Technology : Innovation + Job News

The Ohio Innovation Sensor Summit offers a new benefit this year -- free registration to the state's annual showcase of sensor technology to be held June 25-27 in Dayton.

The University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) will host the event convening scientists, engineers, investors and others to spur collaboration and business opportunities within the technology. The summit gathers hundreds of sensor enthusiasts from industry, academia and governmental and military agencies for networking and to drive research commercialization.

"Attendees are going to realize that sensors have barely scratched the surface of the commercial market," says summit organizer Gil Pacey of UDRI's sensor system division. "This area is well positioned to take advantage of technologies such as biomedical, biomarker, security and cyber-security." The event will include educational sessions and exhibits on those topics and other emerging applications such as human factors, photonics, thin film and surface research.

Pacey notes sensors are crucial to ensure the functioning and maintenance of machinery. "Industry needs tons of sensors to make their product lines work better," he says. "Attendees might find some sensor technology OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to make their system better."

Sensor technology has been a major focus of the Ohio Third Frontier program. This year's summit will feature a UDRI-led partnership that recently won a $3 million OTF grant to improve surveillance systems used by law enforcement, campus security and government facilities.

Events will be held at the UDRI headquarters and various locations in downtown Dayton. Interested parties should email names of attendees and the affiliate organization to Yulie Halim.


Writer: Tom Prendergast

Ohio Third Frontier has awarded the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) $3 million to continue development of an advanced situational awareness platform that will be compatible with multiple sensor products.
 
Situational awareness systems refer to products with sensors that respond to environmental changes, such as seismic waves, infrared light and motion. Kevin Klawon, a software systems group leader at UDRI, gives the example of a camera that responds to someone entering a backyard.
 
Currently, customers such as law enforcement, border patrol or first responders have to approach different manufacturers for different needs. Klawon’s team, however, envisions a simpler solution that is now within reach thanks largely to the Third Frontier award.
 
“We actually have a platform that we’re building where you can just plug sensors in and the platform itself will be able to understand what kind of sensor it is,” Klawon explains. He anticipates substantial savings for customers who will only have to invest in one platform that can be reconfigured depending on changing needs. In all, Klawon expects the software development to result in 30 new jobs over a three-year period.
 
Klawon insists the idea isn’t revolutionary. Over time, he says, technology tends to find ways to integrate into one, simple package; but it has yet to be done in the emerging field of situational awareness systems. Klawon believes UDRI's work in the field will further reinforce Dayton’s growing national reputation as a leader in sensor development.
 
“This is a market the Dayton region has started to develop,” says Klawon. “We lost most of our automotive sector, so others have had to come up. I think this is one of the emerging sectors that will prove to help the region and become what the Dayton region is known for.”
 
 
Source: Kevin Klawon
Writer: Joe Baur

Oberlin College and Cleveland-based FlashStarts are partnering on an entrepreneurship fellowship, providing a team of Oberlin graduates from the Oberlin Entrepreneurship Fellowship program with a slot in FlashStarts’ business accelerator program this summer.
 
“In this partnership, FlashStarts will be acting as a capstone for recent graduates of Oberlin College,” explains Charles Stack, CEO of FlashStarts. One team from Oberlin has already been slotted to join a class of 11 startups in the inaugural class. Startups range from a cloud-based marketplace that matches students with editors to a web application that coordinates clinical trials.
 
Stack has been involved with Oberlin since 2009 when he invested in the winner of that year’s fellowship program, Skritter – a Chinese and Japanese writing educational application. “The Oberlin Entrepreneur Fellowship Program is one of the best programs around,” boasts Stack. “The school is full of students who think outside of the box and have the drive to create enterprises that can change the world.”
 
FlashStarts’ business accelerator follows a model of “rapid iterations and continuous market validation,” Stack explains. “Each team in our program is receiving an investment of up to $20,000, access to a network of brilliant and experienced mentors, the assistance of interns, and guidance and resources customized to meet specific needs.”
 
