Proof of Usefulness Report

Nics Lab

Analysis completed on 2/8/2026

+56
Proof of Usefulness Score
You're In Business

NICS Lab is a legitimate and established academic research group at the University of Malaga with a strong history of publications and project participation (since 1994). However, the project submission is flawed: it claims 'everyone' as the audience and falsely states 'most people have used my product' as evidence of traction. The team size (7,500) conflates the university population with the lab staff (20). While the technical and academic merit is high, the submission fails to demonstrate the commercial traction or product-market fit required for a high PoU score.

Ready to Compete for $150k+ in Prizes?

Move this data into a HackerNoon blog draft to become eligible for your share of $150k+ in cash and software prizes

View All Reports

Score Breakdown

Real World Utility+18.75
Audience Reach Impact+3.00
Technical Innovation+14.40
Evidence Of Traction+5.00
Market Timing Relevance+7.00
Functional Completeness+0.75
Subtotal+48.9
Usefulness Multiplierx1.15
Final Score+56

Project Details

Project URL
Description
NICS Lab is an international leading Security research group headed by Javier Lopez, Full Professor of the Computer Science Department at University of Malaga. NICS is composed of 20 persons, including faculty members, post-docs researchers, top PhD students, and technical and management staff, being distributed on two different locations, the university premises at Andalusian Scientific Park and the Computer Science Department at Campus Teatinos. The research activities of the group started back in 1994, when Prof. Lopez published his first research work on electronic mail security in Local Area Networks, followed by others on probabilistic primality tests for public keys, and public-key directories security based on neural networks. Since then, NICS members have published over 200 publications, among them more than 40 journal publications with impact factor (ISI-ranked). Additionally, NICS members have participated in more than 40 security research projects at international and national level, funded by V, VI and VII European Frameworks Programmes as well as by different Ministries in Spain, Japan, Norway and Singapore. NICS Lab actively participates in international committees and Working Groups in the Security area, as well as in the organization of multiple international conferences and workshops.

Algorithm Insights

Market Position
Growing utility with room for optimization
User Engagement
Documented reach suggests active user community
Technical Stack
Modern tech stack aligned with sponsor technologies

Recommendations to Increase Usefulness Score

Document User Growth

Provide specific metrics on user acquisition and retention rates

Showcase Revenue Model

Detail sustainable monetization strategy and current revenue streams

Expand Evidence Base

Include testimonials, case studies, and third-party validation

Technical Roadmap

Share development milestones and feature completion timeline