Idea Bounty

Idea Bounty is a social think tank that provides a secure channel for the world wide creative community to offer solutions to creative briefs. A reward or 'Bounty' is offered for the Idea that best answers the brief and the contributor of the Winning Idea gets the cash.

Insights from GE research

Gopichand Katragadda, in his book `SMASH' talks of hand to mind barrier. Many analysts referred to our aversion to dirty hands leaving us a nation of million spectators always struggling to find 11 to soil in the field. Bright engineers for decades shunned shop floor jobs and reserachers lived in ivory tower unconnected to market. Gopichand also ( probably for the first time from any MNC) shares his insights on what makes GE and MNC R&D units such a productive places. The activities highlighted:

1. GECR-B Signature Programs: The idea is to have a branding and instill pride in the programs being worked by the team.

2.Learning Environment: A culture of learning and growth is maintained through technology specific and industry specific conferences organised by JFWTC.

3.Innovation Department: A constant focus on innovation is maintained through a variety of activities such as Business program Manager Challengers, innovation workshops by external experts, innovation process sharing with external companies, TRIZ training, tools, pilot projects, internal technical career path trainimng on innovation, innovation portal and idea management systems.

4.Customer connectivity: The indian session T (T for technology) held in 2006 broght together close to 100 GE customers and GE engineering, research, sales and marketing teams.

5. Cross JFWTC collaboration

A must read for all CSIR scientists.

Luna Ergonomics-clever texting

Can U send SMS by pressing only a single key?

Luna Ergonomics Pvt Ltd is based out of JSS Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Park at Noida. The startup is founded by Major Abhijit Bhattacharjee, an electronics engineer and a keen technologist, a former Signaller from the Indian Army. They have developed the Panini Keypad which supports composition and sending of SMS in 11 major languages of India. And offers SMS compression for the first time in the world increasing the payload of a SMS in an Indian language by over 300 percent. Luna Ergonomics also developed the first dictionary less statistical predictive texting technology which uses a dynamic allocation of keys and hence does not rely on printed keys on the keypad. This offers the possibility of supporting multiple languages on the same keypad. Also this is single key press typing. This technology called CleverTexting has also been developed for all the major languages of the world including Arabic and Hebrew.

Nokia Developers Conference 2009

The conference is scheduled on 7th Decemeber in Bangalore. Regisration fee Rs 750/- For details : http://www.nokiadevcon.in/index.php

GE Edison Challenge finalists

Eighteen teams were selected for GE Edison Challenge final. The winner with prize money of Rs 5 lakhs will be selected on 5th November. See the finalists at:

http://www.ge.com/jfwtc/edisonchallenge/prelimresults.html

Nebula Eclipse Goggles

Innovator Sujata Daka, left ISRO to start on a journey of creativity and Nabula Eclipse Google is the first among the innovative products on the roll out. It is a solar filter film with five seperate layers for 100% eye safety and an extraordinarily beautiful 'Cooling and Healing ORANGE image of the sun'. Buy one for Rs 25/-

Hybrid Renewable energy solutions

Green Field Power Services is specialising in offering hybrid solutions, grid connected and grid independent. For details see: www.greenfieldspower.com

Development projects supported by World bank

See projects in Development Market place, funded by World Bank.

Technology in stage performance

Stage performnace has gone high tech. Read the story of Magic Flute, Ring cycle, Brain Opera, Doctor Atomic and rake's progress at Fast Company.

FLAP Messenger Bag

One of the green technology product creating wave of excitement is Messenger bag with solar charged light called FLAP ( Flexible Light and Power). It is collaborative effort of Timbuk2, Poptech and Portable Light

Noble Energy Solar Technologies

NEST is manufacturer of Solar lanterns. Flagship product Aishwarya received Ashden Award in 2005. Promotor Barki is has been in solar photovoltaics business for last 22 years, a B.Tech graduate in Electronics Engineering (1982), from KREC (Now NIT), Surathkal. Powered by a solar panel which generates four hours of light, the lantern is designed to replace the potentially deadly kerosene lamp. Dharmappa Barki at the age of nine witnessed the tragic death of his baby cousin from burns caused by a fallen kerosene lamp and vowed to find a solution- he did find one.

Samuchit Enviro-Tech

Samuchit Enviro-Tech Pvt limited a commercial associate of Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) for commercialising energy technologies developed by ARTI.The products being marketed by SET address the problem of indoor air pollution. Long term exposure to indoor air pollution has an adverse health impact on women and children in rural households. According to World Health Organisation, indoor air pollution caused by smoke from traditional cook stoves is responsible for 2,000,000 premature deaths every year among women and children in the developing world.

