High Tech : Innovation + Job News

Akron-based Insight Market Data (IMD) has partnered with a family-run grocery store in Lorain County to create a more convenient, efficient and sustainable method of distributing coupons through a new smartphone app, Ringside Shopper.
 
Jim Wilson, formerly the B2B technical architect of Avon Lake-based PolyOne and senior application developer for Schwab and Key Corp., says the idea was borne out of his wife’s frustration with not being able to find diaper coupons on the internet following the birth of their daughter. The frustration led to serendipity.
 
“All of my varied programming experiences allowed me to see the whole system in a moment of inspiration,” Wilson says, recalling the moment from 1999 when pagers were common and smartphones weren’t on the radar yet. “Having played with early handheld computers, it was obvious to me what was coming and how it would make this system possible.” The long-brewing idea became a patent a decade later and is now a reality.
 
“The Ringside Shopper app itself is incredibly simple,” Wilson explains, adding user information is protected. “While in the store aisle, a shopper just scans the UPC barcode of a product they’re interested in, and the app will display a discount coupon for that product and a few others from competing brands.” The entire process takes no more than a few seconds, allowing the shopper to continue as normal until checkout. “Then at the checkout register, the shopper simply scans the ‘Point of Sale ID’ barcode stuck to the register [Ringside’s logo is on it], and like magic, their coupons will be applied and deducted from their bill as the items are scanned in,” says Wilson. A demo of the process is available at their website.
 
Wilson is proud to note that development has been an “all-Ohio” effort. “In addition to friends and family, the Lorain County Community Innovation Fund supported IMD early on with grant money and helped conduct a successful trial of the prototype system on the Lorain County Community College campus,” he says. Now Wilson is looking for more partners and investors as he continues developing relationships with Kent State University, Lean Dog in Cleveland, and LaGrange IGA to complete a variety of company tasks, including data mining, analytics support and programming.
 
Meantime, curious shoppers are invited by Wilson to download the free app and try it themselves at the LaGrange IGA. “With a little luck, the money saving system you see there will soon be coming to every store near you.”
 
 
Source: Jim Wilson
Writer: Joe Baur

The Dayton Development Coalition (DDC), which serves 14 counties in west central Ohio, is the region’s economic development and advocacy organization supporting job creation.
 
When deciding where to locate, businesses consider a host of different factors, including a skilled workforce, transportation, logistics, taxes, incentives and educational institutions, when deciding where to locate. DDC relies on its internal data team to research and provide information on these and other important factors to help attract regional economic development.
 
The data team was recently tapped to present some of its best practices and strategies at the Economic Modeling Specialists International (EMSI) national conference.  According to its website, EMSI provides “high-quality employment data and economic analysis through web tools and custom reports.”
 
The team shared how it uses EMSI data to target economic development efforts, explains Kristy Rochon, director of DCC’s institutional research and strategic planning. Impressed by the team’s presentation, EMSI is featuring some highlights on its website.

“One of our best practices is how we use data to recruit businesses to the Dayton region,” Rochon says. “When businesses contact us about what they need for their business decision, we put together the most competitive and comprehensive package possible, using data from a host of different sources. Instead of just feeding them data, however, we try to gain as much insight into their company as possible, comparing the Dayton region to where they’re currently located. We consistently go beyond the parameters to give them what they need.”
 
A second best practice, Rochon explains, reflects how DDC’s data team uses EMSI data to analyze regional competitive strengths and opportunities. “We look at what we call ‘driver industries.’ These are high-skilled industries that carry high job multipliers,” she says. “High job multipliers mean that for every job in that ‘driver industry,’ it’s going to produce additional jobs in that industry.”
 
She cites aerospace systems, advanced materials manufacturing, biosciences and advanced data management as examples of “driver industries.”
 
“What we’re looking for here is projected growth or projected decline and trying to understand the factors behind it. The goal is to find ways to strengthen the industry or capitalize on that growth.”

Source:  Kristy Rochon, Dayton Development Coalition
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

 

Expedient and Fast Switch are bringing their Tech Strategy event to Northeast Ohio. Started in 2007 in Columbus by Fast Switch, the Tech Strategy events are relaxed invitation-only networking events between senior level IT executives and promising technology startup companies.

Expedient got on board as a co-sponsor soon after the group’s inception, and now the two companies brought the concept to 70 attendees at  Lockkeepers in Independence on Tuesday, Feb. 26 for its inaugural Tech Strategy NEO. “I think it’s a great, unique concept for this area,” says Michael DeAloia, Expedient’s regional vice president. “It’s invitation-only to senior IT executives so they can meet with their peers while at the same time meeting with a select group of startups.”
 
