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Enterprise Innovation Institute to Host Spanish Technology Entrepreneurs for Training Series

Georgia Tech Administration and Finance Vice President Kelly Fox (left) and Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology Director General Javier Ponce Martinez sign a letter of intent to create a training program for Spanish technology entrepreneurs. (Photo: Matt Hummel)

In the fall of 2022, Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute will host 20 technology startup founders from the Kingdom of Spain in a training program designed to expose Spanish entrepreneurs to the startup ecosystem in metro Atlanta, Georgia, and the broader United States.

The initiative stems from a collaborative effort between the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Innovation Ecosystems program and Spain’s Centre Para El Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology) to develop the training program for Spanish entrepreneurs.

As a part of Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation, the government office charged with fostering technological development and innovation of Spanish companies, the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology coordinates the funding and support applications for those startups’ national and international research and development projects. The Centre also manages, including managing Spanish companies’ participation in international technological cooperation programs.

Innovation Ecosystems works with communities, governments, and organizations to help them launch, operate, and sustain successful entrepreneurship and innovation programs.

From left: Georgia Tech Innovation Ecosystems Interim Director Juli Golemi; Kelly Fox; Javier Ponce Martinez; Enterprise Innovation Institute Vice President David Bridges; Centre Technical Innovation Director Carlos de la Cruz Molina; Economic Development Lab Interim Director Lynne Henkiel; and ATDC Director John Avery. (Photo: Matt Hummel)

The early-stage startup founders, who are tentatively scheduled to come to campus for a week in September, would participate in a series of workshops being led by some of the Institute’s flagship ecosystem development programs, including the Advanced Technology Development Center, VentureLab, and the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business.

Centre leaders — Director General Javier Ponce Martinez and Director of Technical Innovation Carlos de la Cruz Molina — visited the Georgia Tech campus to sign an agreement that establishes a framework for the training and curriculum, which includes an overview of the Georgia ecosystem, lean startup methodology, and innovating for sustainability.

“This is an opportunity to get together to collaborate together towards the future,” Martinez said during the signing ceremony. “The future looking at sustainability issues, industrial, and social activities. This is the starting point, and a great starting point.”

The organization has collaborations with other countries, but this is its first such effort in the United States.

The Enterprise Innovation Institute — Georgia Tech’s economic development arm — is the largest, most comprehensive, university-based program of entrepreneurship and startup company development, business and industry growth, ecosystem development, international outreach in the United States. As a globally recognized model of university-based economic development, the Enterprise Innovation Institute has hosted a number of international delegations in recent years looking to engage with Georgia Tech and its programs, including from the Bahamas, the United Kingdom, France, Argentina, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and South Africa.

“We are celebrating connecting globally and inclusive innovation and this agreement is at the heart of a space that is very important to the Institute,” said Georgia Tech Administration and Finance Vice President Kelly Fox, who signed the agreement on behalf of the Institute. “We’re honored that you are working with us, and we look forward to seeing how this grows from there.”

I-Corps South trains Irish researchers in entrepreneurship workshop

I-Corps South Program Manager Melissa Heffner leads a customer discovery workshop with a group of Irish researchers and entrepreneurs. (Photo by: Sara Henderson)

I-Corps South program team members recently traveled to the Republic of Ireland as part of a two-day training curriculum to prepare 24 Irish teams for a year-long program focused on supporting ideas and technologies that address societal challenges.

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) invited the I-Corps South team to Dublin to explain how to develop a mission model and how to engage in meaningful and objective customer discovery. It’s the second consecutive year that SFI has invited the I-Corps South staff to lead this workshop.

A program of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech’s economic development arm, I-Corps South is a node of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Innovation Corps initiative.

The NSF’s I-Corps program — a boot camp that shows what it’s like to form a startup — helps NSF-funded researchers learn how to commercialize their findings and determine if a market actually exists for what they developed.

I-Corps South provides evidence-based entrepreneurship education and support to commercialize startups, as well as training, resources, and an active network to regional research universities across the Southeast and the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico.

