Utthan: A Social Business Plan Competition

Faculty of Management Studies, BHU is organising this event on 28th January 2011.

It is a team event comprising of three stages:
1. Submission of Executive Summary (Abstract) of the Social Business plan.
2. Submission of Complete Social Business Plan by the shortlisted teams.
3. Presentation of the Social Business Plan idea by selected teams before the jury and audience,followed by question round.The best idea would be submitted to HRD/UGC for support to implement it through Special Assistance Program (SAP) of Faculty of Management Studies, BHU. Abstract to be mailed by 4th December. 

Contact person:

Prof. H.C. Chaudhary

Coordinator, DRS 1 SAP (UGC)

Mb.:+ 91-9415618946

Email: hcchaudhary@fmsbhu.ac.in

NIRVAAN 2010 – the Entrepreneurship Summit of IIM Lucknow

This year’s theme – Ideation, Innovation, Inclusion – is designed keeping in mind the most important factors that lead to a successful entrepreneurial venture for an individual as well as society. Key events during Nirvaan are – Business Plan Contest, Talk Series, On the spot competitions, Quizzing Sizzle, Workshops, Elevator Pitch, Guest Lecture, Networking opportunities and Mentoring. 

Event date: 14th November 2010

Contact: Debajyoti, Co-ordinator

Entrepreneurship Cell

IIM Lucknow

+91-9936155278 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +91-9936155278      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Grand Challenges Explorations

Want to create Low-Cost Cell Phone Based Applications for Priority Health Conditions?

Apply for Grand Challenges Explorations grant. Applications for Round 6 will be accepted until November 2, 2010

A few of the many specific examples to be considered include:

•  Novel and innovative ideas that utilize cell phones and payment systems to create incentives for sustainable global health interventions;

•  Novel cell phone-based solutions for high-impact data collections from previously-unreachable or unavailable populations in the developing world;

• Medical diagnostics that uniquely leverage cell-phone and adhere to the ASSURED criteria: Affordable by those at risk, Sensitive, Specific, User-friendly (simple to perform with minimal training), Rapid and Robust, Equipment-free or minimal equipment, and Delivered to those who need it.

•   Innovative solutions that improve distribution systems and data collection for global health interventions, such as vaccination and drug delivery; 

• High impact and innovative patient and data management applications for health workers or decision-makers that provide very large improvements over the current systems, or provide previously unavailable capabilities;

• Information and decision tools that target key populations and uniquely leverage cell-phone technologies.

R and D investment by top 1400 firms

The EU report collected data (year 2009) from 1000 European firms and 1000 non-European firms. List includes 17 Indian firms with only 5 of them investing more than 100 million euro in R&D. Prithvi Information solutions top the Indian list with 228miliion euro investment in R&D followed by Tata Motors, Polaris Software, Mind Tree and BHEL. Software firms Prithvi, Polaris, Mid Tree spent 77.3%, 64.3% and 61.6% of their net sale on R&D whereas Infosys spent only 1.8% of their sales revenue on R&D.

The Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology sector strengthens its top position in the R&D ranking with a share of 18.9% of the total R&D investment by the Scoreboard  companies. It is followed by the Technology Hardware & Equipment sector with a share of 17.2% and the Automobile & Parts sector with 15.6% (down from 17.1% last year). By region, companies changed their share of R&D investment in the top 6 sectors as follows: EU companies increased their share in Chemicals, Electronic & Electrical Equipment, Software & Computer Services, Automobiles & Parts and Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology and decreased its share in Technology Hardware & Equipment; US companies decreased their share in the top 6 sectors; Japanese companies increased their share in Technology Hardware & Equipment, Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology, Chemicals and Automobiles & Parts and decreased their share in Software & Computer Services and Electronic & Electrical Equipment. Companies from the OC group increased their share in Electronic & Electrical Equipment, Technology Hardware & Equipment, Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology, Automobiles & Parts and Software & Computer Services.

