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

How to get the most out of your meetings

CTC has been using this software to help us organize meetings, making sure our staff meetings are effective and never redundant or disorganized. We are most impressed by the ease and effectiveness of planning the agenda, taking notes live during the meeting against that agenda, being able to park ideas for future discussion and the value of being able to email the automatically formatted minutes of the meeting just afterwards. A great tool for planning groups and committees. Below is an open letter from guest blog author, Edwin Siebesma.

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We all spend a lot of time in meetings, either formally scheduled or just quick ad-hoc conversations. Meetings allow for a unique form of direct communication and will help get everyone on the same page to move a project or organization forward.

Unfortunately the word “Meeting” often triggers eye rolls and exasperation, with many of us writing off the time as wasted. According to the Wharton Center for Applied Research, the average CEO spends 17 hours per week in meetings, senior executives an average of 23 hours and middle managers 11 hours. Even worse, only 56% of these meetings are productive.

If we could make all meetings productive, huge financial gains are possible, and equally beneficial, effective meetings will also improve the company culture and create a sense of accomplishment.

To improve the effectiveness and efficiency of meetings I developed MeetingKing, a web based tool to facilitate and document your meetings and conversations and get things done. MeetingKing will help the organizer to implement best practices in an efficient way. You can create a free account at http://meetingking.com.

So how can you get the most out of your meetings? Let’s look at the three stages around meetings:

• Preparation
• The actual meeting
• Follow-up

Meeting preparation
First make sure your meeting has a clear goal and then determine who should participate. Be selective; don’t invite anyone to whom the meeting is irrelevant.

The next step is setting a start AND end time and creating the agenda. This may sound formal, but is absolutely necessary. Without an agenda participants cannot prepare and the meeting will be dominated by people who like to talk, instead of having a constructive discussion based on sensible arguments. Even for a one-on-one phone call I will make sure the other party knows what we are discussing. Make sure you distribute any supporting material (reports, analyses, etc.) together with the agenda.

As organizer you should demand that attendees come prepared. They should have read the material provided and be ready to contribute to the discussion with well-founded arguments. Write down your arguments, so you won’t forget them during the meeting. If you use MeetingKing you can make private notes right in the agenda. Going to a meeting without an agenda and without proper preparation is like going to an exam without studying – you are doomed to fail.

MeetingKing makes your meeting preparation easy. It automatically copies the list of invitees, the date and time and the location from Outlook, iCal or Google Calendar and creates a unique meetings space. In that space you can create your agenda and include supporting materials and attachments. The invitees can contribute to the agenda. No longer 10 or 20 different emails and separate word documents. More info at http://meetingking.com/how-to-create-a-meeting-agenda-with-meetingking/. (Note: forced adoption is not necessary; MeetingKing is already effective if only the organizer has an account).

The actual meeting
Rule one is to start on time and rule two is to end on time. People are busy and if you, as organizer, don’t value your participants’ time, they won’t value yours. If your meeting is part of a series of meetings you should start with a quick update on the tasks from the previous meeting(s). This will make sure things don’t fall through the cracks and will help to get all participants in a winning mood if they can see what was accomplished since the previous meeting. In case of overdue tasks, request an explanation and have the task owner commit to a new date.

To keep your meeting on track, stick to the agenda and don’t be tempted to discuss new topics that come up. These new topics may be very important and need to be discussed, but do so in a different meeting. This gives all participants the opportunity to prepare for that topic. To make sure that these new topics won’t drop off the radar, you can place them on the parking lot, a feature also available in MeetingKing. Next time you organize a meeting you can add the relevant parking lot items back onto your agenda.

Making notes is key for any meeting. If you have no record of what you decided, you may as well not have the meeting. These notes should not be long essays, but just short bullets. There are three types of notes; informational notes, decisions and tasks. It is best to appoint one person to make the notes during the meeting, so he or she can focus on that task and the others can focus on the discussion. In case you don’t have a formal secretary, I suggest rotating the task of making notes.

Making notes is a breeze in MeetingKing. You simply type a short bullet and save it as a Note, Decision or Task. MeetingKing will add this information to your central team task manager and automatically prepare and distribute the minutes. More info at: http://meetingking.com/writing-minutes/.

Follow-up
It is important to distribute the meeting minutes as soon as possible after the meeting. If things were interpreted or recorded incorrectly and the discussion is still fresh in everyone’s mind, this can be corrected immediately.

The minutes should include a list of attendees, a correct summary of all key points, decisions and tasks for each topic and preferably a complete task summary at the end. Make sure that the minutes are stored in a place where you can actually find them in case you need to look up something. MeetingKing does this all automatically for you.

The list with action items is the most important outcome of the meeting. If the meeting did not result in tasks, the meeting was probably unnecessary, and an email message would have been more appropriate. Ideally the task list is interactive, sends reminders and is accessible to all participants so they can provide updates. The integrated team task manager in MeetingKing takes care of this.

As mentioned before, if you have a series of meetings, start the next meeting with an update on the action items of the previous meeting. To help you with that you can create a follow-up meeting in MeetingKing and tasks from the previous meeting(s) will be added to the agenda of this new meeting. A great help to get things done, because no-one wants to see his name next to an overdue task.

Why do we have poor meetings?
Having effective and efficient meetings is not rocket science, as long as you follow the basic rules. The key problem is the information and documentation flow around meetings. Current documentation methods require the use of at least three or four different tools –email, word processors, tasks managers, file sharing, etc. This is complicated and time consuming, so... we struggle on.