“SFI is currently working to build out its evidenced-based entrepreneurship programming,” said Sara Henderson, I-Corps South program designer. “They are basing their programs on the lean startup methodology and sought out our team to help them train their teams, given our experience in teaching the methodology to students and faculty across the Southeast and at NSF I-Corps Teams Cohorts.”

I-Corps South Executive Director Keith McGreggor explains the loss aversion bias theory and how it applies to entrepreneurs. (Photo by: Sara Henderson)

The I-Corps South team — Executive Director Keith McGreggor, Program Manager Melissa Heffner, and Henderson — worked with the Irish teams, which were all focused on various aspects of artificial intelligence (AI) or zero emissions for societal good.

Among some of the project ideas:

AI for fetal wellbeing
Non-surgical treatment for lung cancer using AI
Creating a carbon-neutral resilient dairy farm
Hybrid bio-solar reactors for wastewater treatment and carbon dioxide recycling

“It was a great experience and the teams were all focused on projects that have potential to effect positive societal change,” Henderson said.

In addition to the Mission Model Canvas and stakeholder discovery training they received from I-Corps South, the Irish teams also received coaching on the Theory of Change from Social Innovation Fund Ireland.

Sara Henderson, I-Corps South program designer, discusses the service blueprint methodology, a model for using operational efficiency to diagnose problems. (Photo by: Melissa Heffner)

“Several of the teams will be filtered out at the end of March after the first phase of the program, which is focused on them conducting rapid stakeholder and beneficiary research,” Henderson said. “The remaining teams will advance to the next phase and will support their projects with additional research and work on their solutions through the end of 2020.”

SFI and NSF have an agreement in place allowing SFI to send teams to the I-Corps Teams program.

In the last couple of years, SFI has leveraged Georgia Tech for I-Corps training for their teams and Tech has led similar sessions for the Centers for Disease Control. The government of Mexico in 2018, through its National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT), sent more than a dozen university-based instructors to Tech to learn the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and how to build and maintain such programs at their schools.

VentureLab works to commercialize liquid cooling system technology developed at Georgia Tech

Daniel Lorenzini prepares to test a microchip as part of his liquid cooling system technology he developed at Georgia Tech. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul) — Daniel Lorenzini prepares to test a microchip as part of the liquid cooling system technology he developed at Georgia Tech. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

In the online world of computer gaming, overclocking is a common practice by which hyper-competitive gamers look to push as much processing power as possible for the slightest advantage and edge to win and enjoy the games they play.

Running these gaming systems’ graphics or central processing units at rates faster than they were designed for allows for higher performance, including rendering at higher frames per second with higher resolutions and texture details. But it also creates a lot more heat and that requires more cooling and care of those key microlectronic components.

But Daniel Lorenzini has developed a liquid cooling system — on a micro scale — that allows for the microchips to be overclocked, or perform more operations per second, but at cooler temperatures than commercial thermal control hardware.

Yogendra Joshi (left) and Daniel Lorenzini stand in Joshi's lab heat transfer, combustion and energy systems lab in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul) — Yogendra Joshi (left) and Daniel Lorenzini stand in Joshi’s heat transfer, combustion, and energy systems lab in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

Lorenzini developed and refined the technology in the lab of Yogendra Joshi at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

Under conventional liquid cooling methods, microchips are cooled by passing coolant liquids through a block over the chips’ casings, which include a metal lid called an integrated heat spreader (IHS) and a thermal interface material (TIM), which is a gel-like substance. Those components lead to heat resistance and therefore limit the system performance due to thermal throttling.

But the liquid cooling system designed by Lorenzini, who is slated to receive his doctorate in mechanical engineering from Tech on May 3, 2019, allows for microchips to be cooled directly.

“I’ve been looking at more direct or microfluidic cooling to the chips and by doing this, we are able to remove more heat,” he said.

“It’s much more efficient and allows us to remove up to five times the power than that of conventional technologies,” Lorenzini added, “because you can increase the voltage to the processors so it’s faster and stable, while running at a higher frequencies.”