The goal is to help the startups generate local customers, find advisory board candidates, access capital, gather employee referrals and receive business plan and strategy critiques. While the structure is casual, startup founders are given a short time to give their elevator pitches to the executives.

Eight startups pitched their companies, including Widdle, DragonID and J-Lynn Entertainment. Additionally, Fast Switch New Ventures and North Coast Angel Fund pitched to the group. “When was the last time a venture group pitched a room full of entrepreneurs,” asked DeAloia.
 
“It was a fascinating mix of people, creeds and generations in the room and I am always jazzed to be in the company of entrepreneurs and the energy and enthusiasm they possess,” says DeAloia. “I dig hanging out with the experienced executive and enjoy the opportunity to explore their experiences.”

No selling is a firm rule at these meetings, which will occur every two months, although DeAloia admits that occasionally the meetings have led to client relationships. The objective is to provide a casual yet controlled forum for executives to learn about technology start-ups in the region and explore ways to help them succeed. 
 
For information about future Tech Strategy events, contact DeAloia.
 
Source: Michael DeAloia
Writer: Karin Connelly


 
 

More and more, Cincinnati is recognized as an ideal city for startups, filled with resources for those interested in establishing their new ideas in the professional world. But what about independent artists intent on making and distributing their wares? For them, there’s CNCY MADE.

“The core idea is that we want to be able to start making connections in the local community to assist people who might be making their own physical products, but need help in figuring out what is needed to step up in scale,” says Matt Anthony, who is spearheading CNCY MADE. Anthony is one of the founders of Losantiville, an Over-the-Rhine based design collective filled with UC DAAP graduates.

Right now, CNCY MADE is only collecting information. Interested to see what the turnout will be, CNCY MADE is gauging the community’s interest and compiling intelligence on what supplies are widely available within the I-275 loop.

Whether you’re a creative designer with an idea for a product line, a manufacturer or have access to bulk raw materials, CNCY MADE wants to hear from you—if the project picks up momentum, it could be an invaluable resource for the city.

“We have great support for people who understand branding and consumer packaged goods,” Anthony says. He adds there is “a steady stream of creatives and students coming up with solid product line ideas and even prototypes who just can’t figure out the next step to scaling production to make a functioning business.”

CNCY MADE will not only connect makers with necessary contacts, it will provide a heads-up on what expenses to expect.
“The website could be a tool for actually connecting or just getting the details necessary to attain capital,” Anthony says.

“What we find in these early stages will determine some of the outputs for CNCY MADE.”
 
To get involved with CNCY MADE, visit their website and fill in the details.

By Sean Peters

The discovery of a great local act or a hot new bar should be shared, says Impulcity founder Hunter Hammonds. Immediately.

And it is. Thousands of smartphone users have downloaded the mobile application of the Brandery-trained startup since it launched on iTunes early last week.

An update to the app could drop as early as Wednesday, which would bring significant improvements to the mobile aggregator of entertainment venues. And the new company is hiring, too. They're looking for an Android app developer and an "artist content intern"—someone to write content about venues and events.

Hammond’s team, which includes co-founder Austin Cameron and iOS developer Eric Ziegler, is fine-tuning a VIP program, which will Impulcity users to check-in at a venue and avoid cover charges or receive other VIP benefits. They’re working on more robust context for events, including the ability to play the music released by a new band and produce background on an entertainer or a venue. The app will offer rankings and suggestions based on users’ past choices and an interactive calendar for entertainment-seekers who plan ahead.

Hammonds and his team maintain strong partnerships with venues—they're always asking how they can make the app more useful. “People are tired of the traditional ways of finding stuff to do,” he says. Impulcity will evolve until it captures each city’s unique culture.

Impulcity's short history is one of long-into-the-night planning. Hammond’s team scrapped the first version of the app in September, and rewrote it in a four-day marathon coding session. Their retooled version received Brandery approval in October, and they continued to tweak it until their Feb. 12 launch in the iTunes App Store.

They've raised a reported $400,000 and are seeking new office space. “Our goal is to build, and to last,” Hammonds says. “We have no plans to be absorbed into anything else.” He’s still not sharing his revenue model, but said Impulcity will approach profit-making differently than other social media products.

“We’d love to hire fresh college kids, but universities are teaching them outdated stuff,” Hammonds says. Advice from Hammonds: Learn to make use of Objective-C,  Java and jQuery. And hurry. He really wants to find an Android developer to help them expand their reach.

