SciTech Lecture Series - October 20th, 2011

On October 20th at 4pm The SciTech Lecture Series welcomes Morris Clarke, PhD - Associate Professor, Department of Life Sciences at Winston-Salem State University is speaking on “From Mount Pharmacology to the Shores of Biotechnology: A ‘Wellcome’ Experience”.

4:00 pm Thursday, October 20, 2011
Ardmore Auditorium
Forsyth Tech Main Campus
2100 Silas Creek Parkway
Winston-Salem NC 27103

To reserve a seat at this event, contact Mona Cofer at 336.734.7205 or mcofer@forsythtech.edu
All lectures are free and open to the public.

Sunrise Technologies Named to Triad's Fast 50 List

Sunrise Technologies, a Microsoft Partner with the Gold ERP Competency, was named to the Triad Business Journal's Fast 50 List for the fifth consecutive year. The list is compiled of the fastest-growing, for-profit companies that have their headquarters in the Triad of North Carolina. Sunrise Technologies is a global company with its corporate headquarters in the Piedmont Triad Research Park of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Read more.

FRAMEWORKS -- Becoming the Totally Responsible Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs have the ability to stay positive, productive and effective no matter what the circumstances! They exhibit the traits of character that enhance success including openness to change, resiliency, emotional stability/intelligence, accepting of constructive criticism and rejection, and the capacity to handle adversity. They do not allow themselves to be victimized by circumstances and exhibit extraordinary self-control. Attend this session to learn how to hone these qualities in yourself.

Presenters are the principals from TRP Enterprises, Inc. a renowned consulting firm that consistently deals with developing successful strategies to achieve these outcomes.

Tuesday, September 27, 7:30am
Piedmont Triad Community Research Center Auditorium
115 Chestnut Street, Winston-Salem, NC

Sponsored by the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative (Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center) and New Venture Incubator (Wake Forest Schools of Business).

Triad Biotech Alliance Company Showcase

September's Company Showcase will feature regional biomaterials company Keranetics, presented by managing director and board member Charles (Todd) Johnson. You are encouraged to stop by after work to meet local biotechnology enthusiasts and learn about this exciting local company in the Piedmont Triad.

Thursday, September 29th
5:30 to 7:30 pm
Chophouse Grille (off of Highway 68)
4001 Meeting Way
High Point, NC 27265

The event is free, but we ask that you RSVP.

Click here to reserve your space for this event.

Stantec Repurposes Shipping Containers, Other Innovators Highlighted at Chamber Tech Briefing

Tens of thousands of shipping containers are piled up, rusting, all over the country because it is cheaper to make new containers abroad than ship the old ones back. But at Thursday’s 10th annual Technology Briefing, Randal L. Pool, managing principal of Stantec, presented a whole series of possibilities for reusing the containers. The company is already planning and hopes to open soon a removable restaurant for the sidewalk near New York’s Flatiron Building made from one container. Pool showed sketches of how containers might be used for first responder housing at the scene of a disaster, or as temporary shelter for up to 16 refugees. They might be clustered to provide housing for many families following a large-scale disaster. The presentation produced excited murmurs from the crowd of more than 300 who attended the briefing.


The September 15th  Winston-Salem Journal article covered information about some of the other eight presenters at the briefing and their stories of technology and innovation

Tech Briefing is Tomorrow - Don't Miss It!

The 10th Annual Technology Briefing is tomorrow, September 15, 8:00 a.m. at the Benton Convention Center. The event is free, but please register online to ensure your seat and a nametag. Plan to stay afterward for networking, refreshments and to meet and talk with the presenters. And then visit the Business & Innovation Expo, also at the Benton Convention Center.

This is your chance to learn about exciting local companies and how their technologies are laying the foundation for future economic growth in our community. This year’s presenters are: Cook Medical; Inmar; NanoMedica; OnceLogix; Paragon Noise Barriers; Small Footprint/Treks in the City; Stantec; Verbal Victor; and Virginia Tech/WFU School of Biomedical Engineering.

The Tech Briefing is brought to you by the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by Cook Medical, Kilpatrick Townsend, Piedmont Angel Network, Targacept, and Wake Forest School of Medicine Office of Technology Asset Management. Learn more and register.

