iBRIDGE CONVERSATION

The iBridge Network is more than pleased to help spread the word about one of the most important awards for innovators in the United States.

The award is the 34th Annual National Inventor of the Year Award to be presented June 11, 2007 by the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation (IPO Foundation).

The IPO Foundation currently is asking for nominations for candidates to win this prestigious award. The deadline to submit nominations is April 20, 2007. So who’s eligible (especially if you’re immediately ready to nominate a colleague or even yourself)? An inventor is eligible, according to the IPO Foundation, if the invention “originated in the U.S.,” is covered by a U.S. patent, and was patented since 2003 or recently commercialized.

And if you’re curious about criteria for judging nominees, they include concept originality, ingenuity in designing the concept, and societal benefit.

For direct and easy-to-read directions on submitting a nomination, visit the IPO Foundation nomination home page. Note that anyone can be nominated and you can nominate yourself (as noted above).

You can read about all of the past awardees on the IPO Foundation site, but the list includes inventors from a cross-section of industries including biomedicine, chemicals, advanced manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals.

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the Designing CyberInfrastructure Conference, at the National Academies in Washington DC.  There I saw how and where the iBridge Network fits into the building of the nation’s cyber infrastructure (CI).

From Peter Freeman, of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to Stuart Feldman of IBM to Brett Frischman of the Loyala School of Law at the University of Chicago to Steve Jackson of the University of Michigan, the support for a strong cyber infrastructure in this country is undeniable. The energy at the conference was exciting and made me think more about how the iBridge Network fits into this CI world.
With the iBridge Network there is now a new gateway for industry and entrepreneurs to engage in conversations about how policy, legal, and usage possibilities affect the CI design and the need to involve all the stakeholders in the design process.  This involvement helps build a stronger, more powerful gateway.

NSF hopes that CI will serve as an agent for broadening participation and strengthening the nation’s workforce in science and engineering. To enable this, NSF’s goal is to provide a CI that is secure, efficient, reliable, accessible, usable, and interoperable that will evolve into an essential part of conducting science and engineering research  The iBridge Network already supports this goal by making technologies and innovations are available for license and use to researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry.

I was amazed to see that the Network is also supporting one of the recommendations of the National Innovation Initiative Report on Intellectual Property. The report discusses the need to facilitate long-term technology transfer relationships between universities and industry, a founding principle of the iBridge Network.  Additionally, the iBridge Network provides unrestricted access through its one-stop shop e-commerce capabilities that allow users to search, browse technologies, contact researchers, and license the technologies, thereby supporting the CI tenant of lowering transaction costs and increasing opportunity for free exchange.

Overall, I couldn’t believe all the synergies between the iBridge Network and the CI that is being built now and into the future. Talk about good timing for the launching of the Network!

We’ve been busy here at the iBridge Network, working with our charter schools to make the site the best it can be and preparing for new universities and organizations to join us!

By joining the iBridge Network, you become part of a culture of sharing and partnership in the world of technology transfer - who wouldn’t want that?

To learn more, attend one of the conference calls and WebEx sessions that we have planned in the next two weeks, don’t worry - they are only 40 minutes long! The dates are:

Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 8:00 AM CST

Thursday, February 22, 2007 at 2:00 PM CST

Monday, February 26, 2007 at 11:00 AM CST

You must register to receive instructions on how to log onto one of these sessions. To register, log onto https://kauffman.webex.com and browse to your selected meeting date. You will be asked to enter your contact information so that registration details can be e-mailed to you. Please feel free to invite others from your organization to attend as well, however, please note that each attendee will need to register separately.

If you can’t make these times, don’t worry - we will be having more in the months to come. Also, please know that, at this time, we can only accept applications from non-profit organizations.

The bottom line — we work with you to make the process of sharing and distributing research easier and ensure it reaches a broad audience.

Go ahead, register…it’s easy! https://kauffman.webex.com