More than 125 years after its founding, Georgia Tech continues to break new ground in providing innovative assistance to businesses and entrepreneurs. As one of the top ten patent-producing universities in the country, Georgia Tech is positioned to become the nation’s “Innovation Institute,” largely through Tech’s significant and ongoing efforts to accelerate its future economic and innovation impacts via developing more entrepreneurial talent, increasing university-industry connections, and improving venture capital funding in Georgia. This vision is bolstered by the Institute’s extensive and highly regarded portfolio of commercialization, research, and policy expertise.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently recognized Georgia Tech’s longstanding leadership role in commercializing new technologies by naming the Institute a Regional Center for its Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program. I-Corps is designed to bring together the technological, entrepreneurial, and business know-how to quickly bring discoveries ripe for innovation out of the university lab and into the marketplace.
“Being designated as an I-Corps Regional Center is very exciting and potentially transformational for Georgia Tech and Atlanta,” said President G. P. “Bud” Peterson. “While the knowledge gained from basic research will always be critical to the advancement of particular disciplines, some of those results also show immediate potential for broader applications and impact in the business world. The I-Corps support will help Georgia Tech researchers and entrepreneurs translate those results into technologies with near-term benefits for the economy and society.”
Georgia Tech researchers have devised an electronic glove to rehabilitate patients who suffer from paralyzing spinal cord injuries while also teaching them to tickle the ivories. Dubbed Mobile Music Touch, the mitt is paired with a keyboard and cues individual fingers with vibrations to play notes.
A collaboration among Georgia Tech, the Georgia Department of Economic Development, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber proved to be a key factor in the decision by Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America to establish a new research center in Technology Square.
The Panasonic Innovation Center is an incubator for next-generation automotive infotainment and other technologies. The company expects to have forty software, electrical, systems, and mechanical engineers and other support personnel working at the center—and to offer at least fifteen co-op positions a year to Georgia Tech students. Specialists from Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute helped identify Georgia Tech resources of interest to Panasonic and connect the company to Georgia Tech leadership.
Panasonic Automotive considered three sites in Midtown, ultimately selecting the Centergy One office building at Georgia Tech—a powerhouse of technological talent and research. Georgia Tech is one of the nation’s largest advanced sciences and technology research universities, said Stephen Childs, director of human resources at Peachtree City-based Panasonic Automotive Systems, a division of Panasonic Corporation of North America.
“The No. 1 reason to locate in Midtown Atlanta is to attract and hire the top engineering talent in one of the fastest-growing technology areas of the nation,” Childs said. “We will perform a lot of design verification testing and would love to leverage the co-op students to perform much of that, and at the same time provide them with some valuable knowledge and experience. Those students could also serve as a feeder pool for future employees.” ■
Several months prior to the I-Corps Regional Center designation, NSF announced that Georgia Tech was one of twenty-one teams in the inaugural class of I-Corps awards. The selection includes $50,000 in funding to help develop scientific and engineering discoveries into useful technologies, processes, and products. Beth Mynatt, executive director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and a professor in the College of Computing, is the principal investigator for the I-Corps initiative.
Augmenting the work of I-Corps, Georgia Tech Integrated Programs for Startups (GT:IPS) is helping to jump-start the process of creating startup companies. GT:IPS provides the training and support that Georgia Tech entrepreneurs need to launch companies based on Tech intellectual property.
In order to “graduate” from the program, inventors present Tech’s Office of Innovation Commercialization and Translational Research with a vetted business plan, approved management plan (if required), detailed management team, conflict of interest declaration, and a list of potential funding sources. After graduation, the company can enter into an express licensing agreement that requires no negotiation, drastically reducing the time it takes to finalize a deal.
The GT:IPS license is only available to Georgia Tech faculty, staff, and student entrepreneurs and is completely optional.
Additionally, Georgia Tech is pursuing other opportunities with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies.
A startup company based on technology developed at Georgia Tech, Pindrop Security, offers a solution to the growing challenge of telephone security. For major financial services companies, being sure that an incoming phone call is really from a customer and not an overseas criminal intent on fraud is a growing concern as the telephone system adopts Internet technologies—and the security issues that come with them.
Using “acoustic fingerprint” detection techniques developed in the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, Pindrop says it can restore trust to the telephone network and help stem the tide of phone fraud.
Supported by a broad range of Georgia Tech initiatives, Pindrop was chosen as a top ten “most innovative company” at one of the most prestigious information security events, the RSA Conference.
