Connecticut Technology Council

Connecticut Technology Council Announces 53 Finalists for Eighth Annual Women of Innovation® Awards Program

Women leaders in technology, science and engineering to be honored March 1^st, Dr. Alicia Abella of AT&T Labs to keynote awards ceremony

The Connecticut Technology Council (CTC) today announced 53 finalists for the eighth annual Women of Innovation^® Awards Program. The program recognizes women across Connecticut – those in the workforce and students – who are innovators, role models and leaders in the fields of science, engineering and technology.

A winner in each of the eight awards categories will be announced during the Women of Innovation^® Awards Dinner at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington on March 1, 2012.

The complete list of 2012 Women of Innovation^® awards finalists is posted on the CTC website, www.ct.org. Ticket purchases and registration for the 2012 event may be handled online through the CTC website.

Finalists were nominated by their peers and selected based on their professional experience, history of innovation, ability to think creatively and solve problems, and demonstration of leadership. Students were judged on inventiveness, accomplishment in science and technology, and academic achievement.

“Our 2012 finalists represent an outstanding group of women who are excelling in their careers in technology,” said Beth Alquist, planning committee chair for the Women of Innovation^® Awards Program. “These women are extraordinary and outstanding contributors to their professions, to their employers, and in many cases to their communities.”

This year’s list of 53 finalists includes researchers, educators, engineers, managers, and entrepreneurs who work in biotech, pharmaceuticals, software, computer hardware, advanced materials, medical devices, and Information technology.

High school, undergraduate and graduate students who have demonstrated extraordinary and unique achievements in their technology studies disciplines are also among the finalists. The winner in the Youth Innovation and Leadership category will receive a scholarship from Covidien Medical Devices.

The keynote speaker for the awards ceremony is Dr. Alicia Abella, executive director of the Innovative Services Research Department at AT&T Labs and chair of its Fellowship program. Dr. Abella manages a group of researchers specializing in data mining, user interfaces, IPTV, mobile services, SIP/VoIP technology, and environmental sustainability. Dr. Abella is also executive vice president for the Young Science Achievers program and a strong advocate of fostering the development of minorities and women in science and engineering. A presentation by Dr. Abella:

The Women of Innovation^® Program is sponsored, in part, by the Boehringer Ingelheim USA Corporation, the law firm of Day Pitney LLP and United Technologies Corporation.

Contact Mike Scricca at (860) 289-0878, ext. 334 or mscricca@ct.org with questions regarding the program or awards dinner or visit http://www.ct.org

Great Energy & Ideas at Startup Weekend: Storrs, 1/27/2012

Congratulations to PlatForum, Sobrio, and MailStack who tied for 1st Place at the inaugural Startup Weekend Storrs event! Honorable mention when to KidETA for most promising service to the community, and Life Raver for best name.

There were many terrific startup ideas presented, and many potential businesses in the pipeline. We look forward to seeing the success of groups move beyond this weekend.

Top Winners:

platforum – A mobile app to consolidate the forum experience

Sobrio – A mobile match service linking drinkers and sober drivers
Mailstack – A new way to organize your email inbox

Honorable Mention:

KidETA – A school bus location service using mobile crowdsourcing (for most promising service to the community)
Life Raver – A website to help visitors to a city find the fun things that locals do (for best name)

Other Participants:

• Eldercare Compare
• Busses2
• CloudSort
• GrowPix
• Sitterverse
• LiveIt!
• Joy In A Glass

 

Thanks go to the:

Mentors:

• Kevin Bouley, Nerac

• Ira Yellen, First Experience Communications

• Mark Van Allen, UConn R&D

• Ryan Duques, TutaPoint

• Bill Knight, Adams & Knight

• Fred Wergeles, Fred Wergeles & Associates LLC

• Ted Ives

• John Giaccotto, Lion Leaf

• Rita Zangari, University of Connecticut Office of Tech Commercia

• Nick Bereza, NE Computer Solutions

• Joe Wehr
  

• John Parkinson, Parkinson Design

Judges:

• Rich Hollant, AIGA Connecticut

• Kevin Bouley, Nerac

• Nat Brinn, Vital Financial, LLC

• Mary Anne Rooke, AIF & UConn Technology Incubator Program

• Danny Briere, Startup Connecticut & MoxMe.com

Organizers:

