iBRIDGE CONVERSATION

Interested in early stage innovation and entrepreneurship? We thought so! The Larta Institute is hosting the 14th Life Sciences Venture Forum on May 30 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

The Venture Forum is the largest - and longest running - showcase of early stage innovation and entrepreneurship. We hear that it is the must-attend event for those seeking access to the best quality deals from around the world. As Larta Institute’s landmark annual investment and partnering event, it is expected to showcase the most promising seed & early stage life science opportunities.

As one of the iBridge Network’s members, we know how robust Larta’s pipeline is, ranging from research funded by the National Institutes of Health to some of the most promising university spinouts from across the US. At the Venture Forum, the companies are carefully selected by a panel of leading investors and subject matter experts to ensure that each presenting company offers a solid and profitable business opportunity.

Sound good? You can receive a 30% discount off the registration fee, until May 16, 2008. Register now at http://theventureforum.com/registration.asp and use coupon code IBVF08 to take advantage of this special offer.

Pat Jones, Director of the University of Arizona Office of Technology Transfer, a charter iBridge Network school, was named the 2007 Technology Transfer Fellow by the University’s McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship. This recognition honors Pat’s work on the economic development of Arizona.

As a fellow, we know that Pat will fulfill his roll as a role models, teacher, and mentor, just as he and the University of Arizona have done for the iBridge Network.

Congrats from the entire iBridge Network community, Pat!

For those interested in learning more about the iBridge Network and how it works, note below our refreshed schedule of upcoming Information Sessions.

These sessions, held via WebEx-based conference calls, each last about one hour. Laura Paglione, iBridge Network director, leads these sessions about iBridge in a fully interactive manner with all attendees.

So here is our schedule of Information Sessions for April through May 2007:

• Friday, April 27, 3:00 PM Central
• Monday, April 30, 10:00 AM Central
• Monday, May 14, 3:00 PM Central
• Thursday, May 31, 10:00 AM Central

Signing up is easy, and we welcome your participation. Just click here and select the Information Session date that works for you. Once you do this, you’ll receive a confirmation email with all of the relevant information and with easy instructions to log into the session.

Any questions, send us an email at info@iBridgeNetwork.org. We look forward to talking with you in the weeks ahead.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison and WARF, as is well known in research and commercialization circles, together continue to be national leaders in developing innovation.

On this front, here’s an interesting piece of personnel news related to Wisconsin and WARF: John Gee, former founder and director of the NASA Ames Technology Commercialization Center, has been named president and CEO of the Information Technology Association of Wisconsin. Gee’s career experience – which along with NASA Ames includes stints as a tech-focused entrepreneur – certainly ought to fit well in helping WARF further accelerate its research-commercialization program.

There’s no doubt the people at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) understand the importance of its research to the marketplace. Jeffrey Wadsworth, the outgoing director of ORNL, honed in on this point in his keynote remarks at the Nano Nexus 2007 conference taking place April 2-4 at ORNL. (Photo: Manu Bhardwaj, iBridge Network Team, and Jeremy Stipkala, at Nano Nexus.)

Wadsworth, who’s ending a four-year term here to take an executive position with Battelle, focused on the lab’s integrated research in nano, bio, and supercomputing. And he emphasized how he and his team are adamant about working to move ORNL’s advances into industry and among entrepreneurs. Over the last five years, ORNL has spun out 74 companies. In addition, roughly $80 million in venture funding has been invested in technology companies in the Oak Ridge/Knoxville region.

The centerpiece of all of this activity is the lab’s work in nano. As a result of the federal government’s commitment over the last several years to fuel research in nano, ORNL has become one of the leading centers for research in this space. And it recently opened its Center for Nanophase Materials Science, which operates as a so-called “national user facility.” That is, the center allows researchers from all over to apply to be selected as users of the facility.

Meanwhile, here at Nano Nexus 2007, fifteen universities are competing today in a graduate student business competition focused on nanotechnology. The six finalists were just announced an hour ago, and they are: Vanderbilt, two teams from Georgia Tech, Louisiana Tech, University of Texas, and Florida State. The overall winner, which pockets a $25,000 prize, will be announced this afternoon.

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.