Innovation + Job News

A conversation two years ago between Cincinnati physician Sambhu Choudhury and his cousin, an Iraqi veteran, sparked an idea for a medical device that could help save soldiers' limbs after traumatic bomb blasts.

"My cousin was an Army Ranger who did four tours in Iraq. After his last one, we were talking about him and his buddies and some of the things they went through. A lot of them are surviving blasts that would have killed them in the past, because of body armor. The armor covers their torso and organs, but not their limbs," Choudhury says.

From that conversation, the idea sprang for a sterile, stabilizing wound sleeve that would protect limbs during emergency transport. The idea got a boost in September as a winner of Xavier University's XLAB (Xavier Launch-a-Business) first-ever business competition.

Choudhury was one of eight Greater Cincinnati innovators awarded an academic year's worth of business mentoring services designed to take ideas from concept to marketplace.

Choudhury is an orthopedist who developed the idea along with fellow Cincinnatians Sean Lynch, a certified physican's assistant and Arturo Sanchez, an engineer. Xavier is giving the developers something they lack: business acumen. They will get a business adviser, consulting services, access to Xavier workshops, mentors and networking events. They will also get help in developing a business plan and a meeting with potential investors for their new company Concepto.

"As a company we don't have a business background," Choudhury said. "Developing the technology is easy for us, and we have a good handle on it. But we need to work with people who can help us get into the market without breaking the bank."

Source: Sambhu Choudhury, Concepto founder
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

It's uncertain how many Americans are playing console games for money. But with nearly 70 such games hooked to the Internet in North America, Beyond Gaming hopes to tap into at least 30,000 players within its first month.

The concept is simple: provide a site through which members can play console game tournaments for fun � no membership fee � or for stakes � $7.95.

Because the Toledo company takes no cut of the winnings, and because console games are considered games of skill, the service is legal, says President and CEO Tony Legeza.

Legeza and co-founder Justin Yamek, himself a competitive console gamer, came up with the idea after Yamek qualified for a west coast tournament last year but couldn't scrape together the funds to fly to LA.

Instead, they asked, why not build a Web-based service that allows gamers to connect with others, organize tournaments, and build relationships through a robust social media component?

The service was launched earlier this year as a closed beta site with 500 players, but quickly picked up an additional 500 after going public a little more than two weeks ago, Legeza says.

"When you go on the site you create a profile, you've got your friends and your wall that you can communicate with," Legeza says. "We've got different chat rooms and video chat rooms where you can share video and let other people watch you play in a competition. People have a space to come to where they can start communicating about something they're passionate about, share their experiences, provide content, upload photos, share video content."

The company had early help from Rocket Ventures, which invested an initial $100,000, and angel funding of more than $100,000. The company is in the midst of a $500,000 venture capital round as well.

Beyond Gaming currently has four employees.

Source: Tony Legeza, Beyond Gaming
Writer: Gene Monteith

Your fridge conked out and you need it fixed before the roast goes bad. Problem is, the repair company can't say exactly when a technician will be out. Does "sometime between 1 and 5 p.m." sound familiar?

TOA Technologies of Beachwood has tackled the problem by developing a system it says can schedule the repair technician, cable guy or TV installer in a one-hour slot with a 96 percent on-time rate.

On Tuesday, TOA released its 2010 Cost of Waiting Survey, which polled consumers in the U.S., Germany and the UK about their waiting experiences. TOA found that American adults wasted about 2.75 billion hours waiting in the past year � the equivalent of 1 million people being out of work for a year.

The cost to businesses is significant, says President and CEO Yuval Brisker, noting that 21 percent of respondents reported switching companies because of long waits. Nearly half called customer service to complain about their experiences � an additional cost to companies that contract with call centers.

TOA's approach rests on its ability to analyze individual employee performance to understand how long he or she will take for each assignment, Brisker says. Not only does TOA's solution generate employees' daily schedules, but it provides customer notification and tracking functionality, he says. All of which help service companies keep their customers.

Founded in 2003, TOA launched its services in 2004 and has raised $17 million in two rounds of venture capital, including assistance from two Ohio Capital Fund partners: Cleveland-based Early Stage Partners and Draper Triangle Ventures.

Brisker predicts current year revenues to rise 75 to 80 percent over last year. Meanwhile, TOA has grown from two employees in 2004 to 200 worldwide today � about 40 of which will staff the company's new headquarters building when it opens in Beachwood next month.

