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News and Events > News Release
Contact: Lindsay Polak
Technology Transfer Office
University of Colorado
(303) 735-5518
lindsay.polak@cu.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
University of Colorado Participates in Big XII Innovation Conference
The University of Colorado showcased several of its high-potential startup companies at a technology commercialization conference held Feb. 28 and Mar. 1 in Kansas City, MO. Hosted by the Big XII Center for Economic Development, Innovation and Commercialization (CEDIC), and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the conference was held in conjunction with Entrepreneurship Week USA, the national celebration of entrepreneurship sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation, The New York Times, and Inc. magazine. The goal of the Conference: boost collaboration among Big XII universities, foundations, state governments and the private sector as a means to encourage and foster innovation-driven economic development in the central United States.
CU-based companies who presented to a panel of venture capitalists:
OpX Biotechnologies (Boulder). OpX aims to develop and commercialize optimized microbial strains for biorefining and next-generation biofuels applications. OpX has access to a proprietary platform of genomics-enabled strain engineering technologies that can be used to optimize strain performance and reduce strain development timelines, as well as produce comprehensive and patentable strategies for engineering essential traits for commercial strains. OpX, a spinoff of the Gill Lab at CU-Boulder, is currently seeking investors, partners, and clients.
Copernican Energy (Boulder). CE is working in the field of high-temperature solar thermal gasification or pyrolysis of biomass to produce syngas, which can be transformed into hydrogen or liquid fuels. Powered by solar energy, use of syngas has the potential for net zero carbon emissions. Founded by CEO Mike Masterson and President/CTO Chris Perkins, CE is currently looking for partners for demonstration research and a pilot-scale facility.
Mentor InterActive (Boulder). Mentor is developing an educational and entertaining software program for teaching children to read. This interactive “edutainment” program is based on the highly acclaimed Foundations to LiteracyTM (FtL) learning tools developed at CU’s Center for Spoken Language Research, which combine scientifically proven literacy teaching methods, leading speech recognition technology, and a lifelike 3-D animated tutor that provides individualized instruction according to the abilities of each learner. Mentor received a $100,000 Proof-of-Concept grant in Fall 2006 from the CU Technology Transfer Office to support commercialization.
CU inventor Ryan Gill, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at CU-Boulder and co-founder of OpX, was awarded recognition as a “Rising Star” for his work in metabolic engineering, directed evolution and genomics. Local serial entrepreneur and business advisor R.C. “Merc” Mercure, co-founder of Ball Aerospace and CDM Optics (to mention his first and latest companies) and advisor to dozens of start-up companies, received a “Hero” award for leaders who have encouraged innovation in their respective Big 12 communities. Additionally, CU’s Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer, David Allen, participated as a panelist during the conference.
About Big XII CEDIC
In October 2005, the Presidents and Chancellors of the Big 12 Athletic Conference supported the development of a cooperative effort to replicate the economic value proposition of the Big 12 Conference in other areas of shared interests. The Big 12 CEDIC "Center for Economic Development, Innovation and Commercialization" is the experimental organization tapped with the responsibility to explore the methods by which a cooperative of 12 universities in seven states could deliver positive and cost-effective economic outcomes for the shared region. For more information, visit www.big12cedic.com.
About the Technology Transfer Office
The CU Technology Transfer Office pursues, protects, packages, and licenses to business the intellectual property generated from research at CU. The TTO provides assistance to faculty, staff, and students, as well as to businesses looking to license or invest in CU technology. For more information about technology transfer at CU, visit www.cu.edu/techtransfer.
About the University of Colorado
The University of Colorado is a three-campus system with campuses in Boulder and Colorado Springs, and a Denver and Health Sciences Center campus located in downtown Denver and at the former Fitzsimons Army Base in Aurora. CU is a premier teaching and research university, ranked sixth among public institutions in federal research expenditures by the National Science Foundation. Academic prestige is marked by CU’s four Nobel laureates, seven Mac Arthur “genius” Fellows, 17 astronauts, 19 Rhodes Scholars and CU-Boulder’s ranking of 11th best public university in the world in The Economist. For further information, please visit www.cu.edu.
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