Some great news arrived late last week with an award of $2.1M from the Ohio Third Frontier Commission for the creation of the Center for Excellence in Advanced Materials Analyses at Youngstown State University in collaboration with the Ohio Supercompter Center and Fireline TCON, Inc., a portfolio company of the Youngstown Business Incubator.

Fireline TCON will utilize the new center to extend its research activities toward developing new refractory materials for the processing of liquid aluminum as well as new applications such as light weight vehicle braking systems and conformal body armor for military forces.

The is the second new multi-million dollar Center of Excellence to be announced in the past 12 months where a YBI portfolio company is named as a primary collaborator.

Well, welcome to the halfway point of 2008.  That went quick, didn’t it?  What started out as a slow month, ended on a high note with lots of positive announcements throughout the region.  We’ve summarized a nice selection after the break.

June also saw one of the blogs we follow “going dark”, as they say.  Chris Varley’s Tech Futures blog, which grew out of a NorTech study around technology-based economic development, signed off this month with the following note:

The TechFutures site will remain up for some time to come, but this will be the last blog post in this forum.  As NorTech adapts to the changes around it, new priorities are emerging and new initiatives are being launched.  We invite you to revisit the stories and history of this project here on this site, but even more than that we encourage you to get and stay involved in the new projects NorTech and other economic development groups in the region pursue in the months and years to come.

Continued

The MAGNET incubator has a new tenant today.  Halcyon Products is moving in over the next couple of days.

Halycon Products supplies innovative products for Fire & EMS, Law Enforcement, Military and Sports Industries to facilitate helping people in emergency situations or to train for emergency situations.  As they say on their website, their products save lives!

Halycon is a past recipient of the Cuyahoga County New Product Loan Fund, administered by MAGNET.  Halycon used the funds to help bring to market their Fireground Compass product:

Halcyon Products, Inc. is now offering the first ever FireGround Compass, a tool designed by firefighters and incident commanders.  Both affordable and easy-to-use, this life saving tool can be used by any firefighter to orient themselves at an emergency scene thereby reducing the possibility of becoming lost, trapped, injured or killed.

Another entrepreneur looks ready to take off with the help of NEOinc resources.

On July 1^st, Ohio Department of Development staff will travel to Northeast Ohio to announce and discuss the FY 2009 Third Frontier Program Plan and requests for proposals that will be issued within the next 12 months.  Norm Chagnon, Executive Director of the Third Frontier Commission will present the FY 2009 plan.  John Griffin, Director, and Deb Cummings, Assistant Director of the Technology and Innovation Division from the Ohio Department of Development will also be available to answer questions about the FY 2009 plan.

Some of the programs that will be discussed include: Research and Commercialization, Wright Projects, Advanced Energy and Fuel Cells.    

The programmatic offerings should have appeal to a very diverse regional audience.  We hope you plan to attend the briefing to learn more about Third Frontier funding opportunities available in 2009. There is no cost to attend this meeting, though pre-registration is requested. Please RSVP to Olivia Robinson Bulls at orobinson-bulls@nortech.org by June 27^th.

Third Frontier Public Briefing: 2009 Funding Opportunities

Date:  July 1, 2008
Time:  8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast;  9:00 a.m. -10:30 a.m. Presentation and Q&A
Location:  Doubletree Hotel, 6200 Quarry Lane, Independence, OH 44131 Get Directions
RSVP:  Olivia Robinson Bulls at orobinson-bulls@nortech.org by June 27^th
Questions?:  Contact Kelly South at 216-241-8458

Sponsored by: NorTech

Akron Global Business Accelerator tenant MAR Systems was in the news over the weekend.  Read the full story here.

MAR Systems is developing a new process for removing dangerous heavy metals from industrial waste streams and drinking water.  They have received around $1M in investment capital to date and are looking to bring on a CEO and technical staff.  With obvious huge potential, this is a company to watch.

You might also enjoy reading this article recognizing Akron’s award from the National Civic League as an All-American City.  This is the third time Akron has received the award and this year the momentum generated by the AGBA was featured on the application.

With nighttime lows that have dipped into the 30’s recently, it’s hard to believe we are making the turn into Summer, but here we are in June already.  The temperatures are quickly on the rise (if only the Indian’s bats were heating up as well), and the Summer Solstice is only a couple weeks away.

Lot’s of good economic development news hit in May.  Selfishly, we here at NEOinc are most proud of Mike LeHere’s award by the National Business Incubation Association as the top incubator innovator of 2008.  Mike is the CEO of the Akron Global Business Accelerator (AGBA) and the innovation was the Global Technology Commercialization Initiative in conjunction with the City of Akron.  Three links to separate articles are in the list below, but since we write this blog, we’re linking here too.  Follow this link to read our original article on Mike. 

There is a lot of positive change happening in the region, particularly around entrepreneurial activities and economic development.  NEOinc follows several regional blogs reporting on these topics.  Sometimes the posts shine a spotlight nationally (or internationally) on the region.  Every month we publish a short list of some of the stories we’ve noticed that embody the spirit of achievement, growth and change in our region.

Here is NEOinc’s May recap of the articles we feel speak to the growth and positive change that is happening quietly, every day, in our region.   Continued

Governor Strickland toured the Akron Global Business Accelerator recently, as reported by The Beacon Journal (follow the link for the full story).

The Governor visited with several promising entrepreneurs in the accelerator:

• Spine Matrix and its back-pain technology
• InSet Systems LLC, that is weeks away from manufacturing small devices that can quickly find trapped miners
• reXource Thermionics and its waste-heat convertor
• NicheVision Inc. and its object-recognition technology for criminal investigations, and
• Vacuum Electric Switch Co. that repairs and refurbishes highly specialized electric switches.

I guess we know where some of those new jobs are going to come from…

Other recent articles of note concerning AGBA tenants:

• Harnessing heat for energy
• Israeli tech company moving to Akron
• Making gains in back pain

For the last two years JumpStart and The Center for Economic Development at Cleveland State University’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs have conducted an annual survey to assess the entrepreneurial climate and entrepreneurs’ confidence in their ability to start and sustain a business in Northeast Ohio. You can read last year’s findings here.

It is now time to revisit the survey for this year, and NEOinc is pleased to pass along the survey link for your participation.  Please take the 10 - 15 minutes estimated to complete this survey and help shape the direction of future support for entrepreneurship in Northeast Ohio.

Thank you for your participation.

UPDATE 7/2/2008 - This survey is closed and the link has been disabled.  Thank you to all who participated.  We have been told that over 300 responses were collected. 

19 Action News recently featured MAGNET incubator tenant Torex, in their “Does it Work?” series.

The verdict?  It Works!

Torex makes a family of innovative hot and cold therapy products.  You can view the Does it Work? segment featuring Torex by clicking this link.  Of course, this is no surprise to us as the Torex team have been honing their products over the past few years, and are well on their way to graduating out of the incubator. 

InSet Systems, LLC, a tenant in the Akron Global Business Accelerator, was recently featured in Popular Science magazine as one of the top 10 inventions for 2008.

InSet Systems, using a wireless radio network and inertial motion sensors, provides highly accurate location tracking for miners.  Miners wear a small transmitter, and the system is being developed with enough redundancies to remain operational even during collapse events.

Jim Ponceroff, who led a rescue team after the Sago mine collapse in West Virginia, is quoted as saying “This is going to be the best thing we’ve had ever, as far as I’m concerned.  I hope he makes a billion dollars.”

We do too Jim.  InSet has successfully tested the system in three mines and hopes to start licensing the technology by year’s end.