Source: Yuval Brisker, TOA Technologies
Writer: Gene Monteith

Battelle Memorial Institute, one of the world's leading research and technology development organizations, is ready to shed its relative anonymity.

In a new effort to publicize the scope of its research, Battelle has added a searchable catalog to its website for those seeking licenses on its intellectual property and patents.

"We've always licensed technology. We've always done contract research for clients, and our industrial and government partners," says Spencer Pugh, Battelle's VP and manager of industrial and international markets. "We just never bragged about it much, or made it public."

The initial catalog of more than 60 patents ranges from medical and industrial system advancements, to advanced materials technology, consumer product innovations and green technologies. Metal-air batteries that increase efficiency in hearing aids and cell phones, cell therapy manufacturing systems, tankless cutting torches and thermal water treatment systems dot the list, which is just the tip of Battelle's research, Pugh explains.

Because it licenses some of its research to clients, they'll never be able to publicize the full range of the company's work.

The company, with headquarters in Columbus, has 130 locations worldwide with 22,000 employees. Battelle also co-manages seven national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security, and a nuclear energy lab in the United Kingdom.

But, at its heart, Pugh says, Battelle is a charitable trust with an emphasis on furthering math and science education. With additional funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the company is a founding partner of the Ohio STEM Learning Network and one of the corporate leaders of the Change the Equation Initiative, a CEO-led effort dedicated to inspiring STEM students. It also continues to work with today's youth through its Battelle for Kids, Battelle Engineering Experience and Project Mentor programs, and sponsors numerous grants for education programs.

Source: Spencer Pugh, Battelle Memorial Institute
Writer: Dave Malaska

Cursed to endure amputation after contracting meningitis as an infant, Patrick, 13, now is blessed to be bionic.

He has an amazingly functional prosthetic arm and hand made by Touch Bionics of Hilliard.

And he's not alone. Mechanical wizardry that seemed the stuff of sci-fi not long ago is helping thousands of people affected by medical conditions, industrial and agricultural accidents � even war veterans.

Touch Bionics develops advanced upper-limb prosthetics. Its flagship product us the i-LIMB Hand, which has five individually powered digits.

The company relocated from Scotland to the U.S. in 2009. The Hilliard site consists of about 11,000 square feet of space used for offices, fabrication and a clinic.

"�We started with about four employees (in Hilliard). Today, we currently have about 15. The office is composed of fabrication, clinical, customer service, marketing, finance, admin support, the reimbursement team, and A/P," says spokesman Lisa Prasad.

A New York site is used for the company's LIVINGSKIN division, acquired in 2008, which specializes in "aesthetic restoration solutions" � passive prosthetic devices designed to match exactly to a person's natural skin tone.

Touch Bionics began as a spinoff from the national health system in Scotland. It's many awards include "The Most Innovative Company of the Year in Europe".

Sources: Lisa Prasad and Linda Forrest, Touch Bionics
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

3-D imaging has come a long way since the days of those funky paper eyeglasses in the movies. Today it's being used to design sophisticated software with applications for everything from mapping to gaming.

Dayton-based Woolpert has been developing new 3-D technology through its venture, i23D, and expects demand for 3-D modeling to increase significantly in the coming years.

Woolpert, a design, engineering and geospatial firm, started i23D last year in connection with the University of Dayton-led Institute for Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology (IDCAST) and Tidex Systems Ltd., a Tel Aviv company that specializes in interactive video technology.

Tidex originally developed the software that allows a two dimensional video to be made into a 3-D video model using only a conventional video camera.

Although there are other methods that allow similar modeling, i23D's technology makes it much less expensive because you only need an ordinary video camera to complete the mapping, says Phipps. In much of the current technology lasers are used to create the map, a much more expensive method.

"Everything's going 3-D today," says Steve Phipps, president of i23D and a senior vice president at Woolpert in Dayton. "There are many different ways you can use it."

Phipps says that i23D is looking for additional funding to complete its research to fully develop the software. Once complete, he says the applications for its use will include markets in asset management, security and national defense where detailed 3-D mapping of building interiors or outdoor locations could be used to keep the public safe or just keep track of how space is used.

Another potential market is real time 3-D technology for use in autonomous navigation for vehicles, such as drone flight craft, says Phipps.

i23D has just two employees, but in the next year could hire as many as five new workers .