By Gayle Brown

Personalized stem cell therapy is in the forefront of medical advances. Using cultured clones of a patient’s own cells, medical scientists can develop personalized stem cell treatments, produce antibodies for vaccines and grow skin replacement patches and other types of human tissue for medical implants.
 
Two leading Central Ohio bioscience companies – Nanofiber Solutions and Celartia – have teamed up to develop a new cell culturing system – PetakaG3 NanoMatrix.  The system accelerates personalized stem cell therapies by enhancing stem cell expansion rates.
 
A petaka is a cell culture device with all the air space inside the chamber eliminated, which enables cells to grow on all internal surfaces. Nanofiber Solutions and Celartia added nanofibers to this closed, sterile environment to create PetakaG3 NanoMatrix.
 
“With regenerative medicine, the big issues are cell expansion rates and cell extraction rates – how quickly you can grow them and how many you can harvest,” explains Ross Kayuha, ceo of Nanofiber Solutions. “The PetakaG3 NanoMatrix is a significant first step in making personalized stem cell treatments possible in days versus weeks, as is the case now.”
 
He notes that there’s a growing trend in medicine and life science research to use three-dimensional cell culturing products to grow and study cells. “The body provides a 3-D environment for cells, but so much basic research in labs is performed on flat 2-D surfaces, which is a very unrealistic environment,” Kayuha says. “The PetakaG3 NanoMatrix is a tool at the intersection of personalized medicine and regenerative medicine that clinicians can use to perform cell-based analyses and develop stem-cell treatments.”
 
According to Emilio Barbera-Guillem, M.D., Ph.D., ceo of Celartia, “This PetakaG3-plus- nanofibers technology is important for direct applications for regenerative medicine and also new pharmaceutical discoveries and production.” Research centers, regenerative medicine centers and pharmaceutical companies will be primary purchasers of the new product, he notes.
 
PetakaG3 NanoMatrix was publicly introduced in December 2012 at the American Society for Cell Biology and will soon be available for worldwide distribution.
 
 
Sources:  Ross Kayuha, Nanofiber Solutions
               Dr. Emilio Barbera-Guillem, Celartia
Writer:     Lynne Meyer

For the second year in a row, Amplified Wind Solutions competed in the Ohio Clean Energy Challenge. This year the company won $10,000 and a trip to Chicago for a chance to win $100,000 in the Midwest competition.

Amplified Wind Solutions has designed a wind amplification system that can produce up to six times more electricity than a typical wind turbine. The company is targeting the telecommunications industry.
 
AWS CEO and co-founder Niki Zmij had eight minutes to present the company to the competition judges. They were the second company to present, but Zmij felt prepared and that she answered the judges’ questions well. Apparently, she was right.
 
“The winner was not to be announced until the awards reception at the very end of the day, but during our judges’ feedback session they decided to tell us early that we had won,” says Zmij. “They said our presentation really set the bar for the entire day, and wanted to ask us to present again at the awards ceremony so the other teams could hear our pitch. It was such a huge compliment.”
 
AWS is a Cleveland State University company co-founded in February 2012 based on technology invented by Majid Rashidi, chair of CSU’s engineering technology department. Other company members include Terry Thiele, director of sustainable product strategies at Lubrizol Corporation and Jon Stehura, financial manager at Laird Technologies and former CFO of Park Ohio.
 
The company has prototypes at CSU and Progressive Field. They have now completed designs for a third prototype, and Zmij is in discussions with several telecom companies about installing the pilot model on their towers. They are also looking for a manufacturing partner. Zmij predicts AWS will be ready for commercial sale in 2014.
 
If AWS wins the Midwest challenge in Chicago, the company will proceed to the national competition, for a chance to win an additional $100,000.
 
Zmij will earn her MBA in August and will stay with AWS full-time. “I'm fairly certain the entrepreneurial bug has given me the entrepreneurial virus,” she says. “I don't anticipate it going away any time soon.”

The company anticipates hiring additional staff in the third quarter of this year.

 
Source: Niki Zmij
Writer: Karin Connelly

Shaker LaunchHouse raised $15,000 at its second annual gala, held last week at Crawford Galleries of Western Reserve Historical Society. The money will help support Cleveland’s budding entrepreneurs. More than 260 attended the event, which was sponsored by the Shaker Heights Development Corporation.
 
“It was huge,” says LaunchHouse co-founder Todd Goldstein. “There were entrepreneurs, business leaders, successful CEOs of companies and people from the city of Shaker Heights. We even had people who flew in from out of state. It was a broad range of people supporting the entrepreneur community.”
 