NASA technology for solar powered vaccine refrigerator

NASA has signed a non-exclusive license agreement with SunDanzer Refrigeration Inc. for the space agency’s patented solar-powered refrigeration system technology developed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. SunDanzer plans to use the technology to develop and market one of the first battery-free solar-powered refrigerators suitable for safely storing vaccines. The patented technology was originally developed by NASA engineers Michael Ewert and David Bergeron, team leader for NASA’s Advanced Refrigeration Technology Team. Ewert and Bergeron were investigating the use of a photovoltaic solar heat pump to cool lunar bases. They subsequently modified the technology and developed a refrigerator with a vapor compression, battery-free heat pump that directly converts electricity from solar photovoltaic panels into thermal energy that is stored internally using low-cost phase-change materials.The technology transfer was facilitated by Fuentek

Opioid and Analgesic Chemical Compound Library

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have compiled a library of 1,600 analgesic and opioid -compounds. The library consists of agonists, antagonists, and affinity labels. The chemical compounds of the library are characterized by chemical structure and biological activity. Potential applications for the chemical compounds include treatment of chronic pain, type-2 diabetes, obesity, compulsive disorders, schizophrenia, cancer, and depression.

Contact: Joe Hofmeister, Technology Marketing Manager,jhofmeister@umn.edu

Seeding Labs- reclaiming surplus lab equipment

For scientists in poorer countries, the expense of starting up a modern lab makes carrying out world-class research nearly impossible. For these researchers, access to equipment and supplies – even older models – is the difference between building a functional lab and having to suspend research. Meanwhile, in richer countries like the United States, research institutions are continuously updating their technology. It’s not uncommon to walk into a lab and find least one older machine sitting on a shelf gathering dust, or waiting in the hallway to be thrown out with the lab trash.

Details: http://www.seedinglabs.org/

Inpama-Market place for innovators

ipama.com offers innovators a platform to sell their innovations and patents. The service is offered free for the present. See existing innovations onoffer -CLINSIT.

Dell Social Innovation Competition

The University of Texas and Dell are looking for college students from around the world who want to improve areas of critical human need through innovation.Grand Prize: $50,000.Dead line: February 14 2011

Register:http://www.dellsocialinnovationcompetition.com/

Innovation trainer-Alok Asthana

Retd Col Alok Asthana ,is an ex army leadership trainer, now a freelance corporate consultant-trainer on matters relating to innovation.He operates from Mumbai and apart from training in enterprise innovation, he also offers:

• Short workshops to schools to teach creativity/inventive thinking/good thinking to children.
• Product development ideas, mostly incremental, to SMEs.

Details:  http://www.innovatorsandleaders.com/index.html

Kitchen Tools 2011 International Design Competition:

Invent a new kitchen tool - a new vegetable peeler, a new pasta machine, a new meat tenderizing tool... whatever kitchen tool you can improve on, either by starting from scratch or by making a significant improvement to a tool that's already in use.

World Kitchen invites you to redefine the kitchen tools for preparing, cooking and serving food, making them more space-efficient, time sensitive and versatile for today’s home chef and their cooking needs. Whether your design helps a cook to shape pasta, marinate meats, create a stir fry, flip burgers, or dish out soup, think about the cultural heritage you want to reflect and define its modern reality as you identify and design your concept. 

When preparing your submission, World Kitchen would like you to consider:

• How could a tool suit your cultural heritage with the world’s new realities to improve the home chef’s experience?
• Are there new activities, needs and opportunities for efficiency and better quality to enhance the chef’s accomplishments?
• Can you make meal preparation and serving easier, faster, more affordable, and more space-efficient?
• Do we need new tools, even ones that serve more than one function, to increase versatility and value to the consumer?
• Last date: January 7 2011 