Source: Steve Phipps, i23D
Writer: Val Prevish

As if awaiting results from a breast biopsy isn't frightening enough, a woman also may have to endure pain and scarring from the procedure itself.

While the waiting part remains, the physical discomfort is being lessened by use of a minimally invasive device known as a mammotome. The device is so innovative and increasingly well known its name now is also the name of the company that makes it.

Mammotome began as the breast care segment of Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon Endo-Surgery, based in the Cincinnati area. Devicor Medical Products Inc. of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, acquired the segment and has established Mammotome's headquarters in the Cincinnati suburb of Sharonville. The transaction closed in July.

The Ohio Department of Development granted the company a 60- job creation tax credit for seven years, valued at $1.5 million.
Mammotome, the device, is sold in more than 50 countries. Mammotome, the company, employs 300 around the world; 100 of which are in Ohio; total employment is expected to reach about 600 eventually.

Besides the namesake device, the company also makes breast tissue markers called MammoMARK, MicroMARK, and CorMARK.
The company has said it plans to build a new manufacturing plant in the next year or so. A spokesman declined to discuss possible locations.

However, "The senior management team shares my commitment to investment and innovation as we continue to build on Mammotome's position as a leading global breast care company," CEO Tom Daulton said in a news release.

Source: Devicor Medical Products/Mammotome
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs

Wyndot Inc. may be the biggest company you've never heard of.

Nestled within a 250,000-square-foot plant in Marion, the company is a major player in the snack food industry. Only confidentiality agreements with its customers � retailers, like grocery stores, and brand-name snack food companies that contract with Wyandot � have prevented its name from spreading.

Hoover and Ava Brown founded the company in 1936 in an old Wyandot County schoolhouse, says Rex Parrott, the company's executive VP of operations. Wyandot Popcorn Company, which only sold un-popped popcorn, grew dramatically in the 1950s when a customer asked the company to expand into popped popcorn.

"And so they came to Marion, and rented some space and bought some poppers and started making popcorn-related snacks," Parrott says.

The company grew even more quickly in the 1960s when one of the founders' sons took over the snack portion of the business, Parrott says. Small chip makers, who didn't have the capabilities to make the all-corn products consumers demanded, flocked to Wyandot to fill their needs.

Today, the company makes nothing under its own name, but cranks out plenty of product for others � including the tortilla strips found on Southwestern Salads at Wendy's and McDonald's. The company will make about 50 million pounds of snacks this year, almost all of them corn based, Parrott says.

"About half of those are tortilla chips, and the other half are a variety of different products," Parrott says. "That equates to about 100 million bags of snacks. We handle about 140,000 cases of product every week and we handle either loading or unloading about 150 semis a week."

Wyandot is still family-owned and currently employs 350. It also has been hiring � about 30 new employees this year alone, Parrott says.
"Regardless of the economy, people still eat," he notes.

Source: Rex Parrott, Wyandot Foods
Writer: Gene Monteith

Cincinnati Innovates awarded $25,000 to Jocelyn Cates for Venue Agent, an event-venue booking website application.

Venue Agent was chosen from among 301 online entries. More than 16,000 votes were cast for the HYPE! Community Choice Award. The competition was open to anyone with an idea or an invention who has a connection to the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky MSA. Prizes totaled $80,000.

Venue Agent helps brides and event planners find and book venues for weddings. The same tool helps venues to promote off-peak and off-season discounts.

"Many brides don't know that booking on a Thursday or Friday could save them 50 percent on their venue - and many venues have a tough time selling off-season dates. VenueAgent is like the Hotels.com of event venues," Cates says.

"The purpose of Cincinnati Innovates is to identify high potential entrepreneurs and technologies and connect them with more than 50 local resources for entrepreneurs," says Elizabeth Edwards, founder of Metro Innovation, a catalyst for innovation and entrepreneurship.

The competition was produced by Metro Innovation, with the Taft Stettinius & Hollister  law firm, CincyTech, the Northern Kentucky eZone, and 22 area sponsors.

"This year we really saw more winners than we had awards to give out," says attorney James Zimmerman, a partner at Taft. "From biotechnology and the Internet to consumer products, medical devices and green technology, the range of innovation has been amazing."

Bob Coy, president of CincyTech, says the competition helps to spur local entrepreneurial activity, which then spurs economic growth.

"We've been very pleased with the kinds of participants Cincinnati Innovates is attracting," says Coy. "We are looking for strong startups in which to invest, and we've seen many good ideas coming out of this competition."