The first summer program began on June 3 with the 11 teams that were picked from a pool of 85 applicants from across the globe. Though all the companies are software-based, Stack says there’s plenty of diversity in the program. “Two of the companies will revolutionize the healthcare industry, while another is reinventing the online graphic novel,” says Stack. “One of the companies offers a hardware and software solution for processing big data that I only totally understand on a good day with a full night’s sleep.”
 
Ultimately, Stack is holding FlashStarts and his supported startups to a high standard.
 
“You can expect nothing less than the creation of 11 successful businesses that will change the world.”
 
 
Source: Charles Stack
Writer: Joe Baur

Dublin-based IC3D Printers has launched a crowd funding campaign through Indiegogo to manufacture 3D printing material locally in Ohio.
 
The campaign is set to run for 30 days with a goal of raising $20,000 to compliment existing capital. Michael Cao, Owner and Founder of IC3D, says he was persuaded by a friend to use crowd funding to avoid getting banks and interest rates involved. Funds will go toward equipment, leasing factory space, buying materials in bulk, and hiring an operator.
 
Cao’s goal is to address today’s costly supply chain model of manufacturing 3D printing components. Currently, outside manufacturers supply the plastic filament needed for Cao's 3D printers. Even worse, that filament is designed for use in the plastic welding industry. This sometimes results in an inferior product that may be contaminated.
 
“The problem is [the plastic welding industry] has very different requirements,” explains Cao, noting that 3D printing is still a young industry. “It has lower quality of requirements, such as cleanliness” and filament diameter. Cao's solution is to manufacture his own 3D printing material in Ohio exclusively for the 3D printing market, allowing him to take some links out of the current supply chain model.

Cao came up with the idea after working as a designer and builder of desktop 3D printers. Customers began asking Cao for filament printing material. At first, he gave it away for free. As this became costly, he began purchasing in bulk, but noticed some quality issues. “It was a frustrating experience,” says Cao, recalling customer complaints. He decided to take his experience in plastics and as an automotive engineer to produce the necessary material himself. Ohio and IC3D’s customers all stand to benefit.
 
“By obtaining the raw materials and packing the materials ourselves, we’re cutting out those layers from the current supply chain,” explains Cao. “That cost savings will be passed down to the customers.”
 
 
Source: Michael Cao
Writer: Joe Baur

The University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) has been awarded $412,000 from the Ohio Manufacturing Extension Partnership to assist small to mid-size manufacturers within the Dayton area solve problems.
 
A research and development arm of the University of Dayton, UDRI plans to use the awarded funds to better serve companies within the region that have the capability to create jobs and make an impact on the local economy. Larrell Walters, Division Head of Sensors Systems at UDRI, says companies with less than 50 employees often face problems they are not equipped to solve.
 
“[They] really don’t know all the resources that are available to them,” Walters explains. “We are basically helping them connect the dots to things that can help them solve problems, move their technologies forward, help them create more revenue and more jobs.” After discovering a company’s problems, Walters and his team are oftentimes able to connect two different companies together that otherwise might not have known of their existence. This ultimately leads to new relationships and new growth opportunities.
 
Companies interested in receiving help can visit fastlane-mep.org for more information. No matter if the problem is technical or workforce related, Walters promises a quick response. “Fill out a short form, and we promise to get back to them within 48 hours.”
 
UDRI’s launch goal is to work with six to eight companies per month. “That might not sound like a lot,” Walters admits. “But if you can work with seven, eight companies a month solving real problems, that create a lot of opportunity for the state of Ohio and the people of Ohio.”
 
 
Source: Larrell Walters
Writer: Joe Baur

uHeart StartUps, a University of Toledo digital media conference, will host a “Pitch & Pour” after party on May 10 at the Nitschke Technology Commercialization Complex  for aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their business idea to a panel of judges. The winning idea will receive up to $5,000, but attendees stand to benefit regardless by connecting with local business leaders in attendance.
 
Scott McIntyre, Manager of Business Incubation at the University of Toledo, sees the event as an opportunity to energize the entrepreneurial spirit of Toledo, and convince area innovators to realize their dreams right in the Glass City, spurring job growth for the hard-hit region. To do this, McIntyre isn’t just counting on Toledoans.
 