Possible solution
To help you improve your meetings I developed MeetingKing. In the text above I already gave some examples how MeetingKing can help. MeetingKing is built around the natural workflow of meetings and conversations and turns short notes into up-to-date actionable information:

• Meeting agenda
• Professional meeting minutes
• Tasks and task reminders
• Powerful searchable archive
• And more

Users enter information easily and only once. MeetingKing translates information from the meeting invitation into an agenda automatically, and that agenda serves as the basis for taking notes. After the meeting, MeetingKing compiles complete meeting minutes and emails them to attendees. Users can assign tasks directly while taking notes and the dashboard and email reminders make sure that things actually get done.

MeetingKing maintains the continuity of a sequence of meetings by adding all action items from prior meetings to the agenda of the next meeting. By adding tags to topics, users can find anything related to a certain project or department regardless of the meeting where it was discussed. All participants can make private notes right in the agenda and the minutes, for optimal preparation and follow-up.

I hope article gave you some useful hints and tips to get the most out of your meetings. More information and a meeting checklist are available at http://meetingking.com.

Kind Regards,
Edwin Siebesma
Founder / CEO
MeetingKing

Norwalk's XLerant Closes $3 Million in Series B Financing; Investors Include Connecticut Innovations

Leader in budget preparation software to expand North American presence.

XLerant, Inc., a provider of budget preparation software for mid-sized and large organizations, today announced the close of a $3 million Series B round of financing. Chrysalis Ventures led the round alongside existing investors, including Connecticut Innovations. In conjunction with the financing, Chrysalis Principal Wright Steenrod will join XLerant’s board of directors.

The investment will be used for sales and marketing expansion in North America. Founded in 2005, XLerant replaces traditional, restrictive spreadsheets with an easy-to-use, yet sophisticated budgeting and planning application called BudgetPak. This intuitive software provides maximum user flexibility and expanded financial control. Customers often choose BudgetPak because it drives greater fiscal ownership among managers and allows leaders to align financials with organizational strategy.

"Great organizations strive to get more line manager ownership of budget numbers. BudgetPak improves line manager flexibility while also expanding financial control. It's the best of both worlds,” XLerant CEO Ted Dacko said. “XLerant takes organizations beyond the days of error-prone Excel spreadsheets and builds budget accountability at all levels. We facilitate a better budget through a better budgeting process."

“XLerant already has a great product and enthusiastic customers,” Dacko said. “Now it has received funding from what I consider to be the leading venture capital firm in America. Chrysalis will be an extraordinary partner as we accelerate our growth.”

Dacko formerly served as CEO of HealthMedia, a provider of web-based personalized wellness and disease prevention programs based in Ann Arbor, MI and backed by Chrysalis Ventures and other investors. Dacko grew and led HealthMedia to a successful acquisition by Johnson & Johnson in 2008, delivering a substantial return to investors. Previously, Dacko held senior positions with Hyperion, Orion Micro Systems, Comshare, Corporate Class Software, FAME Software and Interactive Data Corporation.

“Ted has proven he can build and lead successful, profitable companies,” said Chrysalis’ Steenrod. “After his great results at HealthMedia, we are thrilled to partner with him again in his latest venture, which addresses a long-standing market pain point and has already developed a devoted customer base.”

Connecticut Innovations, a leader in supporting entrepreneurial, technology-driven entities in the state, invested in XLerant in 2007.

“We at Connecticut Innovations are pleased to have supported XLerant in its early years. We’re delighted it already has grown to the point of earning further investment from a leading venture capital firm,” said Peter Longo, Connecticut Innovations president and executive director. “Funding from Chrysalis Ventures is a tremendous endorsement.”

About XLerant, Inc.

XLerant is a software solutions company that builds and implements innovative, practical, and incredibly powerful corporate budget preparation software for mid-sized and large organizations, energizing a "Culture of Budget Accountability" among users. The company serves clients in several industries, including higher education. XLerant's premiere budgeting and planning application, BudgetPak, replaces spreadsheet-based budgeting and provides maximum user flexibility and financial controls. Improved communication, greater ownership of the numbers and increased transparency enables companies to better manage financial performance throughout the fiscal year. For more information, please visit http://www.xlerant.com.

About Chrysalis Ventures

Chrysalis Ventures manages one of Mid-America’s largest funds for early-stage and growth investments with approximately $400 million under management. Since 1993, the firm has invested in over 65 companies, primarily in the healthcare and technology sectors. With headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, Chrysalis has offices in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Ann Arbor and Houston. The firm seeks to partner with entrepreneurs to build enduring businesses in industries undergoing significant transformation. For more information, please visithttp://www.chrysalisventures.com.

About Connecticut Innovations

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 http://www.ctinnovations.com.

Attributed to: PRWeb

Bringing together industry, universities, and the federal government to invest in the emerging technologies

$500 million to jump start the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership

Press Release from the White House, advanced manufacturing companies, take note:

Today, at Carnegie Mellon University, President Obama launched the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), a national effort bringing together industry, universities, and the federal government to invest in the emerging technologies that will create high quality manufacturing jobs and enhance our global competitiveness. Investing in technologies, such as information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, will support the creation of good jobs by helping U.S. manufacturers reduce costs, improve quality, and accelerate product development.