Source: Jocelyn Cates, Venue Agent, and Bob Coy, CincyTech
Writer: Patrick Mahoney

Infusing new life into an obsolete auto factory campus, Dayton's 40-acre Tech Town technology park has become a hub for young start-up companies and big names in the aerospace industry who cluster in the region because of Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the research it attracts.

"It's quickly becoming a national center for sensing technology," says Larrell Walters, director of IDCAST (Institute for the Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology), one of the first tenants in Tech Town.

IDCAST has created 280 jobs in its 42 months of operations, says Walters, and it has attracted many young companies to the area who are active in advanced sensing technology.

Another job and research magnet for Tech Town is the Dayton RFID Convergence Center, a radio-frequency identification incubator that has helped generate more than 50 new jobs since it opened a year ago, says Steve Nutt, vice president of CityWide Development Corp., which manages Dayton's development strategy.

"When they started they had applications from as far away as Australia and New Zealand," says Nutt of the RFID incubator. "Just one year after opening they have 12 new businesses located here."

Besides IDCAST and RFID, Tech Town is home to 29 companies, from two-person start-ups to big names like Boeing and General Dynamics. Eight universities are also among the tenants.

Tech Town gives them the ability to collaborate and provides ready access to the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the University of Dayton Research Institute, with roughly 700 full-time researchers.

Source: Larrell Walters, IDCAST, and Steve Nutt, CityWide Development Corp.
Writer: Val Prevish

For the last 10 years, Green Energy Ohio has been promoting environmentally and economically sustainable energy policies in Ohio.

One of its hallmark programs � the annual Ohio Solar Tour � was held Oct. 2-3, with 242 green homes and businesses opening their doors to the public.

"The tour that we just completed was the eighth year that we participated," says Jack Clock, the non-profit's southwest Ohio coordinator. The national event, sponsored by GEO's parent organization, the American Solar Energy Society, gives the public an opportunity to see how others are making use of renewable and sustainable energy practices � not just solar, Clock says.

"I think we had more sites this year than any state in the country," Clock says. "It was all done in Google Maps, so you could go in, put in your address, the technologies you wanted to see and how far you were willing to travel, and it would spit out everything within that mile radius."

The organization is divided into five regions and is run by Executive Director Bill Spratley, Ohio's first Consumers Counsel. GEO's main offices are located in Columbus. The organization not only advances the use of advanced and alternative energy, but provides education and assistance to homeowners and businesses interested in clean energy. GEO also encourages volunteer clean energy projects and has helped train solar system installers.

GEO will have a hand in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers' "Lean to Green" conference scheduled Oct. 26th-29th in Columbus. As part of that conference, GEO will hold its own business-to-business workshop Oct. 26th to showcase Ohio companies using clean energy systems.

Source: Jack Clock, Green Energy Ohio
Writer: Gene Monteith

That timeshare in Myrtle Beach seemed like a good idea at the time. A week's beach vacation in your own place every year.

But last year, the kid came down with pneumonia just before your vacation in the sun. This year, a business trip got in the way. You tried to trade your weeks with other timeshare owners -- but it never worked out.

Bottom line: You didn't quite get what you paid for.

If VacationView has its way, that dilemma will be solved. The young company, which formed last year and launched its Resort Rentals By Owner (RRBO) service in June, has built a web environment that will let you rent out your timeshare when you can't use it.

Think of it as StubHub for timeshares, explains co-founder Bob Kington.

"We started down this path of building a trading platform where owners could find each other online and do a swap between themselves," Kington says. "As we got into it, we said there's a better solution, and that's rental. If you could just rent your unit out and get cash for that asset and then use that cash to go somewhere else on vacation or put it in your pocket or whatever, it's a much better solution."

Unlike similar services, which bring renters and owners together to hash out deals on their own, RRBO takes care of both the transaction and fulfillment, Kington says.

Formed by former CompuServe and AOL alumni -- including former ShareThis CEO Mike Blackwell -- RRBO has raised about $800,000, including $225,000 from TechColumbus, and is working on an additional $300,000 to $500,000 round. The additional funds will allow the company to make a full-fledged marketing push, Kington says.

RRBO has seven full-time and three part-time employees.

Source: Bob Kington, VacationView
Writer: Gene Monteith

A pacemaker for the heart is commonplace. So why not a pacemaker for the diaphragm?