Daniel Lorenzini (left), founder of EMCOOL, shows Jonathan Goldman, a principal in Georgia Tech's VentureLab program, his entrepreneurship award he received from the Mexican government for his work in co-founding a startup in that country. (Péralte C. Paul) — Daniel Lorenzini (left), founder of EMCOOL, shows Jonathan Goldman, a principal in Georgia Tech’s VentureLab program, the entrepreneurship award he received from the Mexican government for his work in co-founding a startup in that country. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

With the help of VentureLab, the Georgia Tech program that works with Institute faculty and students to commercialize their research, Lorenzini is forming EMCOOL, as the company being organized around the technology will be called.

The breakthrough could be a significant one for the gaming industry, the first sector Lorenzini identified as being ready-made for his micro cooling system.

But it has potential for other industries, said Jonathan Goldman, a VentureLab principal, whoevaluates Tech-derived intellectual property and research for viability as commercialized and fundable technology startups.

“What he’s done is a disruptive improvement to the challenge of cooling these chips,” Goldman said, adding the technology has use in other high-performance computing applications such as data science, media, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail.

Through VentureLab and his work with Goldman, Lorenzini was able to secure a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) in 2018 and the EMCOOL team participated in a six-week customer discovery boot camp to further define customer segments.

That was followed by another $50,000 grant — with VentureLab’s assistance — from the Georgia Research Alliance for prototype development.

Daniel Lorenzini (left) poses for photos with former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2018 after being awarded the Entrepreneurial Ingenuity Award from the Mexican government. (Special)

And in the first quarter of 2019, Lorenzini raised $100,000 in an angel round from investors in his native Mexico. Those funds will be received once EMCOOL is formally incorporated, which is expected in June.

The Mexican government awarded Lorenzini with its Entrepreneurial Ingenuity Award in 2018 for his work as co-founder of Cooling Tree Systems, one of the first companies in Latin America to commercialize liquid cooling systems when such approaches began to replace air cooling solutions in the market.

EMCOOL, which already has a provisional patent on the technology Lorenzini developed at Georgia Tech, expects to formally incorporate in May.

“We’re guiding them through this process and getting them getting them ready to incorporate and assemble and sell their first systems,” Goldman said. “We expect to have those commercially available by this fall.”

Georgia Tech works with Irish researchers on innovation methodologies

Melissa Heffner, I-Corps South program manager, leads a discussion on evidence-based entrepreneurship at the Science Foundation Ireland in Dublin. (Photo: Keith McGreggor)

Wanting to tap into the Georgia Institute of Technology’s expertise in innovation and commercialization processes and methodology, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) recently hosted two lead managers of Tech’s I-Corps program lead managers in Dublin to train a group of research teams developing technologies with a focus on societal impact.

SFI invited Keith McGreggor and Melissa Heffner to lead the Jan. 29 workshop series as part of the organization’s Future Innovator Prize project, which is aimed at supporting the development of disruptive ideas and technologies to address societal challenges.

The 12 teams were focused on various projects ranging from biomedical devices to diagnostics and all had ideas for a product that could address a particular challenge or process that could be improved.

“We were invited to come over to because of our experience as a leading institution in teaching the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program,” Heffner said. “They wanted us to explain and discuss how to develop a business model and how we do customer discovery and how that process is critical to objectively seeing what kind of societal impact these SFI teams could have with their projects and research theses.”

“Our work in Ireland was focused on preparing these team to have the conversations and interviews with potential customers to determine if the problem they feel exists actually does and how they can solve that challenge,” Heffner said.

“Identifying what you think is a problem is only one part of the equation. But researchers need to go out and talk to potential customers and users to understand if what they see as a challenge truly exists the way they think it does and how their proposed solutions should ultimately be designed to provide the greatest degree of societal impact.”

Heffner worked on a similar project with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2016.

Georgia Tech — through its VentureLab incubator program — is an I-Corps node and teaches entrepreneurship, and research and innovation methodologies.

VentureLab is Tech’s technology commercialization incubator that primarily serves Tech faculty, staff, and students who seek to launch startup companies from the technology innovations they have developed.