The President’s plan, which leverages existing programs and proposals, will invest more than $500 million to jumpstart this effort. The President believes that even as we live within our means, we must invest to win the future. Investments will be made in the following key areas: building domestic manufacturing capabilities in critical national security industries; reducing the time needed to make advanced materials used in manufacturing products; establishing U.S. leadership in next-generation robotics; increasing the energy efficiency of manufacturing processes; and developing new technologies that will dramatically reduce the time required to design, build, and test manufactured goods. Leading universities and companies will compliment these federal efforts helping to invent, deploy and scale these cutting-edge technologies.

“Today, I’m calling for all of us to come together- private sector industry, universities, and the government- to spark a renaissance in American manufacturing and help our manufacturers develop the cutting-edge tools they need to compete with anyone in the world,” said President Obama. “With these key investments, we can ensure that the United States remains a nation that ‘invents it here and manufactures it here’ and creates high-quality, good paying jobs for American workers.”

The AMP is being developed based on the recommendation of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which released a report [today] entitled “Ensuring Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing.” The PCAST report calls for a partnership between government, industry, and academia to identify the most pressing challenges and transformative opportunities to improve the technologies, processes and products across multiple manufacturing industries.

The AMP will be led by Andrew Liveris, Chairman, President, and CEO of Dow Chemical, and Susan Hockfield, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Working closely White House’s National Economic Council, Office of Science and Technology Policy and the PCAST, AMP will bring together a broad cross-section of major U.S. manufacturers and top U.S. engineering universities. The universities initially involved in the AMP will be the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, and University of Michigan. The manufacturers initially involved in the AMP will be Allegheny Technologies, Caterpillar, Corning, Dow Chemical, Ford, Honeywell, Intel, Johnson and Johnson, Northrop Grumman, Procter and Gamble, and Stryker.

The U.S. Government has had a long history of partnership with companies and universities in developing and commercializing the new technologies that have been the foundation of our economic success – from the telephone, to the microwave, to the jet engine, to the internet. The AMP will provide the platform for similar breakthroughs in the next decade, by building a roadmap for advanced manufacturing technologies, speeding ideas from the drawing board to the manufacturing floor, scaling-up first-of-a-kind technologies, and developing the infrastructure and shared facilities to allow small and mid-sized manufacturers to innovate and compete.

Major Commitments to Advanced Manufacturing Being Made Today

To launch the AMP, the President today announced a number of key steps being taken by the federal government:

• Building domestic manufacturing capabilities in critical national security industries: Starting this summer, the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce and other agencies will coordinate a government-wide effort to leverage their existing funds and future budgets, with an initial goal of $300 million, to co-invest with industry in innovative technologies that will jumpstart domestic manufacturing capability essential to our national security and promote the long-term economic viability of critical U.S. industries. Initial investments include small high-powered batteries, advanced composites, metal fabrication, bio-manufacturing, and alternative energy, among others.
• Reducing the time to develop and deploy advanced materials: The Materials Genome Initiative, would invest more than $100M in research, training and infrastructure to enable U.S. companies to discover, develop, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials at twice the speed than is possible today, at a fraction of the cost. In much the same way that advances in silicon technology helped create the modern information technology industry, advanced materials will fuel emerging multi-billion dollar industries aimed at addressing challenges in manufacturing, clean energy, and national security.
• Investing in next-generation robotics: The National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Agriculture are coming together to make available today $70 million to support research in next generation robots. These investments will help create the next generation of robots that will work closely with human operators – allowing new ability for factory workers, healthcare providers, soldiers, surgeons and astronauts to carry out key hard-to-do tasks.
• Developing innovative energy-efficient manufacturing processes: The Department of Energy will launch an effort to leverage their existing funds and future budgets, with initial goal of $120 million to develop innovative manufacturing processes and materials to enable companies to cut the costs of manufacturing, while using less energy.

Additional complementary steps as part of AMP will include:

• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency exploration of new approaches that have potential to dramatically reduce – by up to a factor of 5 – the time required to design, build, and test manufactured goods while enabling entrepreneurs to meet Defense Department needs.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley, and University of Michigan commitment to form a multi-university collaborative framework for sharing of educational materials and best practices relating to advanced manufacturing and its linkage to innovation. The universities will also join together with industry partners and leading government agencies to define research opportunities and build a collaborative roadmap for identify key technology priorities.
• Commerce Department development of an advanced manufacturing technology consortium, starting with $12 million in FY12, to identify public private partnerships to tackle common technological barriers to the development of new products.
• Proctor & Gamble announcement that it will make available advanced software at no cost to American small and mid-sized manufacturers through the recently launched Midwest Modeling and Simulation consortium. This is a highly valuable digital design tool usually unavailable to smaller firms.
• Department of Energy launch of an initiative with the Ford Motor Company and the National Association of Manufacturers to make use of the Department’s National Training & Education Resource to educate and train a new generation of manufacturers.
• Defense Department investments, funded at $24 million in FY11, in domestic manufacturing technology that address urgent operational needs including improvements for transparent armor, stealth technology, and targeting systems. The Department is also developing an online marketplace to increase domestic manufacturing capacity in industries critical to our national security by connecting U.S. manufacturers with product needs at the Department and other federal agencies.

Angel Investing Jumps With State Tax Credit Change

"There is an explosion in entrepreneurship and people want to get in on it," said Matthew Nemerson, president of the Connecticut Technology Council, which started lobbying for a tax credit for angel investors more than five years ago. "The legislation came at the right time to throw fuel on the fire. Because of the $100,000 limit, the fuel [was] a little bit watered down."

"Thirty companies have gotten investments since a law took effect 18 months ago allowing investors who put at least $100,000 into young, small Connecticut firms in certain technology and science fields to deduct a quarter of that investment from their state income taxes.