Thanks to Synapse Biomedical in Oberlin, that vision is now a reality.

Formed 2002 as one of Cleveland-based JumpStart's original portfolio companies, Synapse has commercialized technology developed at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals in Cleveland.

The company's NeuRx Diaphragm Pacing System works by electrically stimulating the nerves that control the diaphragm -- the organ that works like an internal billows to relax and contract the lungs. People with spinal cord injuries, Lou Gehrig's Disease and other neurological ailments previously spent their lives attached to mechanical ventilators.

One early user -- in fact the third ever -- was actor Christopher Reeve, who needed assistance breathing after he was paralyzed in a fall from a horse.

"We now have about 350 people implanted with the device from Iceland to Australia," says Tony Ignagni, Synapse's president and CEO.

Approved in Europe for a wide range of disorders, the pacing system currently is approved in the U.S. only for spinal cord injuries, Ignani says.

"Right now our main focus is on getting the ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) approval in the U.S. We've collected all the data and we're working through an FDA process."

The company has about a dozen employees, but with approval for additional uses in the United States, that number could rise, Ignani says.

"The ALS market is actually about 10 times the size of the spinal cord market."

Source: Tony Ignagni, Synapse Biomedical
Writer: Gene Monteith

In the early '90s companies in need of material-exposure experiments in space came to Bob Schmidt, the founder of Orbital Research Inc. Schmidt's company would arrange to fly the samples on board the NASA space shuttles.

"Our logo shows a globe with a shuttle flying around it," says Fred Lisy, Orbital president since 1997. "Our goal was to give those new materials systems some pedigree by exposing them to the harsh environment of low Earth orbit . . . We don't do that anymore."

After nine successful shuttle experiments, NASA lost its funding for the program. Schmidt then shifted his focus to Cleveland Medical Devices, leaving Lisy in charge of Orbital.

These days, Orbital's core technologies are aerodynamic controls and microdevices for the aerospace, defense, transportation, medical, and wind turbine industries. Inc. Magazine and the Weatherhead School of Management have recognized the fast-growing company.

The company develops miniature control actuation systems (MCAS) for attitude and flight control for air vehicle platforms. The systems enhance maneuverability, range, and in-flight course corrections while minimizing size, weight, and cost. They have been deployed on hit-to-kill projectiles, fixed-wing vehicles, UAVs and Slender Bodies for enhanced vehicle control.

"I work on everything from unmanned air vehicles, roughly six inches by six inches by 12 inches, to medical monitoring systems to combat obesity, and weapons steering systems for munitions ranging in size from 40mm to 155mm rounds," Lisy says.

Orbital received $175,000 from the state through the Ohio Third Frontier's Research Commercialization Grant Program and raised over $1 million in matching funds. The product is a FDA approved disposable dry Electrocardiograph (ECG) Recording Electrode that requires little or no skin-surface preparation.

Orbital has 23 employees with annual sales of about 3 million dollars, but expects significant growth.

Source: Fred Lisy, Orbital Research
Writer: Patrick Mahoney

The algae may not be greener on the other side. Executives at Algisys LLC are looking at sites in Ohio for the Cleveland biotech startup's first manufacturing plant.

No timeline or other details about the site selection process have been disclosed.

Algisys specializes in cost-effective growth and harvesting of algae for the production of nutritional oils and high protein biomass. These " algal omega-3 oils" and high protein additives are used for the multi-billion-dollar supplement, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, pet food, and animal feed markets.

Current industry practice is to obtain the nutritional oils from fish, which eat algae.

Algisys has an exclusive global license on the intellectual property and technology created at Virginia Tech by Dr. Zhiyou Wen, its chief science officer, over a 12-year period.

Things are moving fast for the company incorporated in July, 2009.

"We have letters of intent from prospective customers, we are looking at manufacturing facilities in Ohio, we have secured new funding, and we will be one of the presenters at the Ohio Early Stage Summit VI put on by the Ohio Capital Fund," said Matthew M. Minark, vice president of business development.

Algisys has received funding from BioEnterprise in Cleveland, the Center for Innovative Food Technology in Toledo, and Tower Wealth Management in Shaker Heights.

Plus, this summer, Algisys got funding from the Cuyahoga County New Product Development and Entrepreneurship Loan Fund; this spring it was awarded a National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research Phase I grant.

Sources: Matthew M. Minarik and Charles L. Roe, Algisys LLC
Writer: Gabriella Jacobs