• Danny Briere, MoxMe! and Startup Connecticut, @startupct

• Derek Koch, Independent Software, @derekkoch

• John Shemo, MetroHartford Alliance, @jjdangerously

• Eric Knight, Remarkable Technologies, Inc., @i_eric

• Brien Buckman, FounderMatchUp, @BrienBuckman

• Christopher Levesque, University of Connecticut, CCEI

• Mike Roer, Entrepreneurship Foundation

Sponsors:

• Premier

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  Gold

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  Contributing

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  Media

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MyCare Inc. Secures $500,000 Seed Investment from Connecticut Innovations

SAMI™ software helps hospitals improve healthcare information access and reporting

Connecticut Innovations (CI), the state’s quasi-public authority responsible for technology-based economic development, today announced that it has made an investment of $500,000 in Westport-based MyCare Inc. through its Seed Investment Fund. This investment is part of a $1 million round of funding, also involving Intersection Health Partners.

MyCare is a healthcare information technology company that is developing information solutions for hospitals and other healthcare institutions. Smart Access to Medical Information (SAMI™), the company’s initial product, is a proprietary search engine tool that allows users to access data residing in any electronic medical record (EMR), and analyze that data in near real-time. The product will assist users with clinical oversight, resource utilization, and performance/regulatory compliance. The product is layered with an institution’s existing core EMR systems and is “system agnostic” (compatible with virtually all EMR systems).

“SAMI is a cost-effective tool for institutions that want to improve their healthcare quality and safety performance,” said Peter Longo, president and executive director of CI. “We are very optimistic about the market potential for SAMI, in part because of new mandates imposed recently by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which now require the installation of patient care quality measurement systems at all U.S. hospitals.”

MyCare has developed four application modules in the SAMI solution: Real-time Core Measurement Compliance, Clinical Decision Support, Personalized Genomic Medicine, and Patient-Family Portal.

SAMI offers many advantages. In addition to providing output in near real-time, SAMI allows user mobility, as it can be accessed via computers, PDAs, smart phones or tablets. SAMI can also uniquely search data from any existing EMR – individually or across multiple systems simultaneously – looking for information about an individual patient or group of patients while displaying that information in a unified form. It “pushes” out relevant information to the healthcare practitioner in order to improve patient care. SAMI also makes it possible to provide appropriate information to patients and their families so they can actively participate in the progress of their own care.

SAMI is currently being deployed within the Yale New Haven Health System, which consists of Yale - New Haven Hospital, Bridgeport Hospital and Greenwich Hospital.

“CI’s investment represents a critical step in MyCare’s success in bringing powerful new clinical data search and care delivery technology to the provision of patient care,” said Matt Walton, chief executive officer and co-founder of MyCare. “We’re proud to be a Connecticut company, and to have developed this new approach to saving lives and improving healthcare quality in partnership with Yale New Haven Health System’s Bridgeport Hospital and Intersection Health Partners.”

“Bridgeport Hospital is proud to be one of the founding partners in the development and implementation of MyCare’s software, which presents a significant enhancement to the delivery of patient care,” says William M. Jennings, Bridgeport Hospital president and chief executive officer and executive vice president of the Yale New Haven Health System.

Dan Wagner, CI director of investments, will represent CI on MyCare’s board of directors.

About Connecticut Innovations Inc.
Connecticut Innovations (CI) is a quasi-public organization dedicated to driving a vibrant, entrepreneurial, technology-based economy in Connecticut. CI stimulates high-tech growth by investing in early-stage Connecticut technology companies, university/industry research collaborations and technology transfer and collaborating with government, business, nonprofit and academic organizations to advance technology growth and promote public policies consistent with CI’s mission. For more information on CI, please visit www.ctinnovations.com.

About MyCare Inc.
MyCare is committed to bringing disruptive search and clinical care delivery technology to the provision of patient care across the multiple institutions that make up the care delivery system. MyCare’s mission is to provide access to the data in electronic medical record systems to improve care delivery and empower the participation of patients and their families in the conduct of their care.