“We’ve solicited participants from Indiana and Michigan,” McIntyre says, affectionately calling it the tri-state area. “We’re trying to spread the word that the University of Toledo is a place for digital media innovation.”
 
McIntyre is familiar with the opportunities presented in Toledo, because he’s lived through the journey of starting a new enterprise in town.
 
After living in California for 18 years, McIntyre returned to Toledo to help out his mother, who ended up starting a regional lifestyle and culture magazine, InToledo, with her husband, Dennis Hicks, Minority Health Coordinator at Toledo-Lucas County Health Department. “In the process of getting the magazine published, I learned a lot about the city,” he recalls. “Toledo has a lot of advantages for small businesses and large businesses,” namely low cost of living and logistical location to the “knowledge bases” of Detroit, Chicago and Cleveland. For these reasons and more, McIntyre believes entrepreneurs will leave Pitch & Pour with a new picture of Toledo.
 
“We really have the ingredients to inspire entrepreneurs,” he says. “We’re working to get people to stay here and create jobs.”
 
Interested attendees can RSVP to the event on Facebook. More information at uheartdigitalmedia.com/pitchandpour.
 
 
Source: Scott McIntyre
Writer: Joe Baur

Buyvite, a Toledo-based social payment company, has launched a private label group payment API for developers to allow for cost splitting and social payment functionality on any ecommerce website or application.
 
“We built it because we heard from a lot of customers saying they liked they idea,” says founder Brandy Alexander-Wimberly on her way to the company’s sister headquarters in Chicago for another round of funding. “What we have developed is the ability for a company to go to our website and launch a crowdfunding transaction with a custom API.” This makes for easier, secure transactions between the end-user and company.
 
Supported in part by Rocket Ventures and a group of private investors, Wimberley says Buyvite’s latest development is a stepping-stone to allowing social payment transactions between anyone who visits their website. “The hosted payment page is what we’re coming out with in the next couple of weeks,” she explains.
 
For example, this will allow anyone to seek reimbursement for events or presents where the costs were split amongst a group of people. In fact, that’s how Wimberly originally came up with the idea. After spending money to pay for her friends’ concert tickets, Wimberly thought there must be a better, organized way to get paid back.
 
“We feel like people are going to expect this functionality,” she says. “They may not yet, but we really feel this functionality will need to be done, and we do it the right way.”
 
 
Source: Brandy Alexander-Wimberly
Writer: Joe Baur

A waterfall swing developed by Cleveland-area engineers has amassed over 2.7-million views on YouTube, gaining the unconventional quartet international recognition and business opportunities.
 
Ian Charnas, a 32-year-old computer and mechanical engineering graduate of Case Western Reserve University, is happy introduce his A-Team responsible for the creation of the aptly named waterfall swing: Andrew Ratcliff, artist; Michael O’Toole, mechanical engineer; Andrew Witte, computer engineer. All have an impressive background in innovation. Witte most notably was recently credited with the largest Kickstarter fundraiser in history, raising $10 million for a Bluetooth wristwatch he invented – Pebble. But when it comes to the waterfall swing, Charnas credits Ratcliff with the idea.
 
“We had seen some computerized waterfalls and thought to do that, but something different,” he recalls. “Ratcliff had the idea to add a swing to it.”
 
Though their initial application to receive funding for their idea from Burning Man failed, they continued their pursuit steadfast. “We liked the idea so much that we just started working on it,” Charnas recalls, setting a new goal to premiere at the 2010 Makers Faire in San Mateo, California – a gathering of “do-it-yourself people” launched by Make Magazine. “We set it up, and it was just barely working.”
 
Although the waterfall swing isn’t a typical product, Charnas treated the project like any other creation of an entrepreneur or innovator. There were trials, feedback, and adjustments over several festivals from Detroit to New York City, including Cleveland’s Ingenuity Festival, and a party at Case to celebrate the opening of the Uptown Development complex. “We figured out how to make the user experience better,” he says.
 
At the 2011 World Maker Faire, the group decided to take a video of their creation and upload it to YouTube. Within the next 12-months, they heard from Honda about using their video for a commercial using the theme, “Things Can Always Be Better.”
 