McGreggor serves as VentureLab’s director and is executive director of I-Corps South, whichincludes Tech, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business.

In the last several years, SFI has sent a few teams to Tech for I-Corps training and Tech has led similar sessions for the Centers for Disease Control. The government of Mexico in 2018, through its National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT), sent more than a dozen university-based instructors to Tech to learn the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and how to build and maintain such programs at their schools.

The effort in Ireland underscores the Institute’s international reputation for commercialization expertise and supports its efforts to further its reach in Europe, McGreggor said.

“We want to leverage our presence in Europe with our Georgia Tech Lorraine campus in Metz, France, to do more entrepreneurship education across the continent,” McGreggor said. “Our work in Ireland and our relationship with SFI is a good example of our global impact and reach in our I-Corps programming and our evidence-based entrepreneurship. They want to work with us because of our strength in it.”

Georgia Tech marks startup expansion milestone with visit from Lt. Governor Casey Cagle

Chris Downing (left), vice president of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, shows a new suite of offices to (from left) ATDC Assistant Director Jane McCracken, Ga. Lt. Governor Casey Cagle, and Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. The office expansion is designed to meet growing service needs of Tech’s startup programs, ATDC, VentureLab, and CREATE-X. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

In a 2016 visit to the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Georgia Lt. Governor Casey Cagle challenged the state’s tech startup incubator to double the number of resident startups it served in Atlanta and the rest of the state.

Two years later, ATDC — a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology — not only met the challenge, but has exceeded initial expectations, with more than 180 companies now in its Signature and Accelerate portfolios across the state.

The growth has led to an expansion of ATDC’s offices in Technology Square to accommodate that demand. The creation of new suites at ATDC’s second floor offices in the Centergy Building — and expansion onto the third floor — allows for the incubator to house an additional 25 resident startups.

Cagle was on the Tech campus in a May 8 reception to mark the milestone, visit with some ATDC startup company CEOs, get an update on the Engage venture fund and growth accelerator, and to learn more about the innovation ecosystem that also includes the Institute’s VentureLab, CREATE-X, and Flashpoint programs.

His visit was part of a weeklong series of events taking place during Tech Square Innovation Week, which celebrated Tech Square as a hub of ideation.

Ga. Lt. Governor Casey Cagle, during a visit to Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Develpment Center, discusses how technology startup entrepreneurship programs such as ATDC and VentureLab incubators are to giving new economic development opportunities to communities across Georgia. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

“Entrepreneurship is critically important to what the new economy is going to look like,” Cagle said during his visit. “I am thrilled to be with you here today and I can’t tell you how proud I am of each and every single person here. We’re just getting started and we’re going to take Georgia to even higher levels than we ever imagined, and you are the very reason for that.”

The expansion underscores the explosion of demand for ATDC’s services not only in Atlanta, but across the state, including Athens, Augusta, and Savannah.

“We were able to meet that demand in part because we received an increase in state funding — thanks to Lt. Governor Cagle’s leadership — that allowed us to increase our services and statewide reach,” said Chris Downing, vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Tech’s economic development arm whose programs include ATDC.

In 2017, ATDC’s portfolio companies raised $130 million in investment capital and in the in the first quarter of 2018, they attracted more than $33 million in investment dollars to the state.

Jane McCracken, ATDC’s assistant director, explains how the incubator’s portfolio companies raised $130 million in investment dollars in 2017 and about $33 million in the first quarter of 2018. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

“All of the ATDC’s work — the coaching, connections and community building — further establishes Georgia’s reputation a leading place for entrepreneurs and technology companies to flourish,” said Jane McCracken, ATDC’s assistant director. “That means jobs, additional funding and increased revenues, which benefit all of Georgia’s citizens.”

Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, who welcomed Cagle to campus, said ATDC’s success is just one of the many successful components in the Institute’s technology startup support.

Other programs include CREATE-X, a faculty-led initiative that helps students pursue entrepreneurial opportunities.

VentureLab collaborates with Institute faculty and students to create startups based on Tech research. Flashpoint is a startup accelerator, and Engage is an independent, early-stage venture fund and growth program.