“We provide a way to detect, mitigate, and stop phone fraud by identifying the characteristics of any phone call based on the device making it or the path the call takes,” said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop’s CEO, who helped develop the technology as a Tech PhD student in computing. “This information is useful in providing both forensic information about the call—whether it is from a landline, cell phone, or voice-over-IP device—and the geography of the origin.”
Georgia Tech’s designation as the lead for one of the ten Tier One University Transportation Centers is a major step toward developing solutions to longstanding transportation challenges.
Transportation infrastructure concerns rank as one of the top issues in Georgia and the Southeast. The designation of Georgia Tech as the lead for one of ten national Tier One University Transportation Centers (UTC) by the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) represents a positive step toward developing solutions to transportation challenges facing the state and region.
Funded by a $3.5 million federal grant and an additional $3.5 million in matching funds from the state, the Woodruff Foundation, and others, the UTC will bring together a consortium of universities in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Known as the National Center for Transportation System Productivity and Management, the Georgia Tech UTC will focus on transportation issues of importance to the nation, state, and metropolitan areas.
In a related program, Georgia Tech has also been named as a collaborator in the US DOT’s Regional UTC led by the University of Florida. The University of Florida and Georgia Tech will be joined by six other universities to form a regional consortium that will focus on transportation issues impacting the Southeast.
“Georgia Tech is uniquely qualified to lead the University Transportation Center. It is home to one of the largest and most accomplished transportation and logistics research programs in the U.S. and is responsible for many of the strategic improvements that have been made to Georgia’s infrastructure,” said Governor Nathan Deal. “I applaud the efforts of all of those who were involved in this important project.”
In the healthcare arena, Georgia Tech and Gwinnett Technical College, part of the Atlanta Health Information Technology (HIT) cluster, were awarded a $1.65 million grant to enhance the state’s capabilities in this sector. The initiative is part of the federal government’s Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge, a tri-agency competition initiated to support the advancement of 20 high-growth, regional industry clusters. The Atlanta HIT cluster’s proposal was one of 20 selected from 125 applicants.
The collaborative program, designed to quickly create jobs to fill demand in Georgia’s expanding HIT cluster, provides a commercialization pathway for the supply-side and training for the workforce on the provider side. The initiative also provides technical assistance to traditionally underserved businesses throughout the state’s economically distressed areas.
“Our ultimate goal is simple—to achieve higher-quality, lower-cost, and more patient-centric healthcare throughout Georgia,” said Steve Rushing, director of HIT initiatives at Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, who will serve as general advisor for the integrated project plan. “Through extensive collaboration and partnerships, this initiative leverages existing resources to boost job creation through technology deployment, and thus economic development.”
Reflecting the Institute’s growing reputation as a thought leader in technology and economic policy, Georgia Tech was among the top U.S. universities invited to be part of the World Economic Forum’s Knowledge Advisory Board. This group of senior representatives from the foremost 200 universities worldwide advised the forum on how to engage with academic partners and the field of higher education.
Georgia Tech has established a set of strategic collaborations with the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based nonprofit organization that focuses on the most pressing issues facing the world.
“The World Economic Forum (WEF) is the premier convener of thought leaders around the world,” said Steven McLaughlin, Georgia Tech’s former vice provost of international initiatives and current chair of electrical and computer engineering. “Having Georgia Tech as the only public university in that group expands our global impact and influence, and connects us to an important international network of leaders.”
Professor Ian Bogost, director of Georgia Tech’s Digital Media program, discussed the distinction between traditional media and gaming at the World Economic Forum.
McLaughlin traveled to Geneva last fall to represent Georgia Tech on the Knowledge Advisory Board.
In January 2012, President Peterson attended the WEF’s principal meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where (as one of twelve university presidents) he interacted with the world’s thought leaders from industry, government, and education.
The partnership between Georgia Tech and the World Economic Forum has yielded other initiatives. Several Georgia Tech faculty members, for example, participated in the annual meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, China, in September 2011.
Known as “Summer Davos,” the New Champions annual meeting is the foremost global business gathering in Asia and is designed to foster interaction, generate insight, and achieve impact across the more than 1,500 participants attending.
Much closer to home, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) Working Group on Advanced Manufacturing held its first regional meeting at Georgia Tech last fall. Attendees shared thoughts on technology development, education and workforce development, facility and infrastructure sharing, and policies that could create a fertile environment for innovation.
The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP)—launched by President Barack Obama in summer 2011—is a national effort bringing together the federal government, industry, universities, and other stakeholders to identify and invest in emerging technologies with the potential to create high-quality domestic manufacturing jobs and enhance the global competitiveness of the United States. ■