The money will be used to support LaunchHouse startups and for programming. Specifically, Freebie Fridays, when people can come into the offices to work and pitch their ideas, will continue. LaunchHouse will also continue its support of the LightHouse Entrepreneurial Accelerator Program (LEAP), a program targeted at high school students.
 
Goldstein points out that LaunchHouse staff will assist anyone with an idea. “We never turn an entrepreneur away,” he says. “If an entrepreneur shows up at our door, we’ll work with them. And we’ve helped hundreds of small business owners who come in on Thursdays for open office hours and one-on-one business advice from our team members.”
 
Since its founding in 2009, LaunchHouse has invested in more than 40 companies, with more than 100 working directly out of LaunchHouse.
 
“Our advanced goal is to be an idea hub in the region,” says Goldstein. “Seeing that many people come out really is a testament to all the entrepreneurial activity happening in Shaker Heights.”
 
Stephanie Colangelo, director of public relations and marketing, adds that LaunchHouse has a solid relationship with other entrepreneurial support organizations. “If something is not necessarily for LaunchHouse, we direct them to JumpStart or Bizdom,” she explains. “And they do the same for us.”

 
Source: Todd Goldstein, Stephanie Colangelo
Writer: Karin Connelly

TOA, a developer and provider of field service and mobile management applications, was named to the Forbes Most Promising Companies in America list, ranking 81 out of 100 and the only Ohio company on the list of privately-held, high-growth companies. TOA went through a rigorous application process to be chosen from thousands of applicants.

“It’s a big honor for us,” says John Opdycke, TOA’s vice president of worldwide marketing. Opdycke and others involved kept the application process a secret until they found out they made the list last week. “Co-founder Yuval Brisker was just over the moon.”

Criteria for the honor included sales and hiring growth, quality of the management team and investors, market size and key partnerships. “It says TOA is a great place to work, our technology solves a problem that reaches a lot of people and we’re recognized as a technology innovator,” says Opdycke.

TOA’s ETAdirect Mobility App provides accurate, up-to-the-minute workforce management on any browser for in-home services – making sure the service people arrive on time.

The Forbes recognition is not only good for TOA’s business, but it helps put Cleveland on the map for technology business as a whole. “We absolutely enjoy and embrace the role of visionary of technology in Northeast Ohio,” says Opdycke. “You think the only companies on the list are in the Silicon Valley, New York or Boston. But you can be doing technology in Cleveland and doing business all over the world.”

Opdycke says the title helps attract top talent and customers from around the country, as well as locally. “It’s a great acknowledgement that we’re a company on the move and were growing,” he says. “It helps us attract people -- the best and the brightest -- retain our customers and attract new customers."

TOA employs 425 people worldwide, with more than 50 in its Beachwood headquarters. Opdycke predicts significant growth in the upcoming year, while continuing to foster creativity among TOA’s current employees and providing top customer service.

 
Source: John Opdycke
Writer: Karin Connelly

Xavier University grad and entrepreneur Matt Dooley is giving back to the university. This time, he's not a student but an instructor.

Dooley, who in 2011 launched a social media agency called dooley media, now teaches a social media marketing course he developed for Xavier's MBA program. This fall will mark his third year teaching the course, which was recently accepted into the lineup of Xavier's MBA electives after an experimental period.

The course centers on the changing and emerging social media marketing space. It's a real-time, real-world course that teaches students to create, analyze and and adapt social media campaigns across platforms. Dooley approached the university about the class, hoping to contribute to an existing course. Instead, he was asked to develop one himself.

"I think the underlying motive was simply that so many people were talking about social media and trying to figure it out," Dooley says. "That prompted me to send that email, to see if there was an opportunity to build dialogue around social media's best (and worst) practices." He graduated from Xavier with a BSBA in finance and an MBA in marketing.

Throughout his course, Dooley shares his own experiences in the working world, managing and developing social media campaigns for small- and medium-size businesses. Dooley also writes about social media marketing for the online publication Cincinnati Profile.

The course has featured numerous experienced speakers, including social media marketing experts from companies and organizations like Caterpillar, Waste Management, Yelp!, Microsoft and Obama for America.

The course emphasises on meeting real-life challenges, and in one project, help solve a marketing challenge 3M presented to the class. The challenge related to helping the company better sell a new suite of computer privacy and protection products.

"It's a real-world course," Dooley says. "I think it's going against the nature of social media to be any other way. It's as interactive and fun and lively as possible."