The additional office spaces will allow for greater collaboration and partnership between ATDC, VentureLab and CREATE-X.

Keith McGreggor (left), director of Georgia Tech’s VentureLab program, gives Ga. Lt. Governor Casey Cagle an overview of the incubator and explains how its companies raised $125 million in investment dollars in 2017. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

“This success all around Tech Square has been possible largely due to state support, and the lieutenant governor’s vision for fostering innovation in the state,” Peterson said.

“Thanks to increased state funding to ATDC and establishment of the Invest Georgia fund, we can continue to foster home-grown innovation. We are dedicated to helping keep these entrepreneurs in Georgia.”

I-Corps South offers eight $25K Small Business Innovation Research Phase Zero Grants to technology startup teams

Travel grants available to startup teams with a strong technology component and based in one of 10 U.S. states in the Southeast or Puerto Rico.

Keith McGreggor, VentureLab, I-Corps South — Keith McGreggor, director of VentureLab and I-Corps South’s executive director, presents to a group of 27 National Science Foundation I-Corps teams as part of a class held on the Georgia Tech campus July 9, 2012. (Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek)

The Georgia Institute of Technology’s I-Corps South and VentureLab programs are launching a new commercialization program that will provide $25,000 travel grants to technology startups.

The program, enabled by a National Science Foundation (NSF) $350,000 supplemental award, will create a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase Zero pilot workshop to help university and community-based teams commercialize their technology into startup companies.

The funds will cover startup teams’ travel to the Phase Zero pilot workshop and a national NSF I-Corps cohort. Those funds also will cover travel related to the teams’ customer discovery efforts.

VentureLab will manage the travel funds as part of its NSF I-Corps South grant. To be eligible, teams must come from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, or the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico.

VentureLab is Georgia Tech’s technology incubator and works with university faculty, staff, and students to evaluate their research and help them create startups based on those findings. I-Corps South strives to accelerate the development of the South’s entrepreneurial ecosystems.

I-Corps South builds upon the foundation provided by Georgia Tech’s role as one of the initial three I-Corps Nodes. It is a collaborative effort that includes Georgia Tech, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business.

“We’ve been asked by the NSF to develop the Phase Zero pilot workshop to address two primary concerns: first, the recruitment of non-university teams for a national I-Corps cohort and, also, the continued development of teams after their attendance at an I-Corps national cohort,” said Keith McGreggor, director of VentureLab and I-Corps South’s executive director. “We will accept applications from teams across the Southeast, and anticipate sending 8 to 10 teams through the pilot workshop.”

About VentureLab:

Created in 2001 and ranked as the No. 5 university startup incubator in North America, VentureLab is the Georgia Institute of Technology’s commercialization group that collaborates with faculty, researchers, and students to create startups based on Tech research. Using evidence-based entrepreneurship, VentureLab (housed within the Enterprise Innovation Institute — Georgia Tech’s economic development arm) has supported the launch of more than 300 startups. Combined, those startups have raised more than $1.5 billion in investments. For more information, visit venturelab.gatech.edu.

About I-Corps South:

The I-Corps South node is a partnership of the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama in Birmingham, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business. Through this collaboration, the node has the potential to reach more than 500,000 graduate and undergraduate students, and many thousands of the nation’s research faculty at research universities and historically black colleges and universities across the Southeast and the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico. To entrepreneurs, I-Corps South seeks to provide consistent instruction on the principles of evidence-based entrepreneurship in the style of I-Corps. Instruction is direct and challenging, keeping in mind the goal of holding entrepreneurs accountable to know their customers. To universities, the node seeks to provide the tools, support, and resources required to launch and maintain high-quality evidence-based entrepreneurship programs across the southeast. For more information, visit icorpssouth.com.

National Science Foundation awards Georgia Institute of Technology $500,000 grant to further Institute’s commercialization efforts

Funding to support I-Corps Sites teams formed from Georgia Tech research.

Paul Freet is VentureLab’s NSF I-Corps instructor.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has named the Georgia Institute of Technology an Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Site — and awarded it a $500,000 grant to help Institute-based research teams identify and interview target customer audiences.