Two months ago, the state loosened the angel investor tax credit to $25,000, and nine of the 30 deals have closed just since then, for a total of $2.1 million."

Read the full article by Mara Lee in today'sHartford Courant, http://cour.at/z3K09W

 

BioRelix Inc. Secures $500,000 Investment from Connecticut Innovations

Antibiotics developer utilizes novel riboswitch-based drug discovery platform

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 antibiotics developer BioRelix Inc. (BioRelix) of New Haven, Conn., through its Eli Whitney Fund. This investment is part of a $4.244 million round of funding for the company. 

BioRelix is developing antibiotics using a new riboswitch-based drug discovery platform. Riboswitches are short stretches of messenger RNA (mRNA) that bind small molecules and control genes that are essential for the survival of many human pathogens. First identified in the laboratory of Prof. Ron Breaker at Yale University, several different classes of riboswitch mRNAs have been identified and each potentially could serve as a novel anti-infective drug target.

The company’s most advanced initiative is an antibiotic for a hospital-acquired infection. BioRelix is also involved in a research collaboration with a subsidiary of Merck & Co. to identify new antibacterial drug candidates.

“We are extremely pleased to add Connecticut Innovations to our top-tier investor team,” stated Brian Dixon, chief executive officer of BioRelix. “The additional resources they provide will help us in the discovery of new, much needed antibacterial medications.”

The BioRelix team, which includes several scientists that formerly worked at Bayer Pharmaceuticals and Yale University, has extensive scientific and drug development experience. The team has successfully secured technology licenses from Yale University and other institutions.

“As we work to reinvent Connecticut, this investment further highlights the state’s commitment to the bioscience sector,” said Governor Dannel P. Malloy. “With the Bioscience Connecticut initiative and a renewed push to partner with businesses across the state, Connecticut is demonstrating our leadership in the field and sending a clear message that the state is open for business. This Connecticut-based company is an excellent example of the remarkable talent and innovation available right here at home.”

Peter Longo, president and executive director of CI, noted, “We are excited to be investing in BioRelix, which we believe shows a great deal of promise of developing a new generation of antibiotic drugs using its novel riboswitch-based mechanism of action. The company has many strengths, including its experienced team, strong and growing intellectual property portfolio, and novel approach to antibiotic development. It is also addressing a sizeable, $37 billion global antibiotics market, which is growing steadily.”

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 BioRelix Inc.
BioRelix Inc. is a drug discovery and development company focused on identifying new anti-infective drug treatments. BioRelix is building a portfolio of products based on novel patented RNA targets, termed riboswitches, which were identified by the laboratory of BioRelix co-founder, Ronald Breaker, Ph.D., Howard Hughes Investigator and Henry Ford II Professor at Yale University. BioRelix owns a worldwide license to develop and market riboswitch targeted medicines. Our investors include CHL Medical Partners, Novartis Bioventures, New Leaf Ventures, Aisling Capital, Elm Street Ventures, Alexandria Equities and Connecticut Innovations.

SOPA / PIPA - Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate’s Protect IP Act of 2011

CTC cares about this and is tracking this federal legislation.  We will post updates here as the bill goes through it's process in DC.   We encourage those that care about freedom and the integrity of the global internet to get informed and speak up!

Make an impact: Send a letter or call your legislator. Use CTC's advocacy tool: http://bit.ly/vWpufk 

1/18 update:   SOPA / PIPA Internet Piracy Bills - votes coming 1/24
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is with the House Judiciary Committee and will be voted upon after the winter recess. The Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) will be up for a vote Jan. 24....

Today, Google and Wikipedia have shown their colors: black. From Google: 

"Fighting online piracy is important. The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs."

Local news items of interest:

Click here to read bill co-sponsor Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)'s blog post stating his current position. 

1/17/2012 -Concerns About Online Piracy Act Growing Among State's Congressional Delegation, by Daniela Altimari, Hartford Courant

1/17/2012 - Dodd, Techies Still At Odds Over Piracy Legislation, CT News Junkie
1/1/3/2012 -Connecticut Delegation Split On Internet Piracy Bills,  CT News Junkie, by Christine Stuart

--More general references about the bills:

Wondering how your legislator stands on SOPA / PIPA? 
Check out this SOPATRACK tool: http://bit.ly/u0a7uY

A legal analysis of the bill by professors from Stamford, Temple and Elon Universities is here: http://bit.ly/tpKmhV   - where they state, "(the bill) may represent the biggest threat to the Internet in its history." (thanks to UConn's Eric Knight for the link)

Bill Summary: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41911.pdf - provides a great summary, if you don't want to read the actual bill itself. It also states the concerns about the bill.

Vague, vague how...  http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/coica-v-20-protect-ip-act does a great job of explaining WHY the wording is vague, instead of just stating the the wording is "too vague" (which is vague, and what you will see most places )

Legal review: http://blogs.law.stanford.edu/newsfeed/files/2011/07/PROTECT-IP-letter-final.pdf - Letter from 108 law professors, again pointing out the problematic sections of the bill.

The Bill itself: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s968rs/pdf/BILLS-112s968rs.pdf

Make and impact: Send a letter or call your legislator. 
Use CTC's advocacy tool: http://bit.ly/vWpufk

 

Meet the 2012 Women of Innovation® Finalists

Awards Event on March 1, 2012 at the Aqua Turf Club, Southington, CT 

Presenting... The 2012 Women of Innovation^®  --- expanded profiles coming soon. 