About Bridgeport Hospital
Bridgeport Hospital is a member of Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS), the largest and most comprehensive integrated health care delivery system in Connecticut. Yale New Haven Health System is recognized for advanced clinical care, quality, service, cost effectiveness and commitment to improving the health status of the populations it serves. Yale New Haven Health System's service area covers portions of eastern New York, the state of Connecticut and southwestern Rhode Island. Yale New Haven Health System is committed to making the best health care easier to use.  

Pitney Bowes Opens Global Technology Center in Danbury, Connecticut

Collaborative Environment to Foster Innovation and Growth

Pitney Bowes opens a Global Technology Center in Danbury, CT. The facility will support the Company's continued evolution into customer communications management. 

Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) today held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to commemorate the opening of its Global Technology Center in Danbury, Connecticut. The newly-renovated facility will support the Company’s continued evolution into customer communications management (CCM) to help businesses grow by building customer loyalty and increasing profitability through highly-personalized communications.

Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy, Danbury Mayor Mark D. Boughton, and other federal, state and local officials, joined Pitney Bowes Chairman, President and CEO Murray Martin at the ribbon-cutting event.

The Global Technology Center brings together Pitney Bowes engineering, research and development, product management, and information technology services in Connecticut under one roof for the Company’s communications solutions businesses. This will allow for greater collaboration to build innovative hardware and software solutions, and help engineers identify ways to integrate technologies, products and services for businesses of all sizes.

Located at 37 Executive Drive, Danbury, the Global Technology Center includes approximately 300,000 square feet of space with a new open lab environment and office space, collaborative team and project space, upgraded wireless capabilities, and technology-enabled conference rooms and public areas. The Pitney Bowes Global Technology Center employs approximately 650 people.

“We are excited to celebrate the opening of our Global Technology Center in Danbury,” said Martin. “Pitney Bowes’s foundation is built on innovation. The Global Technology Center will allow Pitney Bowes to continue to fuel new ideas and technologies, and execute with agility and flexibility to respond to changing market and customer needs.”

“Pitney Bowes has been a leading technology provider and employer in Connecticut for more than 90 years, and this new Global Technology Center is another indication of their commitment to Connecticut,” said Governor Malloy. “We have made tough decisions to get our fiscal house in order and improve the state’s business climate, and those decisions are showing results in the form of a lower unemployment rate, more than 9,000 new jobs, and investments from companies like Pitney Bowes. We are working to turn around decades of economic stagnation and we welcome Pitney Bowes’s commitment and dedication to reinventing Connecticut.”

“Danbury is thrilled that Pitney Bowes has chosen to expand its operations in our city,” said Mayor Boughton. “Pitney Bowes has been a long-standing member of our business community and we look forward to continuing to work together.”

As a global enterprise, Pitney Bowes is integral to the business processes of nearly two million organizations worldwide. Representative clients include more than 90 percent of the Fortune 500 firms; local, regional and national governments in scores of countries; global giants in the health care, insurance, financial services, and telecommunications industries; and hundreds of thousands of smaller firms.

Providing innovative solutions that help organizations improve operational efficiency and enhance the value they bring to their clients' communications is key to the firm’s success. Pitney Bowes continues to invest in R&D and strategic partnerships to bring advanced technology to the market. In 2010, the Company’s R&D investment was USD$156 million.

In the past year, Pitney Bowes launched a series of new products and services that help organizations enhance communications and make them more personal. These include: the cloud-based pbSmart™ suite of marketing communication solutions; and the EngageOne Liaison™ solution for customer analytics, billing intelligence and electronic bill presentment and payment. In addition, Pitney Bowes announced the Volly™ secure digital delivery service and expanded its family of IntelliJet™ high-speed digital color printing systems.

In 2010, Pitney Bowes also acquired Portrait Software, a leading global provider of advanced marketing and customer analytics software, and launched the Connect+™ Customer Communications Series.