The grant, spread over five years, will be managed by Tech’s VentureLab program. VentureLab is Georgia Tech’s incubator that works with Institute faculty, staff, and students to evaluate their research and help them create startups based on those findings.

I-Corps Sites enable academic institutions to catalyze teams whose technology concepts are likely candidates for commercialization. It also provides infrastructure, advice, resources, networking opportunities, training, and funding to help researchers move from idea to commercialization.

At Georgia Tech, the I-Corps Sites grant will support up to 150 research teams — comprised of Institute students, faculty, researchers, or staff — in their efforts to meet with and interview potential customers, said Paul Freet, VentureLab’s NSF I-Corps instructor.

“A key part of the commercialization process is learning from customers— what I-Corps calls customer discovery,” Freet said. “We ask our research teams to search for evidence of product-market-fit and learn if there is a market for the commercialization of their research.”

All I-Corps Sites teams are expected to conduct 20 customer interviews. To help teams accomplish that goal, Georgia Tech teams accepted into the program will be reimbursed with up to $3,000 for travel to visit customers or attend trade shows.

Teams that complete the I-Corps Sites program also will have access to follow-on $50,000 I-Corps Team grants. To date, Georgia Tech researchers have received more than 50 I-Corps Team grants.

“The I-Corps program has been instrumental in helping launch a startup based on my research into advanced materials,” said Krista Walton, professor and Robert “Bud” Moeller Faculty Fellow in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. “Early feedback from potential customers was critical in setting the direction of our startup. The I-Corps Sites grant will help get more researchers out of the lab and in front of customers.”

About VentureLab:

Created in 2001 and ranked as the No. 2 university startup incubator in the world, VentureLab is the Georgia Institute of Technology’s incubator whose mission is to collaborate with faculty, staff, and students to create startups based on Tech research. Using evidence-based entrepreneurship, VentureLab —a program of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Tech’s chief economic development arm — has supported the launch of more than 300 startups. Combined, those startups have raised more than $1.5 billion in investments. For more information, visit venturelab.gatech.edu.

Tech students to present cybersecurity research for commercialization on April 13

Georgia Tech students will present their best cybersecurity research before a panel of venture capitalists and business leaders for a chance to win cash in the “Demo Day Finale” on April 13 at the Klaus Advanced Computing Building, KACB #1116 E-W, 266 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, Ga. 30332. (RSVP here: http://cyber.gatech.edu/demo-day ).

Five student teams representing the School of Computer Science and School of Electrical Computing and Engineering are polishing their presentations now to deliver TED-style talks before business leaders with tech investment experience in the southeastern Untied States, Europe, and Middle East. Research with the best chance of commercialization or demonstrating the most impact toward resolving an industry need receives a cash prize – up to $7,000.

Demo Day Finale judges include Georgia Tech commercialization catalysts Jeff Garbers and Harold Solomon of VentureLab, and Thiago Olson of the Advanced Technology Development Center.

Work to be presented includes new cryptographic search methods, a malware detection method for IoT or embedded devices, protections for industrial control systems, spectral profiling for catching malware activity, and a model for software engineering policy requirements.

Musheer Ahmed, (left) founder of FraudScope, which won the 2016 Demo Day Finale.

For last year’s inaugural winner – Musheer Ahmed – the event was a springboard to successfully launch FraudScope, a healthcare fraud detection system based upon algorithms he developed as a Ph.D. student.

After winning Demo Day Finale, Ahmed went on to collect more than $400,000 in seed funding in less than three months. He won the Atlanta Start-up Battle, the Technology Association of Georgia’s Biz Launch Competition, and more. The quick success allowed him to invest in a better user interface design, hire staff, and begin marketing his product at health and technology industry tradeshows.

The Demo Day Finale is hosted by the Institute for Information Security & Privacy (IISP) and aims to give students an early introduction to potential investors as they continue their research or if they are ready to move it to market.