“I think someone at Honda’s ad agency must have been looking at YouTube for innovative things that happened to be trending,” says Charnas. “They asked if they could use our footage and give us a bunch of money.” Naturally, they accepted and used the money to completely redo the circuitry and plumbing of the waterfall swing. “We’re now at 2.0 after the changes.”
 
Now with a national ad under their belt, Charnas says they have more credibility. “People think you’re more real or legit. People trust you more.” This in turn has led to festival and job opportunities across the globe, including the Netherlands, Russia and Dubai. On April 4, they’ll be stopping by NBC’s Today Show then it’s on to the Forecastle Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, July 12 through 14.
 
Always thinking of his next idea, Charnas has plans for a project similar to the waterfall, but opts against explaining his vision until it’s finished. “I've found that I can talk about a project until I'm blue in the face,” he says. “But most audiences can't imagine it until they can see the finished thing, which is still about six months away.”
 
Through it all, Charnas continues his work with a very simple philosophy. “We’re the adults. We have to make the fun stuff now.”
 
 
Source: Ian Charnas
Writer: Joe Baur

CoverMyMeds, a web-based prior authorization (PA) service for pharmacies and physician offices, is reporting record growth since receiving a $250,000 investment from JumpStart in 2010.
 
Co-founder Matt Scantland says the company “had around 10 employees and under a million in revenue” three years prior. “Today we are at about 50 employees and 20 million in gross revenue.
 
Scantland launched CoverMyMeds in 2008 with Sam Rajan who had previously headed MemberHealth’s clinical operations. The two met through a business collaboration with Scantland’s then-health care technology company, Innova Partners. “At the time, we were building a Medicare Part D plan,” he recalls. “We learned that patients were having trouble getting the medications they needed due to problems associated with the prior authorization process.” Scantland describes a PA as a permission slip the doctor has to send to your insurance company before they will cover the drug.
 
Scantland credits the company’s success and introduction to JumpStart to their two homes – Northeast Ohio and Columbus. “When we started the business, the environment for the startup community in Northeast Ohio was perfect,” he boasts. “So we started introducing ourselves around the area and learned about Jumpstart. They helped us by not only awarding us for the grant monies, but also with connections and building relationships for expeditious growth to our business.”
 
Now, CoverMyMeds' service is used by “well over half of all the pharmacies in the country, and is used by more than 100,000 physicians,” helping more than two million patients receive the drugs they need. Scantland estimates reaching more than four million patients this year alone.
 
“It’s a really important time in healthcare, and I think we’ll see more change in the next decade than we saw in the last 30-years,” he predicts. “The challenge facing this country is really how we continue to create great clinical innovations while stopping the rapid expansion of expenses.”
 
 
Source: Matt Scantland
Writer: Joe Baur

Columbus-based entrepreneur Carol Clark is giving back to Ohio entrepreneurs with X Squared Angels, an angel group that provides capital to startups with a woman typically in a founder/CEO position.
 
Clark’s entrepreneurial roots date back to 1981 when she and Fran Papalios co-founded MindLeaders, an online software training company that was sold in 2007. Now she’s looking to give back by supporting startups with a woman in a leadership position.
 
“My personal experience has always been on mixed management teams,” says Clark, explaining the reasoning behind X Squared Angels’ investment strategy. “I just think we make better decisions!” She adds that she has studied data proving the economic impact is more substantial when a mixture of men and women lead the company.
 
Clark began her angel work by getting involved with the Ohio TechAngels following the sale of MindLeaders. She then attended the Angel Capital Association’s international meeting of angel organizations in Austin, Texas, where she met a group called Golden Seeds. “They shared their investment strategy and I went to a couple of their meetings in New York City,” Clark explains. “They focus on diverse management teams. You have to have at least one woman in a leadership position with equity in the company.” Clark ultimately joined the organization that would go on to inspire her work with X Squared Angels.
 
Still in their infancy, Clark and X Squared Angels have already begun negotiations for a possible investment with a female-led California-based company. Though Clark maintains there are other criteria that need to be discussed to determine if the young company is viable enough to make an investment. “It’s not a non-profit, it’s an investment fitting our investment strategy,” as Clark puts it.
 
