dr. Gábor Kusper Chief Research and Development Officer, dr. Szabolcs Márien Managing Director, dr. Zoltán Kaiser Managing Director

Szabolcs Márien is a true engineer, researcher and programmer, but luckily he is the type of person who not only performs well in theory, but also in the practice of building a company. He has better and better IT and programming ideas and projects, many of which he implements, and now employs around 70 people, mostly programming engineers— but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Entrepreneurship for Szabolcs Márien came with the 2008 crisis. Previously, for many years, he was head of R&D at a medium-sized financial IT company, which was swept away by the 2008 crisis. Together with two of his former classmates and friends, Gábor Kusper and Zoltán Kaiser, they founded the company and started working with about a dozen colleagues who had been made redundant by the above-mentioned circumstances.

In terms of core competencies, work started in the autumn of 2013, mainly with the development of management software for back-office systems in financial institutions, as well as data warehouse, business intelligence and data mining solutions. But, already at that time, in addition to the banking projects that had established the company’s business stability, intensive research and development activities began. The latter meant the launch of unique product developments, initially mainly with a healthcare and pharmaceutical focus, typically in collaboration with renowned universities such as the University of Debrecen and Semmelweis University. The research background of Szabolcs, his attitude, his thinking and his academic network helped a lot in obtaining these assignments and in establishing such collaborations.

Therefore, a mid-sized company with a solid sales revenue of more than HUF 0.5 billion, focusing on a much broader spectrum and carrying out a lot of software R&D projects, could be formed on the basis of the banking IT clients, which, thanks to the high value-added programming tasks, has shown a stable EBITDA generation capacity of around HUF 100 million as of 2018. They still work for large financial service providers such as Takarékbank, Allianz or OTP Mobil Kft. (several of the Simple brand products). In addition, they have also been involved in the development of the National Tax and Customs Administration’s Online Invoicing system, which now enables smaller companies and entrepreneurs to issue digital invoices securely, even without a separate invoicing program involving a third party.

With such strong references under their belt, they then used their free software engineering capacities, which gradually grew to over 60 people, to help analyse, test and review the systems of several large companies in IT project management, consulting and IT audits. This is complemented by the Machine Learning Research Group, set up two years ago, which has helped to make several projects a success by developing deep learning techniques. In addition, they have also built a third “leg”: this is the development of completely independent software products and IT solutions, which are still running as a kind of spin-off initiative within InnovITech Kft., but, if they are successful, can become independent and have their own market and capital-raising potential.

It’s worth “scrolling” through the innovation ideas of Szabolcs Márien and Gábor Kusper. First of all, there are the projects carried out in collaboration with the universities mentioned above, in the field of pharmaceutical production and other healthcare-related areas. Years ago, they started developing software that supports personalised and optimal therapy by digitally tracking leukaemia treatments. This research is led by Csaba Bödör, an international expert who returned home under the Lendület (Momentum) programme, working at the Institute of Pathology and Experimental Cancer Research at Semmelweis University. What’s more, this software component can now also be used to analyse data from other cancers, increasing therapy efficiency.

Similar work by InnovITech Kft. includes the Metagenom and GenomAtlas projects, which also received EU aid and were prepared in cooperation with UD-GenoMed Kft., a spin-off company of the University of Debrecen. The Metagenom project will provide an exciting new application in the field of medicine by analysing the prevalence patterns of the microorganisms that make up the gut flora. The system, based on integrated bioinformatics and machine learning, can find potential causal links between the absence or overgrowth of a bacterial strain and the development of various diseases. And the latter, GenomAtlas, is a true curiosity: it can visualise the spatial structure of the genome containing the genetic code, providing the opportunity to explore the links between spatial anomalies in the genome and the development of different diseases. The system provides new therapeutic targets, with the hope of treating these diseases quickly and effectively.

But there is also the previously developed JavaFitter program, which can efficiently find structural flaws in the source code of business-critical programs, using a new approach. In addition, in the GRAPLER R&D project, the company is helping to develop a robot for pruning grapevines based on the knowledge of viticulture at the University of Pécs, developed by the Bay Zoltán Research Institute and the machine manufacturer SBS, by implementing software control based on machine learning (autonomous movement, pruning vector calculation).

For the time being, this broad portfolio of proprietary products is helping diversification and paving the way for spin-offs.

The short-term goal of the Hungarian medium-sized company is to launch the products and services of the above-mentioned projects on the Hungarian and international—primarily regional—markets, which is facilitated by the fact that the team includes many Hungarians from Slovakia, Transcarpathia and Transylvania.

InnovITech is a great opportunity for many young software engineers. They build mainly on the talent coming out of universities, which is helped by the fact that, in addition to the Budapest headquarters, they also have offices in Eger and Debrecen.

One of the keys to the company’s success is the long-standing friendship between the three owners, which was formed during their university years together. Perhaps this could be a message for current students: “Beyond attending classes, develop deep, friendly relationships!”