“During the course of research, it can be difficult for entrepreneurial students to know how industry may react to a finished project,” said Wenke Lee, co-director of the IISP and a professor in the School of Computer Science who has successfully transferred research to private corporations. “The Demo Day Finale lets students share ideas underway to active investors so they can receive early stage feedback that will inform research directions, the future application of it, or market considerations. This is one way we think the Institute for Information Security & Privacy can help move solutions to market that will improve the security or privacy of our identities, data, and devices.”

While Ahmed was eager to launch his business as soon as possible, ID for Web, last year’s second place winners, used the experience to get an early “gut” reaction from business investors as they try to create a more secure form of identity validation online. ID for Web’s Demo Day presentation led to an invitation from startup accelerator “CyberLaunch,” where they spent summer 2016 discovering the best application of their technology by talking to both potential customers and potential investors.

“The summer at CyberLaunch put us in touch with business leaders from many different industries, and got us a lot of validation to the relevance of our technology; everybody agrees the current authentication mechanisms are a huge pain to both users and service providers,” said postdoctoral researcher Simon Chung. “Their eyes light up when we say we’re trying to get rid of passwords. Also, since our technology can be used to solve many real-world problems, this process helped us find the best use of our technology and focus on developing our first end-to-end prototype system.”

Judges on April 13 will include investors Jeff Garbers and Harold Solomon of Venture Lab, and Thiago Olson of ATDC.

National Science Foundation Awards Georgia Institute of Technology’s VentureLab a 5-year I-Corps Grant

Node2-1 By Péralte C. Paul

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $3.4 million Innovation Corps (I-Corps) grant to the Georgia Institute of Technology’s VentureLab program to expand its work in teaching entrepreneurship, support research and innovation.

“I-Corps nodes support the national innovation ecosystem and help some of America’s brightest researchers test the commercial potential of their discoveries,” Grace Wang, acting assistant director for the NSF Directorate for Engineering, said in a statement. “We are thrilled to support these regional innovation hotbeds, which will help to foster local economic development and expand access to more researchers of all different backgrounds who seek entrepreneurship training.”

The grant, one of five the NSF awarded to schools across the country, supports innovation hubs called I-Corps nodes.

This new NSF grant expands Georgia Tech’s efforts and creates the I-Corps South Node, which includes Tech, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Haslam College of Business.

Because of its long experience with forming companies from university research, Georgia Tech — through its VentureLab incubator — was selected in 2012 to be among the first institutions to become “nodes” teaching the I-Corps curriculum. VentureLab is Georgia Tech’s technology commercialization incubator that primarily serves Tech faculty, staff, and students who seek to launch startup companies from the technology innovations they have developed.

“This effort underscores Georgia Tech’s economic development mission and commitment to creating the next generation of entrepreneurial problem solvers,” said Chris Downing, who is the I-Corps South Node’s principal investigator and vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2), Tech’s chief economic development and extension outreach arm. “Through our collective service efforts to entrepreneurs, business, researchers, and innovators, Georgia Tech and our partner schools in Alabama and Tennessee are working together to design a foundation of regional innovation in the Southeast.”

Specifically, the I-Corps South Node aims to:

Accelerate the development of the South’s entrepreneurial ecosystems
Provide for increased partnership opportunities between academia and industry
Focus on underrepresented minorities through programs at historically black colleges and universities and in Puerto Rico to increase the participation of individuals from those communities in research pursuits and entrepreneurship

“We are extremely excited to partner with these three premier schools to collectively leverage our extensive industry relationships, partnerships, mentors, and funding connections to bring economic development through startup formation, workforce development, and entrepreneurial education,” said Keith McGreggor, VentureLab director and I-Corps South Node co-principal investigator and executive director.

“Through this partnership, the I-Corps South Node has the potential to reach more than 500,000 graduate and undergraduate students, and many thousands of the nation’s research faculty at research universities and historically black colleges and universities across the Southeast and the island of Puerto Rico.”

NSF created the I-Corps program in 2011 and since then, more than 800 teams have completed the NSF curriculum, from 192 universities in 44 states. That’s resulted in the creation of more than 320 companies that have collectively raised more than $83 million in follow-on funding.

