May 29, 2008

Episode 45: Utah Innovation Awards

As reported on our Utah Tech Spotlight Blog, Wednesday May, 21 was the sixth Annual Innovation Awards in Salt Lake City, Utah and Twelve Horses was there to see and record the innovations that made it the finals and congratulate the winners. We were also hoping, after seeing Iron Man last week, to see the Robotic Exoskeleton by Raytheon Sarcos, and perhaps even take it for a test drive, but alas, they did not bring it.

We did see some cool stuff. Top on the list of things to look out for next ski season was the Klymit insulation system, a Noble-Gas based adjustable insulation system for sporting outerwear. The system developed by Brigham Young University students uses argon in small canisters to fill chambers to vary insulation.

Mick Hagen won for his college student recruitment tool called zinch.com. This is a social network similar to Facebook, Myspace or Ning where high school students and colleges can create profiles and actively recruit each other.

This is effective for both parties as the Colleges can find good qualified recruits without relying exclusively on contact lists purchased from the standardized testing agencies (SAT, ACT etc) and less effective email marketing campaigns. According to Hagen, colleges are finding this social networking approach more effective at reaching the best students than traditional marketing techniques, buying contact lists for email, mail and telephone. Students everywhere are ecstatic at being able to substitute a “superpoke” for a profile essay when applying to BYU.

We spoke with Dr. Chris Johnson, the Keynote Speaker at the awards presentation and Director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah. The research, advances and inventions coming out of that office are amazing. He told us about a new real-time 3D imaging system that can pinpoint cancer in a beating heard to target radiation therapy.

Also awarded was our client Solera Networks for their Network Monitoring Appliance. This is a tool that lets network administrators monitor, store and review everything coming in and out of their network.

And another cool one comes from Kevin Shurtleff of Mountain West Energy LLC. Shurtleff has developed an oil vaporization technology to extract the remaining 2/3 of oil that is left over with traditional techniques. This could add 180 billion barrels to US oil production with no new oil fields.

It was a great event showcasing the best of what Utah innovators have to offer. Thanks to Stoel Rives LLP and The Utah Technology Council for making this event happen.

2008 Utah Innovation Award Winners

Allocure: Cell Therapy for Acute Renal Failure: Biotech/Pharmaceudicals
Cerametec, Inc.: NaSICON Membrane Technology: Chemicals/Materials science
Mountain West Energy LLC: Insitu Vapor Extraction: Clean Technology and Energy
Raytheon-Sarcos: Robotic Exoskeleton: Computer Hardware/Electrical Devices
Zinch Inc.: Student Profile and College Wizard: Consumer Software
Solera Networks: Solera Networks DS Series Packet Capture Appliance
Klymit: Noble-Gas-Based Adjustible Insulation
Anecare Laboratories, Inc: QED-100: Medical Devices

-Mike

Posted in Horse Power Podcast, Podcast, Salt Lake City, Social