Entrepreneurial Innovation and Leadership
Yvonne Akpalu
CEO/Founder
Why Science  

Research Innovation and Leadership
Amy Anderson
Associate Professor
University of Connecticut  

Small Business Innovation and Leadership
Katherine Ayers
Director of Research
Proton OnSite  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Lisa Bongiovi
Vice President, Intellectual Property Counsel
UTC Climate, Controls & Security Systems  

Academic Innovation and Leadership
Susan Brown
Teacher - Applied Technology
New Haven Public Schools-Mauro Sheridan Magnet School  

Small Business Innovation and Leadership
Jyl Camhi
Founder and President
Great Play  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Kim Carpenter
Global Vice President of Human Resources
Covidien  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Teresa (Terry) Cowles
Integration Manager, 787 Program
Hamilton Sundstrand/UTC  

Small Business Innovation and Leadership
Manon Cox
President and CEO
Protein Sciences Corporation  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Renee Davis
VP, Chief Actuary Bond & Financial Products
The Travelers Companies, Inc  

Entrepreneurial Innovation and Leadership
Caroline Dealy
Chief Scientific Officer
Chondrogenics Inc.  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Mary-Ellen Devlin
Executive Director & Executive Counsel of Intellec
Boehringer Ingelheim USA Corporation 

Small Business Innovation and Leadership
Betsy Didan
Vice President
COCC  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Edith DiFrancesco
Vice President, Engineering Methods
UTC Climate, Controls & Security Systems  

Academic Innovation and Leadership
Joan Feigenbaum
The Grace Murray Hopper Professor of Computer Scie
Yale University 

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Elizabeth Gandza
Sr. Project Manager
The United Illuminating Company 

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Elizabeth Garypie
Black Hawk Chief Engineer
Sikorsky Aircraft  

Collegian Innovation and Leadership
Ramona Georgescu
Graduate Student
University of Connecticut  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Kristina Givens
Process Innovation Program Manager
Lawrence & Memorial Hospital  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Amy Harper, PhD
2VP, Research & Product Development
The Travelers Companies, Inc  

Community Innovation and Leadership
Dionne Henry
Repair Develop Engineer
Pratt & Whitney  

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Emilia Hernandez
High School Student
Hopkins School  

Academic Innovation and Leadership
Sally Hill
Principal Designer
Eli Whitney Museum  

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Areej Jahangir
High School Student
Glastonbury High School  

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Morgan Jordan
High School Student
Joel Barlow High School  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Arianna Kalian
Vice President, Engineering & Manufacturing
UTC Power  

Research Innovation and Leadership
Monika Kinstler
Principal Engineer
Pratt & Whitney  

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Mary Kuchenbrod
High School Student
GHAMAS  

Collegian Innovation and Leadership
Heather Leask
Undergraduate Student
University of Connecticut  

Community Innovation and Leadership
Kim McFadden
Systems Engineering
Pratt & Whitney  

Community Innovation and Leadership
Kimberly McLean
Principal Engineer
Electric Boat  

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Maeva Metz
High School Student
Brookfield High School  

Research Innovation and Leadership
Stella Oggianu
Project Leader, Energy Systems
United Technologies Research Center  

Entrepreneurial Innovation and Leadership
Julie Olson
President
JAO Ovation LLC  

Collegian Innovation and Leadership
Janet Paulsen
Graduate Student
University of Connecticut  

Academic Innovation and Leadership
Diane Pintavalle
Teacher, Public High School
Glastonbury High School  

Research Innovation and Leadership
Tracy Propheter
Design Engineer
Pratt & Whitney  

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Kelsey Reeves
High School Student
Grasso Southeastern Technical High School  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Julie Reiss
Sr. Eng., Mechanical (Systems Engineer)
Hamilton Sundstrand  

Collegian Innovation and Leadership
Chaitanya Sankavaram
Graduate Student
University of Connecticut  

Small Business Innovation and Leadership
Deb Santy
Director, SBIR
CT SBIR Office  

Entrepreneurial Innovation and Leadership
Sheila Shechtman
Founder, Chairman
Giftcorp  

Academic Innovation and Leadership
Leslie Shor
Assistant Professor
University of Connecticut  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Consuelo Staheli
Director of Global Strategy and Portfolio
Covidien 

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Robyn Stanco
High School Student
Brookfield High School  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Geraldine Taber
Senior Director
Pfizer  

Entrepreneurial Innovation and Leadership
Eleanor Tandler
Co-Founder & CEO
NovaTract  

Community Innovation and Leadership
Sandra Tripp
Co-Founder
Tributary Mill Conservancy  

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Katelyn Tupaj
High School Student
Torutellotte Memorial High School  

Collegian Innovation and Leadership
Nicole Wagner
Graduate Student/Chief Executive Officer
University of Connecticut/LambdaVision Inc.  

Academic Innovation and Leadership
Emily Wilson
Geospatial Technologies Specialist
University of Connecticut, Center for Land Use Education 

Youth Innovation and Leadership
Alexia Zagouras
High School Student
Hopkins School  

Large Business Innovation and Leadership
Sigal Zarmi
Chief Information Officer
GE Capital Americas 

Click here to view the 2011 event recap 

Click here to learn more about the Women of Innovation Program

Connecticut Innovations Announces Approval of Plan to Deploy $250 Million in New Funding

CI to Expand Programs for Entrepreneurs and Recruit Out-of-State Startups

Connecticut Innovations (CI), the state’s quasi-public authority responsible for technology-based economic development, today announced board approval of a plan to deploy $50 million per year, over five years, consisting of $25 million per year from the state of Connecticut, along with a matching $25 million per year over the same period from CI itself. The plan calls for CI to recruit early-stage, high-potential companies from other states, leverage its knowledge of the technology industry and investment community to attract outside investment to match CI funds, and utilize its expertise to expand existing initiatives and launch new initiatives to invigorate Connecticut’s emerging technology sector, bolstering further CI’s record of success.