At Georgia Tech, more than 40 teams have finished the I-Corps program, leading to the creation of more than 20 spinouts that have collectively raised more than $4.5 million in follow-up funding.

About VentureLab:

VentureLab — ranked as North America’s No. 5 university-based startup incubator — is Georgia Tech’s technology commercialization program that provides comprehensive assistance to faculty, staff, and students who want to form startups. VentureLab helps those entrepreneurs turn their ideas into early-stage companies through business model development, making connections between the innovators and seasoned entrepreneurs, locating sources of early-stage financing, and preparing these fledgling startups for the business world. Since its 2001 founding, VentureLab — a program of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech’s chief economic development arm — has launched more than 250 technology companies that have attracted more than $1.5 billion in outside funding. Visit venturelab.gatech.edu for more information. For additional information about I-Corps South, visit icorpssouth.com.

About NSF I-Corps:

The NSF I-Corps program, a public-private partnership program established in 2011, connects NSF-funded scientific research with the technological, entrepreneurial, and business communities to help create a stronger national ecosystem for innovation that couples scientific discovery with technology development and societal needs. Visit www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/i-corps/ for more information.

VentureLab nanotechnology startup wins TechConnect Innovation Award on technology developed at Georgia Tech

Jeffrey Whalen, co-founder of FullScaleNANO, accepting the TechConnect Innovation Award at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference & Expo May 22-25 in Washington, D.C. Chin-Hui Lee, co-founder and a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. — Jeffrey Whalen, co-founder of FullScaleNANO, accepting the TechConnect Innovation Award at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference & Expo May 22-25 in Washington, D.C.

FullScaleNANO, an early-stage company that automates nanomaterial imaging and measurement and a VentureLab portfolio startup, received the TechConnect Innovation Award at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference & Expo May 22-25 in Washington, D.C.

NanoMet’s technology was developed at Georgia Tech by Chin-Hui Lee, co-founder and a professor in Georgia Techn’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The company also joined VentureLab, the incubator at Georgia Tech for startups created by faculty, students, and staff. VentureLab works with those startups to help them commercialize research into viable companies.

“We created the algorithms that allow us to process thousands of images, faster and with better overall reliability,” Lee said. “This is a new frontier in science that we hope will lead to faster and more cost-effective innovation for industry.”

The company is headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida, but its software development team hub is in Atlanta.

The TechConnect Innovation Awards identify the top 15 percent of submitted technologies. Innovation rankings are based on the potential positive impact of the technology on a specific industry sector. Submissions come from global academic technology transfer offices, early-stage companies, small business innovative research awardees, and government and corporate research laboratories.

Chin-Hui Lee, co-founder of FullScaleNANO, is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

FullScaleNANO won for its NanoMet automated nanomaterials software that measures and characterizes thousands of nanomaterials in seconds.

“We are honored to receive this award that recognizes our innovative approach to measuring and characterizing nanomaterials, essential particles that are used in today’s product innovations, from medicine to manufacturing,” said Jeffrey Whalen, CEO and co-founder.

Nanomaterials are tiny particles that can’t be seen with the naked eye. The only way they can be viewed is by taking pictures with an electron microscope that contains a built-in camera. Measuring and characterizing these images is a slow, manual process — done one by one using a ruler — that takes hours, Whalen said.

NanoMet speeds up the task, using an automated system that processes images in seconds, takes thousands of measurements and provides objective quality assurance, enabling a shorter time to market. NanoMet “sees” every individual pixel in an electron microscope image to properly identify the exact edges of nanomaterials, providing a repeatable process that saves time and money.

Nanomaterials are used or being evaluated in a variety of products from batteries to shampoos and in a number of industries from food and medicine to electronics and the environment.

In medicine alone, applications being developed for nanoparticles include delivery of chemotherapy drugs directly to cancer tumors, resetting the immune system to prevent autoimmune diseases, and delivering drugs to damaged regions of arteries to fight cardiovascular disease. Other industry uses include producing hydrogen from water, reducing the cost of producing fuel cells and solar cells, and cleaning up oil spills, water pollution, and air pollution.