Moving forward, Clark and her team of 15 investors are focusing on bringing in an additional 35 accredited investors to the group by the end of the year in order to start a fund. “If we have 50 investors, we can have a fund, and have more of an impact on the business,” she says. “The more investors we get and the more our name gets out there, the more applicants we’ll receive. And that can only help our economy.”
 
 
Source: Carol Clark
Writer: Joe Baur

Nonprofit venture development organization JumpStart has awarded $250,000 to Guided Interventions, a medical startup that will call the Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise (GLIDE) in Elyria home.
 
The grant will go toward Guided Interventions’ project to commercialize a new product that uses pressure sensors to better assess the physiological impact of coronary artery blockages at a more affordable cost. Cardiologist and CEO, Dr. Matthew Pollman, says the funding was the “tipping point” for their decision to locate in Northeast Ohio.
 
“The support from JumpStart was absolutely critical,” says Pollman. “The reward provides us with the opportunity to quickly take our company to the next level of growth.”
 
Pollman now turns to Ohio after co-founding a medical device company in the San Francisco Bay area in 2008, CV Ingenuity. During a period of economic duress across the country, Pollman found a more supportive environment for entrepreneurs in Northeast Ohio. He notes, “The contrasts with Northeast Ohio couldn’t be more stark.”
 
Once CV Ingenuity was acquired by Covidien earlier this month, Pollman took the opportunity to return to his childhood state where he has served as a member of the Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center’s advisory board in Cleveland since 2007. He sees tremendous promise in the state of Ohio’s entrepreneurial and innovation community.
 
“I have witnessed first hand how proactive the state of Ohio has been in promoting and supporting the build out of a critical mass of technical talent and infrastructure to foster and nurture technology development companies at all stages of their growth.”
 
 
Source: Dr. Matthew Pollman
Writer: Joe Baur

The branding firm Rocket Science now occupies a third-floor space in downtown Cincinnati’s Eighth Street Design District. The branding and design firm relocated from Mason at the beginning of December to be closer to major companies like P&G, Kroger and Macy’s, as well as other design firms.
 
“We really felt that being in the suburbs precluded us from being part of the local advertising and branding community,” says Chuck Tabri, director of business development and client strategy for Rocket Science, and one of the company’s three partners.
 
Greg Fehrenbach and Joel Warneke founded Rocket Science in 1999 under a different name. The company merged with one in Dayton, then de-merged, and in 2005, became Rocket Science in its current form. At the time of the merge, the firm was based in Mason; it then moved to a space in Deerfield Towne Center.
 
Rocket Science employs about 15 people, and it recently added in-house digital capabilities to its traditional print offerings to assist its clients' shift from print to digital. It made more sense for the company to develop its own digital branch rather than farm it out to another company, Tabri says.
 
Rocket Science had begun to outgrow its space in Mason, and after talks with 3CDC in the fall, the right space opened up. 

And from a talent standpoint, moving downtown gives Rocket Science greater access to young, fresh designers.
 
“Young designers want to be in a more urban environment,” says Tabri. “They get more inspiration from the creativity in a downtown environment than from a strip center in the suburbs.”
 
Because of Rocket Science's size, it can offer new thinking and capabilities that larger firms might not have, says Tabri. He adds that the move will help Rocket Science expand its consumer, business-to-business and healthcare verticals.
 
Originally published in Soapbox, our sister publication in Cincinnati.

By Caitlin Koenig
Follow Caitlin on Twitter

Jonathan Yale has always been socially conscious. As an athlete, he is also concerned about what foods he puts into his body. Those two principles came together when Yale and Phillip Williams founded HooftyMatch last August, an online marketplace for buying and selling locally produced meats.

“It started from a nutritional aspect,” says Yale. “I actually went to farms and bought some whole animals. I started educating myself on all the different factors of why it’s better meat.”

Yale and Williams came up with the idea for HooftyMatch after seeing a booming trend in farm-to-table eating and a strong desire to consume meat from humanely treated animals.
 
“We focus on farmers and the trend of beef without hormones or antibiotics,” says Yale. “We want to make that higher-quality product easier to get into the market. We want to have a consumer-friendly product where our customers can buy directly from our site and have it shipped to them or they can pick it up from a set location.”
 