Siemens Ecovatives Awards 2010

Siemens and IBNLive.com are instituting a hunt for India’s EcovativesTM – initiatives by Organizations who are combining protection to environment, reducing harmful effects to the environment with innovations to create leadership positions. These could range from the use of green energy to ecological protection, from lowering pollution to recycling of resources, and more.Last date 25th October. Only Large and Medium scale industries are eligible to participate. Contact person: Tanushree Rana 9920161186 Award Categories           EcovativesTM Responsible   Initiative to reduce harmful emission of toxic waste, effluents, bio-medical waste, harmful gas etc. in:   Air OR   Water OR   Land     EcovativesTM Low Energy   Initiative to reduce usage of non-renewable sources of energy like   Coal   Petroleum     EcovativesTM Conservation   Initiative to reduce wastage of (efficient usage of) natural resources     EcovativesTM Building   Building (for business unit) contributing towards reduction in usage of water, energy and generation of solid waste.     EcovativesTM Earth Care   Initiative taken by a corporate for improving the ecosystem external to its regular business and not with the interest of earning profit.			L

Holst Centre - an independent open-innovation R&D centre

Holst Centre is an independent open-innovation R&D centre that develops generic technologies for Wireless Autonomous Sensor Technologies and Flexible Electronics. Holst Centre was set up in 2005 by imec (Flanders, Belgium) and TNO (The Netherlands) with support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Government of Flanders. It is named after Gilles Holst, a Dutch pioneer in Research and Development and first director of Philips Research.

Holst Centre offers students opportunities for Master Thesis internships for 6 months. See the topics for these internships.

Philips Electronics invites industrial designers to design better Ironing Steam generators

Steam generators consist of a conventional iron and a base. The iron is connected by a hose to a boiler (inside the base) in which steam is built up under high pressure, which is connected to a water tank. Steam generators produce significantly more powerful steam than regular steam irons, and therefore offer the following consumer benefits:

• It cuts your ironing time by half, and is effortless thanks to the powerful steam.
• It is very convenient, since consumers can iron for longer ironing sessions without having to refill the water tank.
• Since the steam is generated by a separate generator, the iron itself is very light and easier to use.

Goal:
The primary goal of this design competition is to help design a truly innovative Steam generator for ‘2015’ with a focus on Philips’ brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. 
last date: 10th November 2010.

AUTM Scholarships for New Technology Transfer Professionals

The AUTM Foundation announced Scholarships for New Technology Transfer Professionals from Developing Economies. The Scholarship provides up to $US 4,000 in travel and related support to enable the recipient to attend an AUTM sponsored or co-sponsored meeting or educational course in support of their professional development in 2011. see Details

Gartner's 2010 Hype Cycle

Gartner has examined the maturity of 1,800 technologies and trends in 75 technology, topic, and industry areas. Each of the 75 individual Hype Cycle reports provides a snapshot of a key area of IT or business. Senior executives, CIOs, strategists, business developers and technology planners should consider these technologies when developing emerging business and technology portfolios. The "Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies" is the longest-running annual Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that IT managers should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios.

Read:  http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1447613

 

 

Sanitary pad made from banana tree fibers

Elizabeth Scharpf is the founder of Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) has been awarded the 2010 Curry Stone Design Prize for development of a locally produced and distributed sanitary pad that enhances women’s dignity and allows better access to education and occupation. Elizabeth has an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPA in international development from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BA from the University of Notre Dame. 

Details: http://currystonedesignprize.com/recipients/2010/sustainable_health_enterprises

Martin Innovations "Chair-A-Table" safe patient handling system

The  US Department of Justice and the Department of Health & Human Services recently released a joint report on medical care for individuals with mobility disabilities. The report stresses that examination of a dependent patient while in a wheelchair does not meet the standard of “equal medical services”. Martin Innovations has answered that call with technology that eliminates the manual aspect of the lift or transfer from wheelchair to exam table.

The Martin Chair-A-Table is manufactured in the United States. It has the industry’s highest weight capacity at 1,000 lbs, and carries a full warranty of 5 years. The Chair-A-Table is also perfect for everyday use as an exam table, with 8 points of power articulation including power lift, power backrest, power footrest. View more detailed information on the Martin Innovations Zero-Lift Patient Transfer System.

The product is available for sale and technology ready for license.

33 Major Fair Tales from Startups that died.

There is more to learn from failures than success and this was an useful compilation. The list includes one , which I am familiar with as it was supported under TePP when I was in-charge. 