By Feoshia H. Davis
Follow Feoshia on Twitter

Columbus is winning big on two fronts with the recent opening of IBM’s new Client Center for Advanced Analytics in the city.
 
The company is investing $3.2 million in the new center, where it expects to add 500 jobs over the next three years, according to Ron Lovell, vice president of the facility.

In addition, while IBM operates more than 200 other client centers around the globe, the new Columbus facility is the company’s first dedicated advanced analytics center.
 
Lovell explains that IBM selected Columbus because of the strong and positive public-private partnership within the city, the friendly business climate and the large concentration of college graduates within a 200-mile radius. The endeavor is part of a collaboration with The Ohio State University, Jobs Ohio, Columbus 2020 and locally based businesses, such as the Information Control Corp.
 
According to Lovell, "The new anaytics center will tap into local business and academic experts, as well as IBM professionals from across our research, software and services divisions, to create capabilities that will strengthen decision making and help companies react more swiftly to important trends. The principal mission of the new center,” he notes, “is to advance skills through the design, development and support of advanced analytics in new data market areas.”
 
Data comes from everywhere, Lovell points out, noting that sources include everything from sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites and digital pictures and videos to purchase transaction records and cellphone GPS signals. “This data is ‘big data’,” he explains. “Big data is more than simply a matter of size. It’s an opportunity to find insights into new and emerging types of data and content, to make business more agile and to answer questions previously considered beyond our reach.”
 
Lovell calls “big data” a “powerful natural resource that, if used wisely, can drive U.S. economic competitiveness and lead toward careers in the future dedicated to improving society.“
 
He adds that the new Columbus advanced analytics center will have “significant positive implications for both the residents of Columbus and IBM clients.”  
 
 
Source:  Ron Lovell, IBM Client Center for Advanced Analytics
Writer:  Lynne Meyer
 

Major regional job-creating organizations have come together to focus efforts on competing for one of the nation's fastest-growing job segments: information technology.

This collaboration includes the Cincinnati CIO Roundtable, a forum of IT leaders who are focused on improving the region’s overall IT ecosystem, along with the Cincinnati USA Partnership and the Partners for a Competitive Workforce.

The CIO Roundtable is led by co-chairs Piyush Singh, SVP & CIO of Great American Insurance, and Geoff Smith, former IT leader at P&G.

"Business leaders in the region are coming together with the common goal of talking about the importance of IT, and its role in the growth of their companies," says Tammy Riddle, IT economic development director for Cincinnati USA Partnership.

Just last week, the organizations came together for a half-day, invitation-only event —“Grow the IT economy in Cincinnati USA.” The event featured presentations from a variety of stakeholders, including the organizers, JobsOhio and CincyTech.

The group is working to meet a wide range of challenges, including creating high-paying jobs through public and private partnerships, creating a strategic plan to grow IT jobs in the region, attracting and training talent, and determining the role of startups.

"One of the key things we're going to focus on are trends that companies are seeing across the board, and how we can match those with Cincinnati strengths and build the street cred of the IT sector in Cincinnati," Riddle says.

Regional universities also play a role in talent creation. Northern Kentucky University's College of Informatics is a leader, as is the University of Cincinnati with its top-rated analytics graduate program, and the University of Miami's innovative digital media program.

Cincinnati has an emerging IT industry. There are about 30,000 Cincinnati residents who are employed in the IT sector, which has an estimated $2.5 billion impact on the country’s GDP. According to the 2020 jobs outlook, it’s also one of the four fastest-growing and best-paying employment sectors in Cincinnati, with an anticipated 10-year growth rate of 26.5 percent.

"We want to take a more proactive approach to growing jobs in this sector," Riddle says. "We want to make sure that our region has what we need to fill that demand, to be able to accomplish growth."

Next, participants will start working on what it takes to grow the IT sector, including conducting a comprehensive assessment of the current IT economy and developing strategies for talent attraction, greater awareness investment and startup activity.

By Feoshia H. Davis
Follow Feoshia on Twitter

This story was originally published in Soapbox, hiVelocity's sister publication in Cincinnati.

Phil Alexander and Mohit Ahluwalia realized something when they were earning their MBAs at CWRU: that people in all segments of businesses are charged with creating presentations at some point in their careers. However, not everyone has the talent -- or budget to hire an agency -- to create an eye-catching presentation.

“Thirty million PowerPoint presentations are made every day across America,” says Alexander.
 
So Alexander and Ahluwalia thought about starting a business that would help customers create their presentations.