About Pitney Bowes:

Delivering more than 90 years of innovation, Pitney Bowes provides software, hardware and services that integrate physical and digital communications channels. Long known for making its customers more productive, Pitney Bowes is increasingly helping other companies grow their business through advanced customer communications management. Pitney Bowes is a $5.4 billion company and employs more than 30,000 worldwide. Pitney Bowes: Every connection is a new opportunity™. www.pb.com/

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50154894&lang=en

Contact(s):
Pitney Bowes Inc.
Karen King, 203-351-6189
karen.king@pb.com 
 

Google Science Fair - What's your Question?

Submit your question to Google Science Fair 2012. This is the largest global online science competition, that celebrates the curiosity and investigations of young scientists everywhere! If you're 13 to 18 years old, submit an entry by April 1st 2012 for your chance to win fantastic prizes.

Every year, more than 15,000 students in Connecticut and several bordering New York state towns compete for the 500 spaces at the state science fair, learn more at: www.ctsciencefair.org/



SSTI's Staff Picks (Collection of Articles on Tech Trends)

GAO Report Finds Overlap in Federal STEM Programs 
To avoid potential duplication, the GAO recommends government STEM programs need to be guided by a robust strategic plan. Read more ...

Survey Finds Youth Unlikely to Enter STEM Fields 
At the same time as the reported government overlap, a recent study finds 60 percent of young people surveyed named at least one factor preventing them from pursing work in this field. Read more ...

State Funding for Higher Ed Continues to Decline 
Inside Higher Ed reports on the annual Grapevine study, which finds state funding for higher education fell 7.6 percent in 2011-12. The report offers a good comparative chart for states' spending on higher education.Read more ...

Private Donation Establishes Tech Commercialization Fund 
A University at Buffalo faculty member has donated anonymously $1 million to establish a fund that supports commercializing the discoveries and inventions of his colleagues. Read more ...

FedDev Ontario Investing $5M for Advanced Manufacturing 
The funding will expand a program already in place to provide manufacturers with more advanced software and help in implementing new processes or materials. Read more ...

Attributed to: SSTI (State Science and Technology Institute)

'High-Tech Concentration of State Economies' Study Brings Mixed Results

The most recent edition of the National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Indicators presents some mixed results on the significance of high-tech companies and jobs in the U.S. economy. In 2003, 8.17 percent of all U.S. businesses were classified as high-tech, based on NAICS codes. By 2008, that share had risen to 8.52 percent. The increasing representation of high-tech companies in the economy was driven by a rate of high-tech business formation that kept growing year after year until 2008, when more high-tech businesses were eliminated than created.

During the same period, employment at high-tech businesses decreased as a share of total U.S. employment from 11.96 percent in 2003 to 11.47 percent in 2008. The discrepancy may indicate the impact of outsourcing during that period, which could decrease high-tech employment even as new businesses proliferated.

SSTI has assembled tables of the state data provided in the NSF report including high-tech business formation, high-tech business establishments and high-tech employment and the proportion they represent in the state economy. These tables include the share of all companies and jobs that fall under high-tech NAICS codes. This data is also available on the NSF site, along with a tool for comparing various indicators among the states. Together, these indicators provide a way to compare the importance of high-tech economies in various states.

High-Tech Business Formation
High-tech business formation in most states was adversely affected by the recession that began in 2008. That year, the U.S. lost 2,768 companies that were classified as high-tech. Thirty-one states lost more high-tech businesses than they created that year. Even in the 19 states that created new companies, the rate of company creation declined. Only Arkansas increased its growth rate over 2007. Only Colorado maintained a consistently high rate of high-tech company throughout the period from 2004 to 2008.

High-Tech Business Establishments
Washington, D.C., has a higher percentage of high-tech companies than any other state. In 2008, 14.78 percent of D.C.s companies had high-tech NAICS codes. Delaware ranked second, followed by Colorado and Virginia. California and Florida had the greatest growth in total number of technology companies between 2003 and 2008.

High-Tech Employment
Virginia, Washington and New Jersey have the highest percentage of jobs within high-tech industries. In Virginia, about 15.95 percent of all jobs fall under high-tech NAICS codes. Even there, the number of high-tech jobs fell in 2008 and decreased as a share of total employment. Texas, Virginia, Florida and Georgia posted the largest net gains in high-tech employment between 2003 and 2008.

View an index of NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators 2011 and the State Data Tool at:http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12.