I remember the IONLAB team  and was excited to support them. Was it a mistake to support this start-up? I have often articulated that objective of TePP is not picking winners but providing innovators `freedom to fail'.  I believe, we did the right thing in supporting this young innovators and wish them all success in their future venture(s).

Innovation is risky but failures are not reported in government programs (investing in innovation) - wish there will be more openness on this to better our learning of the processes.

New on-line tool to facilitate green technology patent searches

WIPO has launched an on-line tool that is linked to its International Patent Classification (IPC)
system to facilitate searches for patent information relating to environmentally sound
technologies (ESTs), as listed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). The tool, the “IPC Green Inventory”, contains some 200 topics that are directly
relevant to ESTs, and each topic is linked with the most relevant IPC symbols.In addition to being linked to the IPC system, the IPC Green Inventory is hyperlinked to WIPO’s PATENTSCOPE® search service to automatically search and display all “green” international applications filed under the PCT.The IPC Green Inventory will help in identifying existing and emerging green technologies, as well as potential partners for further R&D and commercial exploitation. To access the IPC Green Inventory, and for further information on how to use it, see:
http://www.wipo.int/classifications/ipc/en/est/ipc_patentscope.html

Licese from Ohio University for SOMAVERT(R) (pegvisomant for injection)

Ohio University will be issuing an RFP to cover rights in SOMAVERT(R) (pegmisovant). Please email allinson@ohio.edu if you would like to be included on our distribution list.

Brussels Innova

Brussels Innova, the international exhibition of Inventions, Research and new Technologies is scheduled from November 18th to 20th.Brussels Innova brings together experts in patents and property rights of new inventions as well as innovation-consultants & advisors to inventors. One of them is Sophie Racquez of The Idea Monopoly®, who professionally guides inventors from idea to market-launch. She is a partner of Brussels Innova and organizes the conference program in which she'll take part as a speaker herself. 

Villgro's UNCONVENTION conference

2nd edition on UNCONVENTION is scheduled in Chennai on December 3rd &4th. 

Details: http://www.villgro.org/unconvention/

Innovations from Russia

Siberian International Innovative Business congress held in September attracted  over 1000 experts/ innovators. contact Valentina for information on Russian innovations/ technologies.

Contact Person:

Valentina Storozhkova,

the Head of International stand area

Siberian Internationmal Innovative Business Congress

t./f.  007 383 227 11 44, mob 007 913 928 2738 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              007 913 928 2738      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

g20@innsib.com

www.innsib.com

skype: valentina.storozhkova

What international climate agreements should the world community make?

Share your idea on Climate Lab http://climatecolab.org/web/guest/home

It may reach the Policy Makers.

Ideas4all

ideas4all was created by Ana María Llopis, founder and CEO 1993-2000 of Openbank –Grupo Santander– (first Internet bank in Spain and second in Europe when it was launched). Ana María has ample experience in new technologies and the Internet, and was president of Viaplus, an on-line shop of the period, and Razona, a Financial Consulting firm in the Internet, as well as Executive Vice-President of Indra, the most important Computing company in Spain. Ana María has a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in Engineering in Materials Science, Cum Laude, and is a Summa Cum Laude graduate in Physics from Maryland University, majoring in Mathematics.
Join the mission to collect a million ideas.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I10kavNviSk

Kindling Idea Management software

Arc90 is New york based consultancy firm  working with clients seeking to infuse innovation. In 2009 they released Kindling an Idea collaboration tool.There are many more projects in pipe line -see arc90Lab.

Apart from Commercial firms, Kindling is also used by US govt to improve Veterans Benefits. Take a free trial:

 http://www.kindlingapp.com/free-trial/

Chrystalized- message on Innovation from Costa Rica as Comic Book

Enjoy the cartoon and get inspired

International Week of Action against EU-India FTA

Want to join the protests? one more day left. Check at:

http://www.dnpplus.org/news.php

Apps for development-competition by World Bank

This competition is run by World Bank- may be first of its kind. Analyst Kit Eaton says the intention behind this is that entrants will craft apps (for any platform from Web-based to smart phone to tablet PCs) that use World Bank data in creative and useful ways, either producing innovative analysis tools or visualizations. Anyone can enter, as a team or alone, and the overall mission is to "reduce global poverty by putting important data into the hands of those who can make a difference in developing countries."