TePP Innovator SS Dutta gets first prize in India Innovation Initiative 2009

Results of India Innovation Initiative 2009 results were announced on 27th October 2009. the winner is Sankha subhra Dutta of Japaiguri, who with TePP support is developing light duty variable displacement compressor for small car airconditioining . Indian Patent Application No: 613/KOL/2009 dated 13/04/2009.

iWizards

Wipro Technologies and Knowledge@Wharton have teamed up to conduct a global "Innovation Tournament" which will solicit, judge and select the most innovative managerial "tools" that companies can use to improve their business by increasing revenues, reducing expenditures and improving customer experience. Participants will submit tools via this website in one of the following formats: Word document, PowerPoint presentation, PDF file or Excel spreadsheet. These submissions will be reviewed and judged by a panel of experts determined by the Wharton School and including key members of the Wharton faculty, the Knowledge@Wharton team and the Wipro Council for Industry Research. From these submissions, 25 leading tools will be chosen based on the judging criteria. All entries must be received by November 6, 2009, in order to be considered.

LogicBase

LogikBase is a resource to aid the commercialization of innovation.

LogikBase acts as an internet-based system to facilitate research of technology transfer interactions among government, industry and academic communities. The system provides a central location where individuals and organizations can quickly access and search licensable technologies and technology transfer related news. Information from the following Organizations is available:

Research Foundation of SUNY
Live Cargo, Inc.
Auburn University
University of Miami
Brigham Young University, Technology Transfer Office
Columbia University Science and Technology Ventures
Clemson University Office of Technology Transfer
Brown Technology Partnerships
M.I.T. Technology Licensing Office
Dartmouth Technology Transfer Office
Oregon State University Office of Technology Transfer
Northeastern University Division of Technology Transfer
Temple University Office of Technology Transfer
Office of Technology Alliances, University of California, Irvine
UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) Office of Technology Management
University of Arkansas - Fayetteville, Office of Technology Licensing
Texas A&M Technology Commercialization Center
The University of Edinburgh
University of Dundee
University of California - Santa Barbara
WORLDiscoveries
Yeda R&D Ltd @ The Weizmann Institute of Science
Zaycor Industries Corp
Fox Chase Cancer Center

Transasia acquires a leading European diagnostic company

Student who takes admission in Physics overlooking admission to MBBS finally gets Noble Prize

These days when attracting bright students to Science has been a challenge bothering policy makers, this is good news. Venkatraman, who got Noble Prize in Chemistry dumped admission to Medical college for BSc in Physics and his parents did not force him to change the decision. Read interviews at Rediff

Ambicales

Ambicales is a start-up promted by Sudhir Manchanda and Mayank Agarwal, of IIT Roorkee. Service offerings:

Biomass energy: To replace oil consumption in thermal applications and power generation in industries. Wind energy: Help in making an informed decision to choose the best project from among the various options from different companies. Solar energy: Power plants (both PV and Steam route) and Industrial applications. Energy Efficiency: Expertise in thermal processes and waste heat recovery solutions. Carbon Strategy: Carbon Footprinting, Mitigation measures and leveraging the Green Brand.

Villgro Fellowship

Villgro Fellowship a 10-month programme designed to equip individuals who dare to follow their dreams and can help build a prosperous rural India. Fellows will Know through experience the innovation and social enterprise sectors, Be skilled in successfully mentoring an innovator, Know how to enable innovations effectively,Understand rural markets ,Develop your social entrepreneurship capabilities etc. Last year fellow David Schafran worked with Desi Crew, Gautam Mazumdar with IR Guard, Meera Seshadri with Infant warmer etc. This year th eintake could be about 5. Last date: 20th October 2009. Apply with 500 word summery to
fellowshipatvillgrodotorg or contact Associate-HR Villgro (Earlier Rural Innovations Network)1st Floor, 20/6 Lakshmipuram 2nd St,Lloyds Road, Royapettah Chennai 600 014 India

Dare to Try program from Tata's

Economic Times covered this unusual celebration of creativity - by talking about failures, again an initiative pioneered by Tata's. In 2007, Tata Group Innovation Forum (TGIF) experimented by adding a very unusual category of recognitions called “Dare to Try” in its groupwide Tata Innovista program. Under this category , company managers and teams are encouraged to send in entries for innovations that were attempted, but which failed to get to the marketplace for one reason or another. Entries are reviewed by peer managers in ten regional rounds that are organised all over the world and the ‘finalists’ are reviewed by an external jury in Mumbai.
Read the full story: Economic Times