The Chronicle of Higher Education says the iBridge Network “…lets institutions share information about inventions and research tools developed by their faculty members.” We are seeing many of our members and meeting new universities as well as industry representatives. With this story, The Latest Online Match: Companies Can Hook Up With Universities on Tech Transfer, written by Goldie Blumenstyk, notes that the iBridge Network is “…a way for industry to learn about the work of academics that might be of commercial interest.”

Know people who would be interested in learning more about the iBridge Network on the university or industry side? Forward the article on to them as well!

It is our second anniversary since we relaunched the site in 2007 at the DEMO conference. To celebrate we have redone our site to reflect the input that we have received from our members and other users. Some of the changes include.

• Great university profiles which include the expertise, innovations and people connected to the organization – check out our profile to see an example!
• New member profiles that help you to make connections with researchers and others in the Network’s innovation community – you can see my member profile to see an example!
• An enhanced search/browse interface that helps you to quickly see what interests you, see the universities that offer innovations that are of interest, and filter down your result to include just the connections that you want.
• Automatic notifications through our iBNewsfeed interface Any time that you see a search, organization or innovation that interests you – click on the “Follow” link near the top of the page to be automatically notified with direct links to new things that are similar.

We announced our new re-design at the 2009 annual conference. You can see our latest press release about it on PRNewswire.

Recently AUTM released numbers that are no guarantee, but seem to lead to the conclusion that TTOs will continue to do well in spite of the recession. As Abi Barrow, director of MATTO (an iBridge member), points out in The Journal of New England Technology, we must wait and see. The President’s stimulus package may make an impact, particularly in the areas of life sciences and cleantech.One thing that can help universities is marketing of the technologies that they have, making it easier for third-parties to find what they are looking for…something the iBridge Network has, and continues, to emphasize!

We are so excited to be working with Ben Franklin Technology Partners who is sponsoring seven research universities to use the iBridge Network to find collaboration partners, and to distribute and license items including software, research tools, databases, teaching materials, and patent-protected technologies. While several of the universities are all just getting started on the Network, the seven universities (with links to their profile pages) include:

• Drexel University
• Duquesne Unviersity
• Lehigh University
• Northeast Pennsylvania Technology Institute
• Pennsylvania State University
• Temple University
• University of Pennsylvania

Be sure to check back to see the new things that they have posted, or simply “follow” these universities on the iBridge Network with the iBNewsfeed to get personalized e-mails when these universities have posted new information.

To follow the universities simply click the iBNewsfeed link on any of their pages. The link looks like this:

To learn more about this relationship, be sure to check out our recent press release on the subject!