Innovation Challenge: History
The Innovation Challenge was the brainchild of Michael F. Malone, dean of the College of Engineering and the Ronnie and Eugene Isenberg Distinguished Professor of Engineering, and Soren Bisgaard, the Eugene M. Isenberg Professor of Technology Management and interim dean of the Isenberg School of Management, who established the Challenge in 2005. The competition is one among many initiatives in a campus-wide strategy to develop technological innovation and to bring that intellectual property to the private sector. It also compliments the Isenberg Program in Innovation and Technology Management which works toward the successful integration of management, science and engineering disciplines. For more information on the vision of the Isenberg Professorships, including the most recent Eugene M. and Ronnie Isenberg Professorship in Integrative Environmental Science, click here.
Winning Teams
Academic Year 2006/07
The May 2007 TIC Executive Summary Competition grand prize of $45,000 was won by team Condition Engineering for their proposal of a new company that would monitor and provide failure warning systems for earthen structures. Current monitoring techniques are limited to visual inspections and specialized sensors and equipment that are expensive and provide limited information. Condition Engineering would deliver a novel set of sensor units embedded in the ground, with tens of thousands of these sensors providing a widespread monitoring and early failure warning system. This technology would be versatile across many markets and applications, including construction sites, railroad beds, flood control systems, landfills and bridges.
The prior round Executive Summary & Elevator Pitch Competition, held in December of 2006 for a $5,000 prize, was won by team Diamond Innovations. Diamond Innovations is a new company that would produce diamond-coated, long-lasting artificial joints and thus lower the number of painful, follow-up surgeries for implant recipients. Diamond Innovations is currently seeking a patent for a new technique in which diamond can be created from polymer precursors. Thin, smooth diamond films created through this process can then be coated onto objects of different shapes and sizes.
Academic Year 2005/06
The May 2006 TIC Executive Summary Competition grand prize of $45,000 was won by team Pharma Solutus for their proposal of a new company that would develop drug delivery platforms for targeting cancer and making chemotherapy more effective. Pharma Solutus focuses on novel drug delivery nanotechnology which will allow providers to concentrate drugs at the tumor site, thereby reducing side effects, and to control and sustain the release of the anticancer drug.
The prior round Executive Summary & Elevator Pitch Competition, held in the December of 2005 for a $5,000 prize, was won by team HydroMatrix which plans to commercialize a nanostructured polymer technology designed to rebuild healthy cartilage in damaged or degenerated human joints.