Attributed to: SSTI(State Science and Technology Institute)

U.S. Government, Universities Must Partner to Address Shifts in International Competitiveness, Report Indicates

A new report from the Center for American Progress contends that increasing globalization, connectivity, access and acceleration of technology has caused an urgent need for investment in innovation. To resolve this issue, the authors believe that the U.S. government and institutions of higher education must work in partnership "not only to accelerate its investments in research and innovation but also to continually reevaluate and redesign the traditional mechanisms (e.g., funding and public policy)." Five main recommendations are provided to stoke innovation through and around universities by:

• Increasing investments in early stage research — specifically targeted investments related to high-risk, large-scale, transformational projects;
• Bridging the gap between early stage research and the marketplace — by developing new policies that support technology transfer, programs that increase knowledge flow between academia and industry and partnerships that support translational research and proof-of-concept projects;
• Refocusing federal economic development funding — to regional and local ecosystems that develop talent and create links between researchers and the private sector;
• Develop new, more comprehensive methodologies — that measures the linkages between investments in innovation and the broader impacts in human capital, new products and jobs to drive better policy decisions and incentives for innovation; and,
• Develop radical policy experiments and incentives — that enable universities to be at the forefront of trends in innovation and competitiveness as the future mechanisms of innovation change.

The report provides specific policy prescriptions within each of the five main recommendations including the establishment of an independent Office of Innovation Analysis within the U.S. Treasury Department and the expansion of the National Science Foundation's Partnerships for Innovation. Read the report...

Attributed to: SSTI (State Science and Technology Institute)

EpiEP Inc. Receives $1 Million Follow-on Investment from Connecticut Innovations

Medical device company advances novel cardiac surgical tool, initiates first-in-man trials

Connecticut Innovations (CI), the state’s quasi-public authority responsible for technology-based economic development, today announced that it has made a follow-on investment of $1 million in EpiEP Inc. (EpiEP) through its Eli Whitney Fund. This investment is part of a $1.6 million round of funding, also involving LaunchCapital and individual investors. This is CI’s second investment in EpiEP. The first investment, in the amount of $1 million, was announced in June 2010. The company relocated to New Haven, Conn., from Virginia in 2010. 

EpiEP is a medical device company that has developed a novel interventional platform to enable the treatment of certain deadly cardiac arrhythmias. The company’s initial product, now being tested in first-in-man trials in Europe, is the EpiAccess™ system, which seeks to enable safe, reliable, minimally invasive access to the pericardium, or outside surface of the heart. Prior to beginning its first-in-man trials, EpiEP completed animal trials at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in early summer 2011.

“Connecticut is committed to improving our competitiveness and investing in companies that are bringing innovative, high-tech solutions into the market,” said Governor Dannel P. Malloy. “Through our Bioscience Connecticut initiative, and our investment in Connecticut companies, we are building a research triangle right here in the state, one that will bring with it highly-skilled jobs and grow our economy.”

EpiEP Chief Executive Officer Pamela Bunes said, “We are delighted by the continued support and confidence we have received from Connecticut Innovations. Their leadership and early-stage investments in companies like EpiEP allow Connecticut to attract life science and technology startups to the state.” Bunes added, “We are grateful for CI’s lead investment and look forward to excellent results with our first-in-man trial.”

The patent pending EpiAccess™ system measures a unique pressure-frequency wave form that helps guide safe access to the pericardium, enabling better access to the surface of the heart for treatments of deadly arrhythmias. EpiEP’s intellectual property, which consists of four patents pending and two provisional patents, has been licensed from the University of Virginia Patent Foundation.

EpiEP’s team includes global thought leaders, scientists from the electrophysiology community and experienced business managers.

Russ Tweeddale, CI managing director of investments, will continue to represent CI on EpiEP’s board of directors. 

About Connecticut Innovations Inc.
Connecticut Innovations (CI) is a quasi-public organization dedicated to driving a vibrant, entrepreneurial, technology-based economy in Connecticut. CI stimulates high-tech growth by investing in early-stage Connecticut technology companies, university/industry research collaborations and technology transfer and collaborating with government, business, nonprofit and academic organizations to advance technology growth and promote public policies consistent with CI’s mission. For more information on CI, please visit www.ctinnovations.com. 

