector
View(s):Helavation, a subsidiary of Hela Clothing and its innovation centre which started as a strategic initiative in January this year, has three US patents pending for apparel sector innovations, a top official said. ”Helavation’s aim is to add value to existing customers as well as to tap into an untapped market while the end result is to promote entrepreneurship through innovation,” Dominic Mcvey, a founding and managing partner of investment firm Ellestone Apparel LLP, the holding company which is the controlling shareholder of Hela Clothing told the Business Times. The team at the new subsidiary is a lean one consisting of Sri Lankan data scientists from MIT and Stanford University, rocket scientists from Kingston University, mechatronics and electronics engineers from the University of Moratuwa, and senior merchants and technical teams with years of apparel experience who are dedicated to their task of applying new thinking to the industry via materials, products, processes and applications, he added.
Helavation’s chief executive is 30-year-old Nissanga Warnapura, an engineer from Nottingham University, who worked with Hela’s current chairman, Dian Gomes at MAS. The team monitors new technology developments in Silicon Valley in the US, and start-up incubators in the UK and the Netherlands. “We see what others have developed and how their prototypes can be integrated into a garment, and how we can give them access to markets by approaching our customers,” Mr. Mcvey added. Hela is in the process of commercialising four innovative products exclusively for fashion labels. The core objective behind Helavation is to create ‘useful, everyday’ wearable product innovations for the consumer, in the ‘smart clothing, wearable tech’ niche by utilising smart materials and smart sensors which enables applications. In the short span of time that Helavation has been in operation, three patents have been filed in the USA and UK, as well as commencing work on new product categories that is not in the usual manufacturing portfolio, Mr. Mcvey elaborated.