Wake Forest School of Medicine is Part of Toyota’s New Research Initiative for Auto Safety

Wake Forest School of Medicine is one of six leading research institutions across the country to be chosen by Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC) to enhance the development, testing and implementation of new automotive safety innovations. Joel Stitzel Jr., Ph.D., an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Wake Forest, is the principal investigator.

Toyota’s CSRC announced the partnerships today at the 2011 Toyota Safety Technology Seminar at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor. The new projects will research vehicle safety subjects ranging from driver education and collision mitigation to accident reconstruction and enhanced crash data analysis. Read more here.

Learn more about Dr. Stitzel's research when he presents at the Chamber of Commerce's 10th Annual Technology Briefing -- 8:00 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 15, at the Benton Convention Center.

Wake Forest Researchers Find Flexible Electronics Hold Promise

Plastic-based flexible electronics, produced in large volume using roll-to-roll processing, inkjet printing or spray deposition, is the “electronics everywhere” trend of the future, says Oana Jurchescu, assistant professor of physics at Wake Forest University. And the key to success in this market will be the low-cost production of large molecular structures with excellent electronic performance.

Jurchescu, her two graduate students Katelyn Goetz and Jeremy Ward, and interdisciplinary collaborators from Stanford, Imperial College (London), University of Kentucky and Appalachian State have developed just such an organic semiconductor.

Read more.

Two Apps to be Presented at Winston Salem Chamber of Commerce Tech Briefing on September 15th

Smartphones in the U.S. are expected to overtake feature phones by the end of 2011 (Nielsenwire, March 2010); therefore, it is no wonder that “there’s an app for that” can be said for virtually everything. At the 2011 Tech Briefing on September 15th, audience members will get to hear about two different apps, locally created and developed.

The Treks in the City™ mobile application, created by Winston-Salem based technology company, Small Footprint, uses geo-location technology to identify the users' current location in proximity to a host of other mapped locations. Users who download the application are able to experience the following functionality:

• Select a Trek and tour the area using particular area of interest, such as Architecture, Entertainment or the locations of four annual scavenger hunts held in the downtown area.

• Easily find downtown locations and get walking directions from the current location.

• Share pictures and comments on various Trek locations.

• Visit a related Web site or place a call to a destination directly from the Treks in the City™ mobile application.

Verbal Victor, an iphone app created by Wake Forest University Assistant Computer Science Professor Paúl Pauca, is designed to help children with development disabilities communicate better. Paúl’s son Victor was born with a rare genetic disorder that causes delays in cognitive abilities, motor skills, and social development and language skills. Paúl wanted to find a way to help Victor communicate better but found that the available therapeutic tools were very primitive, difficult to use and costly. With the help of students in his computer science class, he developed an application that with a touch of the screen allowed Victor to communicate such things as “I want to play” with a graphic image of toys or “I want to eat “ with an image of food.

Learn more about these apps and how they came to be at the Tech Briefing on September 15 at 8 a.m at the Benton Convention Center.

Winston-Salem Animation Company Helps Fight Childhood Obesity

Winston-Salem leaders are planning a website and animated film to educate children about nutrition — and put a dent in the growing problem of childhood obesity. A task force including people from the city, public school system, Gateway YWCA, Winston-Salem chapter of The Links, Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Forsyth County, nutritionists and Out of Our Minds Animation Studios got together and developed the concept for the program. The website would use games to educate children about nutrition. Meanwhile, Out of Our Minds Studios, in addition to creating the website, will create an original animated film to teach children. "The quality of life of our children is soon to reach a tipping point," said John Cernak, the executive creative director at the studio. "I made a promise to my grandsons that I plan to keep. Our studio will help." Read more here.

SciTech Lecture Series - September 22nd, 2011

Forsyth Tech's Sci-Tech Lecture Series 2011-12 kicks off on September 22nd, 2011 with Nancy Johnston, the Executive Director of the NC Biotechnology Centers Piedmont Triad Regional Office.
Speaking on: “Catalyzing Regional Strengths to Support Bioscience Job Growth”

4:00 pm Thursday, September 22, 2011
Ardmore Auditorium
Forsyth Tech Main Campus
2100 Silas Creek Parkway
Winston-Salem NC 27103

To reserve a seat at this event, contact Mona Cofer at 336.734.7205 or mcofer@forsythtech.edu

All lectures are free and open to the public.