“We wanted to do something with digital media,” recalls Alexander. “We were looking to figure out if we could automate the process and avoid paying the high rates of agencies.”
 
The two applied to LaunchHouse Accelerator last summer and developed Quick2Launch, a company that creates great visuals for any presentation. The company officially launched last week with its ConceptDrop technology.
 
With the company’s ConceptDrop, users login, upload their content outlines and fill out a creative brief questionnaire describing their presentation. They are then presented with a selection of pre-approved templates and themes, and Quick2Launch takes it from there and creates the visuals to go along with the content. The end result is a complete, professional presentation.
 
“We’re just trying to hold their hand throughout the creation of the presentation,” says Alexander. “We’ve tried to make it so it’s really simple.”
 
Quick2Launch partners with Reality Premedia Services, which provides access to 150 graphic designers. The company is about a month away from launching its business-to-business platform.
 
Alexander says they hope to hire a sales team and in-house designers soon. “The goal is to completely build our own entity,” he says. “We really want to be the all-in-one stop for presentations.”

 
Source: Phil Alexander
Writer: Karin Connelly

This story was originally published in Fresh Water Cleveland, hiVelocity's sister publication in Northeast Ohio.

What began as a game and website development company in 1996 has blossomed into a thriving developer of software products.

After creating internal software that allowed UrbanCode to track the progress of its own software development projects, the company began developing similar products for its customers. UrbanCode products help their customers get their software to production faster -- decreasing time to market and ultimately getting their technology to the end users quickly and easily.
 
“One trait that unites all our customers is that they realize the strategic importance of their technology,” says Maciej Zawadzki, UrbanCode cofounder and CEO. “They need to get their technology into the hands of end users as quickly as possible. Our products facilitate the adoption of Agile methodologies in development and DevOps practices in operations."
 
Last year, UrbanCode was a finalist for Tech Company of the Year in NEOSA’s Best of Tech Awards, and its AnthillPro product won Best Software Product, Impact in 2008.
 
By recognizing their clients’ needs, UrbanCode has been growing by leaps and bounds. “Recently, we have been focused on DevOps releasing three new products: uDeploy, uBuild and uRelease,” says Tracy Gavlak, UrbanCode’s office manager. “We have been able to increase our growth rate to 70 percent over the last two years, with no signs of slowing down.”
 
UrbanCode has grown from 25 employees to 55 in the past year. Gavlak cites finding the right talent as one of the company’s biggest challenges. The company is currently recruiting sales engineers, field sales executives and software developers.

“We have the energy and informal atmosphere of a start-up, with the customers and financial security of a much larger firm” says Gavlak.
 
Company officials expect to double in size again this year. Plans are underway to move to a larger space in the Halle Building later this year.

 
Source: Maciej Zawadzki and Tracy Gavlak
Writer: Karin Connelly

This story was originally published in Fresh Water Cleveland, hiVelocity's sister publication in Northeast Ohio.

The Curiosity rover is busy investigating Martian climate and geology, thanks in large part to a power system developed by the University of Dayton Research Institute’s (UDRI) Energy Technologies and Materials Division.

“The art of science resides in people and not equipment,” says UDRI’s Senior Research Engineer, Chad Barklay. He explains their contribution to the Curiosity project was the result of collaboration among a team of scientists from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), NASA, Teledyn and Rocketdyne. “[We] determined which tests would be needed to ensure that the radioisotope power system (RPS) would properly function after entry, descent and landing.”

The result was a system that operates Curiosity’s wheels, robotic arm, computers, radio and other instruments. Needless to say, NASA is pleased with UDRI’s contribution. “Informally, there has been nothing but praise from various NASA program mangers regarding our efforts and contributions,” says Barklay, noting a few researchers on his staff have previously received formal recognition from NASA in the form of “Group Achievement Awards.”

As Curiosity continues its expedition 350 million miles away, Barklay continues his work in radioisotope power systems – something he says has a rich legacy in Dayton.

Dayton-based scientists Kenneth Jordan and John Birden developed the principle and first working model of the nuclear batter. “In 1959, they received a patent for their invention, and it is this technology that forms the basis for all RPS’s used in deep space missions today,” Barklay explains, powering some of NASA’s most notable missions, such as Pioneer, Voyager and Galileo.

“The legacy of this pioneering work that occurred almost 60 years ago in the Dayton area is amazing. It has travelled beyond our solar system and is still alive at the University of Dayton.”


Source: Chad Barklay
Writer: Joe Baur