$125 million in new funding from the state was included in Governor Malloy’s jobs bill, which was signed into law in October 2011. CI’s plan is to match this state funding for each of the next five years with its existing cash and funding from its investment returns.

“Connecticut Innovations has a proven ability to accurately assess the needs of entrepreneurs, and to respond to those needs with programs that reflect today’s economic challenges and opportunities. CI’s capabilities are essential to the success of the technology sector in Connecticut,” said Governor Dannel P. Malloy. “Adding to their tool kit and providing more funding will allow the organization to accelerate its success in creating jobs and growing Connecticut’s economy.”

Included in the plan is:

• $4 million per year for CI’s pre-seed program, which offers loans to support the formation of new Connecticut technology companies.
• $22 million per year for seed stage and Series A investments, which help entrepreneurs grow existing businesses, and for follow-on investments in CI portfolio companies.
• $6.5 million per year for a newly developed loan program, which provides growth and working capital for technology companies.
• $7 million per year for the aggressive recruitment of emerging technology companies nationally and internationally. CI plans to work with the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) and other state agencies to design a relocation incentive package, similar to the governor’s “First Five” initiative.
• $4 million per year to help Connecticut companies capture more of the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funds each year, as well as increase industry partnerships and the state’s technology talent pipeline. 
• $4.8 million per year to establish technology business accelerator hubs, which will provide support services to startups, and to create a corporate technology transfer initiative.*  

“This new funding will allow CI to continue to spur new innovation and startup business in the state as well as step up our recruitment of out-of-state companies to Connecticut,” said Catherine Smith, DECD commissioner and CI chair. “We’re excited about these new initiatives and we’re eager to get the program underway.”

In the past three years alone, CI investments have leveraged $74 million in private capital investments for Connecticut companies. Through the Small Business Research Innovation (SBIR) program, small Connecticut technology firms captured $35-$38 million per year in federal funding in recent years and have generated $20+ million more per year in revenues directly attributed to those awards. CI’s investments add, on average, 1,600 Connecticut jobs per year.

*Revised as of January 12, 2012


 

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.        

2011 IT Summit Event Recap

A Program for CIOs and Senior IT Professionals  

The 2011 IT Summit was held on Tuesday, November 29th at the Mohegan Sun Convention Center in Uncasville, CT.  The IT Summit (formerly the CIO Forum) is an annual program designed for the executive information management of mid-sized to large companies. Our goal for the IT Summit is to introduce the state's IT executives to each other and to present topics and information that will make them more successful. 

 

Program:
            



  

We were fortunate enough to have two keynote speakers; Gene Alvarez, Vice President of Gartner Research and Chuck Pagano, Executive Vice President Technology, ESPN.

 

 

 

The day included six topics, three in the morning and three in the afternoon.

1: Big Data-Big Deal - (A Presentation) 
The world of Analytics is changing very quickly and very significantly. Hear Teradata’s Todd Walter provide his view on “Big Data”, the opportunities and the hype. Discussed will be big changes allowed by new and changing underlying technologies such as Hadoop/MapReduce, Compression, Columnar, In Database Analytics, Solid State Disk and In Memory. What do these bring to the table? What new analytic capabilities are enabled? How do they work together – or not? What new business problems can be solved in the “Big Data” space? 
Presenter: Todd Walter, CTO, Teradata R&D, Teradata

2: Social Media-Two Company’s Strategies - (A Panel Discussion)
EMC leads the way in adapting social media to create a vibrant internal employee community which blogs, teaches and learns, and collaborates. Learn about the transformation from a traditional, almost conservative technology company to an engaged workforce that has transformed internal communications. Dell’s innovative use of social media was launched in late 2010 and is called the Social Media Listening Command Center. The external-facing platform listens to thousands of conversations about their brand, products and services on a global scale.
Presenters: Presenters: Len Devanna, Director of Social Strategy, EMC Corporation and Rishi Dave, Executive Director, Online Marketing, Dell Computer.

Click here for an article written about this panel discussion.

3: Making the Case for Cloud - (A Presentation)

 

 

Three Afternoon Topics

1: CIO Leadership Track - This topic was specifically geared to attending CIO’s- (A Panel Discussion)

 

 

2: The Private Cloud-Three examples-(A Panel Discussion)
Three examples of private cloud applications, one of which will be by Open Solutions Inc. and a discussion of its private cloud for application development. Two other examples will also be covered.
Presenters: Tom Lang, Senior Director, Delivery Management, Open Solutions and Jeff O'Dell, Vice President Enterprise Architecture, The Hartford, Property & Casualty

3: Bring your Tech to Work or the Consumerization of IT
What does the CIO say when his CEO brings his new iPad to work? Employees are requesting freedom of choice and sometimes their devices are more advanced than their work machines. So, what policies and rules do you put in place to accommodate them? Hear from two companies and intrepid CIOs who have responded to this challenge.
Presenter: Christopher Bernard, Managing Director, Business Relationship/Management, Cushman & Wakefield 

Presenting Sponsor:
 

Supporting Sponsors:

Social Media Success - Two Leaders' Perspectives

CTC's IT Summit 2011 Panel Presentation Provides Insight on EMC's and Dell's Social Media Journey

Keith Reynolds, President
Maxim Communications

At the Connecticut Technology Council's 3rd annual IT Summit for senior IT professionals and CIOs held Nov. 29 at the Mohegan Sun, social media was a popular topic that generated a lot of discussion. 