In order to be considered for prizes, submissions must be original software applications solely owned by the entrant(s), which must use at least one of the World Bank datasets found at http://data.worldbank.org. The text descriptions in the contest submission must accurately describe the functionality of the application, and all submitted materials must be in English, or include an English translation.

Important dates

Submission Period: Start: Oct 07, 2010 12:00 PM EDT End: Jan 10, 2011 05:00 PM EST

Judging Period: Start: Jan 31, 2011 12:00 PM EST End: Feb 28, 2011 05:00 PM EST

Public Voting Period: Start: Jan 31, 2011 12:00 PM EST End: Feb 28, 2011 05:00 PM EST

Winners announced: April, 2011

Details: http://appsfordevelopment.challengepost.com/

Facilitating global outreach of European and Indian innovation clusters

Event towards "Facilitating global outreach of European and Indian innovation clusters" is planned coinciding with TCI Global Conference at MDI, Gurgaon, on 1 December 2010. The objective of the event is to stimulate and facilitate global outreach of European and Indian innovative clusters through in particular: 

• Increasing mutual awareness on cluster policies, development methods and management practices;
• Facilitating in Europe and in India access to and contact with the appropriate cluster stakeholders;
• Fostering research, innovation and industrial cooperation between clusters in Europe and in India.

For more information, Contact person: Mr. Nikos Pantalos, DG Enterprise & Industry,  Nikos.Pantalos@ec.europa.eu

Measuring Entrepreneuship in India

SBA ,USA released a new study  that analyzes entrepreneurship at the global level using a new index called the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI). This index captures the contextual (qualitative and quantitative) features of entrepreneurship in 71 countries.

Porter identifies a factor-driven stage, an efficiency-driven stage, and an innovation-driven stage, and he adds two transitions.The factor-driven stage is marked by high rates of agricultural self-employment. Countries in this stage compete through low-cost efficiencies in the production of commodities or low value-added products. Sole proprietorship—i.e., the self-employed—probably account for most small manufacturing firms and service firms.To compete in the efficiency-driven stage, countries must have efficient productive practices in large markets, which allow companies to exploit economies of scale. Industries in this stage are manufacturers that provide basic services. The efficiency-driven stage is marked by decreasing rates of self-employment. When capital and labor are substitutes, an increase in the capital stock increases returns from working and lowers returns from managing.The innovation-driven stage is marked by an increase in knowledge-intensive activities . In the innovation-driven stage knowledge provides the key input. In this stage the focus shifts from firms to agents in possession of new knowledge. The agent decides to start a new firm based on expected net returns from a new product. The innovation-driven stage is biased towards high value added industries in which entrepreneurial activity is important.

India scores poorly at 0.23 ,gets 53rd rank with China marginally better at rank of 40. China and India are efficiency-driven countries and are not yet fully in the innovation race.United States has a huge lead in NEW TECHNOLOGY, India is catching up fast;  the difference between the United States and China on the TECH SECTOR variable is not very large. What is interesting is that entrepreneurs in neither India nor China seems to be afraid of failure. 

However, strange are scores for start-up skills (0.08) and networking (0.03)-  are we so bad? 
Read : http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs370tot.pdf

Innovator Rajaram Bojji

WIPO introduced case studies sharing experience of innovators and from India the cases include that of inventor Rajaram Bojji. He is well known in India yet the case makes interesting reading. He is not a programmed researcher but a railway engineer working in operations. His patent Anti Collision Device was valued by PWC at one billion US dollars and he donated the rights to Konkan Railways. In a nation short of Heros- he is my HERO.

Read WIPO case:
http://www.wipo.int/ipadvantage/en/details.jsp?id=2592