A portfolio company in LaunchHouse Accelerator, HooftyMatch received a $25,000 investment. The company also won Startup Lakewood’s Ideation Challenge last summer.
 
Yale plans on starting a monthly Cleveland Meat Series with "localvore" restaurants to market HooftyMatch and educate people. “There are definitely people who want this and we want to say it’s out there,” he says. “It's good for farmers, it’s good for the restaurant business, and it’s good for people. It’s kind of like a win-win-win.”
 
HooftyMatch plans to officially launch its site next month.

This story originally appeared in Fresh Water Cleveland, our sister publication in Northeast Ohio.
 
Source: Jonathan Yale
Writer: Karin Connelly

It’s a familiar struggle for those who lay down cash for season tickets to the Bengals or the Reds: trying to sell, donate or give away the extras when you can’t make a game.

Alex Burkhart grew up in Mansfield, Ohio, rooting for Cleveland sports teams. And while falling in love with Cincinnati as a student at Xavier may mean his love of Cincinnati sports is growing, he’s mostly impressed by the city’s budding startup culture.

A Macy’s employee by day, Burkhart won the Cincinnati Startup Weekend competition last November. During the event, individuals pitch startup ideas and form makeshift teams to develop them during a single weekend. Burkhart, who longingly noted that he missed a great Xavier game to do so, grabbed attention and a few helpful connections after he pitched his idea, which is now called Tixers.

Burkhart says the company will provide a new way to buy and sell tickets on an online platform. “Hypothetically, if you can’t go to a Reds game, you can sell the tickets on StubHub at a significantly reduced price, give them away or let them go to waste,” he says.

Tixers aims to even that exchange. Still in its early stages, the platform (likely to be web and mobile) will allow people who have tickets for sporting or other entertainment events to exchange them for points, which can later be redeemed for other tickets. In other words, no more last-minute emails or tickets gone to waste.

But before all this can happen, Burkhart hopes to connect with a partner who can complement his business acumen with technical know-how. He won the competition just weeks ago, attracting attention from startup accelerators and investors, but cautions, “It’s not a working business yet.”

Still, Burkhart is optimistic that Cincinnati’s sustainable startup culture combined with his education, enthusiasm and upbringing—he’s from a family of entrepreneurs—will soon mean a successful launch for Tixers.

Originally published in Soapbox, our sister publication in Cincinnati.

By Robin Donovan

When Dave Lazor founded Lazorpoint nearly 16 years ago, he had a vision of building a full-service IT firm that would allow clients to focus on what they do best and not worry about whether their information services capabilities were the right match.

“We think, build and run informational systems that instill confidence,” explains Lazor. “Entrepreneurs or mid-market CEOs are focused on running their businesses and servicing their customers. They know they need information services, but they don’t know anything about it. They need a point man.”
 
And a point man is exactly what Lazorpoint provides. Each client is assigned a point man, who makes sure every need is met. “They have a vision: the point man can provide the leadership,” says Lazor. “When there are problems, or opportunities, we provide the leadership to make things happen.”
 
Lazor makes sure all of his 22 employees are dedicated to their clients’ needs. “The people we hire are very passionate about serving our clients,” he says. “We are relentless in whatever mission we’re on. We go beyond just the technology. We look at the people process.”
 
An example of the point man philosophy at work is demonstrated in an instance where a client had a warehouse fire.

“The client called his point man at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night and asked if we could help,” recalls Lazor. “At 8 a.m. Sunday we were on site. They were back in business Monday morning, with emails getting through. No one knew they had this problem.”
 
The point man approach has proved successful for Lazorpoint. The company has been named to the Weatherhead 100 as one of the fastest growing companies in Northeast Ohio eight times. Lazorpoint hired two additional people last year, and recently brought in a co-op student for a second year. The company currently has one open position, plans on hiring two interns this summer and creating another full-time position later this year.

Originally published in Fresh Water Cleveland, our sister publication in Northeast Ohio.
 
Source: Dave Lazor
Writer: Karin Connelly