Social media technology has forced companies to embrace new communications models with both customers and employees. In a recent Harvard Business Review (HBR) survey of over 4,200 global IT executives regarding social media tools and technologies, HBR asked how organizations deploy them and what benefits are derived. In general, executives stated that their companies were using social media to increase agility and to manage organizational complexity. 

One speaker at CTC's IT Summit, Gene Alvarez, a VP with Gartner's Research organization, noted in his keynote address that, "The corporate communications' model is evolving to an IT platform." 

Later that morning, during one of the breakout sessions, two well known tech companies provided a deeper and informative look at how their organizations embrace  new media to create business value. EMC Corp and Dell representatives, Len Devanna and Rishi Dave, outlined how from relatively modest starts, their companies built corporate-wide social media programs that deliver business value to all stakeholders. The interesting thing about their journeys was that, while unique in approach, both ended up giving a stronger voice to the customer. 

EMC Perspective

EMC is a $17B company with about 48,000 global employees. In 2007, EMC identified a trend towards online communities, at that time called Web 2.0, which has evolved into Social Media. Len Devanna, EMC's Director of Social Engagement, discussed how this fundamental change in the business world started in Business-to-Consumer (B2C), and that it was clear Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing would also be transformed. Amidst this market change, the company was making numerous acquisitions and wanted to evolve the company culture to fit its now larger company. EMC embarked on a journey to embrace the new technologies to engender a more flexible culture and improve communications. Last year, EMC was ranked by Net Prospects the 15th most socially-savvy brand on the planet.

EMC set several top-line goals for their social media undertaking. They wanted to become more socially proficient so that employees could be comfortable with social media and embrace changes to buyer behavior as more customers embraced online communications. As a result, they took an "inside-out" approach to focus the effort on embracing social media techniques within the EMC culture. The company set out to realize a "One EMC" culture to avoid becoming a set of "silos" after acquiring 68 companies in a three year period. 

With input from Human Resources and other departments, EMC also wanted to help employees feel more connected and encourage innovation with discussion across business units and functional areas of the company. Not just across the company, but social media for EMC was envisioned as a way to connect conversations from the top to the bottom organizationally, as well. 

The overarching goal was to create new and more meaningful relationships with EMC audiences and leverage peer-to-peer influence to improve the buyer-supplier relationship as the dialog shifted from the inside out at EMC.

At the core of the effort was the launch of EMC|ONE (Online Network of EMC’ers), an internal online community. The effort started with a small investment of $5000 and has grown to be embraced by the entire company over three years. The journey was not burdened with layers of corporate constraints. Rather, "We took a 'Let's throw a few bucks at it and invest more in it as it evolves,' and that has been our approach all along. This has helped us to move very quickly, noted Devanna." 

==
CALLOUT

Some of the key elements of the strategy include:

• Experimenting is OK. We are not betting the farm.
• Inside out - get proficient... Evolve from employees to outside world
• Open > Closed - no private space... All employees have access... Diverse perspective
• Encourage participation - do not dictate participation... Ask employees, "What do you see are our opportunities for social media?" Crowdsource the answer. Encourage non-business related conversation… "EMC Word of the Day" The water cooler effect. Conversation cannot be forced.
• Research and implement. Try new things quickly.
• Enable the tools or the employees will use things like “freewiki” to do it themselves.

==

After four years Devanna thinks that EMC is well on track with 40,000 active users, out of 48,000 employees.  As social media skills developed, EMC has evolved use of an internal tool, EMC|ONE, to embrace the external EMC Community Network, Facebook, Twitter and many other channels to engage audiences in new and meaningful ways. With 35 public bloggers, EMC has established a high-degree of 'social proficiency' across a global workforce with a high-level of engagement by employees, customers and channel partners. The company has saved millions of dollars through suggestion box discussions and project teams can search personnel to locate employees with required skills. The social media tools have become the way acquisition company employees meet their new peers globally. Lastly, the IT team has used social media to share thought leadership with employees and establish a “brand” with employees, including an Apple support community to enable the BYO device users.

"We understood we had embarked on something really big and transformative. Instinctively, we knew that the journey would be challenging, but also exciting, and that the rewards on the other side were simply enormous. Today, social media is our culture and simply the way we do business" concluded Devanna.

For more information, see the EMC Social Media Video: http://youtu.be/ah8aHIsAJfc

Dell Perspective

Rishi Dave, Executive Director of Online Marketing for Dell's Large Enterprise Business Unit, spoke of Dell’s journey to embrace social media over the last several years. The effort has established an online culture vertically and horizontally in the organization, which has translated to direct positive impact on innovation, customer loyalty and the P&L of Dell.

Dell saw the user demographic of social media change in the 2005-2006 time-frame. They noticed that the core buyer was now on social media and aggressively engaged in listening to what their peers were saying to make enterprise purchasing decisions. Social media was no longer a gamer phenomenon.

