26 year-old Michael Aiello has just won “the people’s vote” at the annual Oxford Entrepreneurs Idea Idol competition at Saïd Business School for his clever range of wallets and passport cases that protect their contents from remote skimming attacks, reports The Telegraph.
Aiello came up with the idea while studying radio emission security at New York University. He quickly saw how anyone could pick up information from radio signal emitting devices simply by pointing an antenna at it, and the potential for fraud was huge. The explosion in use of radio frequency identification chips in passports, credit cards and work passes meant that the potential market was huge.
He has since sold around 80,000 wallets and holders that contain a hidden mesh to protect the chips. “I hope this year we will at least double that,” says Aiello. He is studying for an MBA at Saïd as part of his personal development. The school’s international reputation and one-year course attracted him, and the weak pound eased the pain of paying for it.
He is using his time in Britain to develop the business, signing up several distribution partners in the UK as well as building his existing network in the US.
Photo by DIFRwear LLC.