Buzz

NASA has selected Development Projects Inc. of Dayton, Ohio, to manage a new Centennial Challenge prize competition involving unmanned aircraft systems in 2014.

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The University of Dayton’s Science Center, library and other buildings are the target of nearly $30 million in work being done this summer.The work is part of UD’s investment of approximately $155 million in its campus in recent years. The private Catholic school has doubled its land footprint in the last 10 years.

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IBM announced it has acquired UrbanCode Inc. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, UrbanCode automates the delivery of software, helping businesses quickly release and update mobile, social, big data, cloud applications.

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HealthSpot Inc., the Dublin company seeking to bust open the telemedicine market with its big blue booths, has raised another $10.4 million in a private investment round that included Cardinal Health Inc. and has secured a $1.5 million state loan.

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GE Aviation said Friday it is investing $200 million over the next three years in its Ohio operations, including Evendale, Peebles and the Dayton area.

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ATHENS, Ohio (April 11, 2013)—Six Ohio University students shared the $10,000 grand prize of the inaugural Scripps Innovation Challenge on April 11 after presenting their idea for a mobile alarm clock app designed to encourage young people to consume news.

Broadcast journalism seniors Devin Bartolotta, Matt Digby, Glenn Janos, Leah Petrovich, Sarah Tranelli and management information systems junior Ryan Vibbert collaborated to design an app that would allow users to receive targeted news on their mobile devices at their desired time of day. Their challenge – to Craft a Strategy to Get More Young People to Consume News – was submitted by Ogden Newspapers.

“It started out as a class project and, as the idea developed, we realized it could be so much more,” said Tranelli. “We felt really confident about our idea and hoped we could come in here and get the judges to believe in it. Our professor, Mary Rogus, was behind us every step of the way, and we thank her.”

The Scripps Innovation Challenge, a campus-wide contest sponsored by the Scripps College of Communication, provided the opportunity for students to innovate creative solutions to actual challenges from the media industry.

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NineSigma, Inc., of Cleveland, the leading innovation partner to organizations worldwide, today announced several new clients they will work with under the Ohio Third Frontier Open Innovation Incentive (OII) Program. As part of the program, NineSigma received a grant from the State of Ohio to help middle market companies, with revenues between $10 million and $1 billion, leverage Open Innovation strategies.

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Consider Columbus, Ohio, one of this nation’s “legacy cities” in the industrial heartland. In a review of the city’s accomplishments toward earning the Most Intelligent title, Robert Bell, founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, cites assets including Ohio State University, the Columbus Metropolitan Library and the innovation incubator TechColumbus as significant advances in smart technology application and education. The city is further lauded for its multi-sector partnerships, inclusion of citizens in visioning and transparency of process in decision making.

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Johnathan M. Holifield, NorTech’s Vice President of Inclusive Competitiveness affirmed, “This potential game-changer for Ohio is an economic competitiveness imperative.  Ohio must cultivate a larger, more diverse and inclusive STEM pipeline to produce more job-creating entrepreneurs.  This program will accelerate those efforts.”

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Today's emerging high-tech hubs are not where you think they are, according to techie.com, a destination site for disruptive technology and emerging trends. The online publication today released its "Ten Most Unexpected Cities for High Tech Innovation" list, highlighting ten unexpected locales that are expected to replace Silicon Valley.

"Silicon Valley has rendered itself obsolete," says techie.com editor-in-chief Dan Blacharski. "With the emergence of cheap, reliable, and available cloud-based infrastructure and services, the tech industry is moving towards the industrial Midwest."

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About two years ago, a tiny Finnish startup landed in Akron, hoping to tap the U.S. market.

Now, the wireless technology venture 7signal has eight employees, a growing customer base and recently received money from the new Akron BioInvestment Funds, designed to boost the city’s tech industry.

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While the Ohio State men’s basketball team was competing in the NCAA Tournament, other members of the university community were working toward a different championship title.

OSU was crowned the winner of the second annual Environmental March Madness Tournament early Tuesday, defeating other schools in the “Sustainable 16” after filing out initial surveys.

The tournament pitted universities against one another based on each college’s environmental curriculum and sustainability efforts and was organized by Enviance, an environmental software company.

As the 2013 national champion, OSU will be awarded a $5,000 grant for its Environment, Economy, Development and Sustainability (EEDS) program. Its director will also get an all-expense paid trip to San Diego to attend the 2013 Enviance User Conference and be a part of a discussion panel in April.

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