This changed the game for Dell. No longer was it about tech celebrity endorsements, or PC-Magazine “Product of the Year” awards. All of a sudden, there were bloggers writing great content about Dell and competitors. On the consumer and the business side, they were influencing competitive positioning of the buying decision and impacting tens-of-millions of dollars in revenue, but were hard to identify. Now, with mobile products in hand, unknown bloggers could write highly influential reviews while experiencing the product and brand experience in the moment. Reviews became real-time stream-of-consciousness and it was a challenge to consume all of this new content.

Adding to the new content, Google made it efficient for the buyer to locate and monitor the information. Postings from Facebook and more recently Google+ highly influence relevance in this real-time online conversation. As a result, “this blog content easily gets back to your customer right when they want it. If a customer searched for a PC magazine review on a product, the search algorithms pushed the blog content to the buyer -- even though they did not know to go look for it. It was crazy!” said Dave.

Dell completely lost control of its brand to people who did not work for the company. Managing a brand is about control and in this new world the old media techniques no longer applied. A massive conversation had arisen. Bloggers were telling customers about the Dell brand and what it stood for. They were editorializing about what Dell should do with their products and services. Dell had no choice but to get ahead of the curve.

Another “ah-ha” moment came when an influential customer had a bad experience with Dell and blogged about it. A Dell employee responded to resolve the problem and two things happened: 1) the customer became a promoter and 2) the incident went viral. “That was a moment of truth. How much of this is actually going on and how can we scale to make use of this opportunity?”

The solution came in the form of a social media command center. “It is like NASA,” joked Dave. Dell monitors 25,000 conversations globally about Dell and the competitive landscape. “In a typical week we turn around 35% of our detractors to help them become promoters. We have a very specific definition of what a promoter is: someone who in turn begins talking positively about Dell online.”

To accomplish all this Dell has a social outreach services group that listens and responds to social media. “We started with five people and now it is 70 people spanning in eleven languages,” noted Dave. The command center has transformed Dell’s business by allowing the company to listen and respond to customer issues. The group also works directly with customers who are self-identified as thinking about Dell solutions.

Beyond the centralized command center, Dell saw the big opportunity comes in the form of social media listening and responding across the entire company. Dell has enacted an internal training program to give everybody at Dell an opportunity to respond to customer issues with the new media. The training provides certification to go online and talk to customers.

“All our employees who have tremendous expertise were not empowered to help our customers through social media because they did not have permission from their supervisors, nor did they know the policies. We wanted to change that,” said Dave. Now there is explicit direction for 3000 employees around the globe to become a Dell employee to talk directly to customers, and in total 19,000 have been trained as promoters. Some of the Dell employees have truly become rock stars gaining visibility at conferences once reserved for senior executives. As a result, “employee satisfaction has gone through the roof.”

Getting social media to work in your company is a leap of faith for many. It is hard for employees and managers to put a value on social media, “but I tell employees to go out and talk to customers and create those great customer stories and pray they get back to the executives.” Dave adds that great moments do happen. Executives do hear them and the culture does transform. How can a company not respond to such customer wins, turned-around relationships and improved metrics?

Dave said, “That is how you drive social media into the culture and get buy in,”   

Dell listened to their social media feedback. The keyboard was reengineered based on social media feedback. There was a line of Linux products released based on input from this channel. Even Michael Dell loves social media and participates frequently. He is social media certified and spends up to half-an-hour to an hour a day monitoring the conversation. He has been known to respond directly to customers online, and the responses even show up in search engines.

== 
CALLOUT

Lessons learned:

• Engage senior executives and experts to interact online with customers; not entry-level employees.
• Look for employees who can deliver a great customer experience and train them in social media.
• Push expertise out into the marketplace through social media.
• Bring bloggers and influencers into the company for a tour.
• Create platforms for customers to interact. Be innovative about opening new forums.
• Identify ways to collect leads for the various teams.
• Social media is about content; you need the mentality of a publisher. That is how you control your brand today.
• For Dell, the customers don’t want to talk about “boxes.” They want to talk about what they have achieved, outcomes and how technology can help them. Give them what they want.
• Social media is not about marketing and PR. It is about everyone.
• Think big! This is about the culture at your company. Not just for Dell, technology is business and the business is driven by technology. The CIO plays a critical role in how everybody communicates.

==

How does Dell define ROI? When an employee has an idea for social media, we discuss it and if it makes sense, we empower them. “To encourage innovation, we do not approach this from a P&L perspective at the outset. We want to drive a lot of followers and comments, or receive a lot of “Likes” depending on the environment. We need to see that customers care and that they engage. When we get something that hits, we scale it globally in a massive way. We embed the program in our systems, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and determine the unique ROI metrics at that time.” 

Rashi Dave’s white paper: http://www.slideshare.net/dellenterprise/how-to-engage-in-social-media-a-dell-perspective

Placeholder... "There is no question about the value social media brings to a company. Seeing what these two thought leaders learned along the journey and their contrasting approaches has given me an invaluable tweak for for our own strategy in 2012. I look forward to presenting these ideas to my peers in other functions of the company," said Joe Fabeets the CIO of Danbury Corporation.

CTC President and CEO Matthew Nemerson noted, “CTC’s IT Summit, with its line-up of expert and notable speakers,  has evolved into an event area and regional IT executives are attending to get informed about the IT issues that they deal with in their workplaces. The Council expects to continue providing topical seminars going forward.”

Whether you start from the outside-in, or the inside-out, social media lies first in understanding your audience and objectives; then second, evolving platforms grow to support the mission and new information is absorbed by the the corporate culture. Ongoing qualitative and quantitative analysis is critical to continued improvement of the process. 

In the end, as the organization responds, the customer wins.