About EpiEP Inc.
EpiEP Inc. is a medical device company that is developing a platform of novel access systems which utilize a unique signature waveform to identify in real time that accurate and safe access are achieved for the minimally invasive treatment of cardiovascular disorders. The technology has been licensed from the University of Virginia Patent Foundation, and EpiEP intends to develop the technology into commercially viable medical devices.

THUMBS UP: State tax credit for capitalists

A state tax credit passed in 2010 and revised last year shows promise of directing money to small startup companies that traditional venture capital firms may avoid as too risky.

The state income tax credit is 25 percent of investments as high as $250,000. When passed in 2010, an investment of at least $100,000 was required to be eligible for the tax credit. Last year, the investment threshold was lowered to $25,000 to qualify for the credit.

Click Here for the Full Article: New Haven Register

Also check out this article by Mara Lee from the Hartford Courant (1/22/2012); http://cour.at/z3K09W

Q4 2011 MoneyTree Report Released - National Annual Venture Investment Dollars Increase 22% Over Prior Year

Venture funding in Connecticut stalled in 2011, falling 37 percent from a year earlier, even as deal making picked up across the rest of the country. Venture capitalists injected about $135 million in Connecticut companies during 2011, a 37 percent decline from the nearly $216.5 million invested in the year-ago period.  That sum represents 55 deals, compared to 59 deals in 2010.  Read more at Hartford Business Journal's analysis article, by Greg Bordonaro.

MoneyTree report 4th quarter 2012 press release:
Clean Technology and Internet Sectors Show Double-Digit Gains in 2011

Venture capitalists invested $28.4 billion in 3,673 dealsin 2011, an increase of 22 percent in dollars and a 4 percent rise in deals over the prior year,according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and the National VentureCapital Association (NVCA), based on data from Thomson Reuters.  The amount of venture dollars invested in 2011 represents the third highest annual investment total in the past ten years.  Investments in the fourth quarter of 2011 totaled $6.6 billion in 844 deals, a 10 percent decreasein dollars and an 11 percent decrease in deals from the third quarter of 2011 when $7.3 billionwent into 953 deals.

Double-digit increases in investment dollars in 2011 were spread across a number of industries, including the Clean Technology and Internet-Specific sectors.  Investment dollars also increased across every stage of development category, with the exception of a 48 percent decrease in SeedStage investments.  First-time financings rose in 2011 compared to the prior year, however, fourth quarter investing did show a decline in both first-time dollars and deals when compared to Q3 2011.

"As previously projected, venture capital investing in 2011 exceeded 2010 levels and ranks in the top three years for VC investing in the past decade," noted Tracy T. Lefteroff, global managingpartner of the venture capital practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. "We saw a resurgence in investments in Clean Technology and Internet-specific companies in 2011, as well as a bit of a jump in average funding in the Internet sector.  However, while venture capitalists continue to show their interest in these areas, they are acting prudently and not chasing excessive valuations.  Accordingly, despite the increase in investing, we're unlikely to see these sectors overheat like we saw in the 1999 to 2000 era."

"While venture capital investment grew in 2011, it is important to note that deal volume growth did not keep pace with dollar growth,” said Mark Heesen, president of NVCA. “In most industry sectors, round sizes increased significantly, driving the higher investment levels across most stages of investment. Reasons for this phenomenon differ depending on area of investment. For some, the higher rounds are driven by the challenging exit market which requires venture capitalists to fuel their existing portfolios longer and at greater investment levels than in the past. This is particularly acute in the life sciences and clean tech sectors. In other sectors such as Internet, software and media, the higher rounds speak to increasing valuations. Given the diversity of the venture investment landscape, we expect these notable distinctions to continue into 2012 as our industry sectors are impacted differently by the continued economic uncertaintyand ongoing opportunities in the market." ...

Click Here for the Full Press Release with Further Analysis

Click Here for a Press Release Specifically Detailing 4Q 2011
Attributed To: the National Venture Capital Association, the PwC Network, and Thomas Reuters

MoneyTree Report results are available online at www.pwcmoneytree.com and www.nvca.org.