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Start-Up Companies Create New Businesses in Pennsylvania

Article Posted On 4/27/2009



Welcome to the eighth "Show and Tell" session hosted by Project Olympus at Carnegie Mellon University! In a darkened lecture room on Carnegie Mellon University's campus, every seat is filled by industry representatives, venture capitalists, regional organization representatives, faculty, and students. The first speaker describes the world's first medical device to treat malaria worldwide, which his early-stage company has developed. Another speaker on the agenda is a faculty member whose spin-off company creates interactive software which customizes its teaching of a foreign language using a correct native accent to a specific user. Lastly slated to speak is an undergraduate student who is developing a next-generation e-commerce technology company that allows restaurants to connect with their customers online.

Across the state of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University and Lehigh University have been helping to fund and foster the development of new start-up companies through the support of the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance (PITA). These start-ups enhance economic development in Pennsylvania, provide opportunities for university graduates to remain in the region, and further the technology of Pennsylvania products and services that result from academic-industry collaborations fostered by these initiatives.

Significant to this process is PITA-supported Project Olympus, which is working to bridge the gap between cutting-edge university research and economy-stimulating commercialization in the region. Founded by Professor Lenore Blum of Carnegie Mellon's Computer Science Department, Project Olympus provides start-up advice, micro-grants, incubator space and connections for faculty and students designed to create and sustain next generation computing innovation for Western Pennsylvania.

The incubator lab runs a series of focused faculty, as well as student, PROBEs (PROBlem-oriented Explorations) bringing together post-graduate Olympus Scholars, students, and researchers with business and domain experts from academia, industry, and national laboratories to collaborate on areas of common interest. Guidance from business leaders to transform research results into products, services, and new enterprises serves to foster and sustain the initiative for the long term. Barbara "Babs" Carryer, Project Olympus's Embedded Entrepreneur, guides the faculty PROBEs. Senior Business Advisor Kit Needham guides the student PROBEs. "We are finding that people in the business and innovative community see us as being experts in this field and are coming to us to help them make connections with talent and projects," Blum describes.

At Carnegie Mellon, PITA has also funded the research being conducted by Carmell, a bioplastics manufacturing company founded by ICES Research Professor Phil Campbell, Robotics Institute Research Professor Lee Weiss, and James Burgess, a neurosurgeon from Allegheny General Hospital. Carmell is creating plasma-based plastics that offer accelerated healing and improved clinical outcomes for wound repair and tissue regeneration following an injury.

PITA funding has also fostered the collaboration between Carnegie Mellon start-up company RedZone Robotics and researchers with the ICES-housed Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure Research (CenSCIR). RedZone provides multi-sensor inspection services, including developing robotic platforms to reach inaccessible pipe locations and providing companies with the ability to view 3D digital representations of their wastewater pipes on their computers. CenSCIR has developed for RedZone an algorithm within a computer interface that has the ability to interpret and classify autonomously the data obtained by RedZone's robots. This allows RedZone to market a product that provides a consistent, on-demand, processing capability of visual images of the pipelines.

EcoTech NanoSystems (ENS) is the second startup company founded by three student entrepreneurs in Bethlehem, PA. Bringing diverse backgrounds in engineering, chemistry, and business, Tim Marks, Justin Lawyer, and Pat Clasen have pulled together a new nanotechnology called EcoShield™. EcoShield™ inhibits the growth of nuisance organisms such as algae and mold as well as prevents the attachment of pollution and dangerous organic compounds on a wide variety of surfaces. ENS EcoShield™ coating technology will benefit the market in the area of home and commercial building materials. PITA funding in 2007 and 2009 has supported ENS and Lehigh researchers during their development of the new coating technique, which has a high potential for both commercial and military applications and provides support for ENS to continue development of technology to make it ready for production and commercialization.