Last fall, the head of the University of Arizona’s new technology transfer arm said the effort was bearing fruit that would soon be reflected in more faculty invention disclosures, UA patents and other measures.
The numbers seem to bear out that Tech Launch Arizona is making an impact, as its chief, UA Vice President David Allen, had hoped and predicted.
For the first six months of the 2014 fiscal year, from July through December of 2013, Tech Launch Arizona reported the following results:
- Four startup companies were launched, compared with three in all of fiscal 2013, and the agency says it’s on track to create an average of one each month for the rest of the year. And the Arizona Board of Regents has approved the formation of 22 startups with faculty interests so far this fiscal year.
- Faculty members filed 78 invention disclosures, on pace to beat the 144 disclosures filed in all of fiscal 2012.
- The UA filed 59 unique patent applications, including 25 provisional patents and 34 non-provisional filings; that’s somewhat behind the pace of the 135 filed in all of fiscal 2013.
Tech Launch also counts some numbers behind some new initiatives for which there is no precedent. The agency says it has issued 13 “proof of concept” grants to faculty for such things as prototyping, and it launched four commercial feasibility studies for faculty inventions.
And the UA’s business incubator, the Arizona Center for Innovation at the UA Science and Technology Park, incubated 16 companies ranging from biotech to social media and civil engineering firms.
In its midyear report, Tech Launch Arizona also cited among its successes The Solar Zone demonstration area and a new border-security technology evaluation center at the UA Tech Park; and licensing of a medication-management system developed at the UA College of Pharmacy to local startup Sinfonia HealthCare Corp.
Recent commercialization projects aided by Tech Launch Arizona included the launch of a mobile app developed by a UA civil engineering professor to help drivers find the best routes; the licensing of a method to detect a pathogen killing off shrimp; and a new technology to make databases perform faster.
To check out the report or find more information on Tech Launch Arizona, go to techlaunch.arizona.edu
RIDGETOP Group WINS
$80,000 Navy CONTRACT
Perhaps as predicted, prognostication is turning out to be a good business for Tucson-based Ridgetop Group, which specializes in systems that can help predict electronic failures.
The company recently won an $80,000 Small Business Innovation Research contract from the U.S. Navy to develop advanced electronics for prognostics and “health management,” to monitor and predict failures in gyroscope subassemblies used in the nation’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines.
Gyroscopes are used in navigation systems for measuring or maintaining orientation, and Ridgetop said its work will focus on the degradation of the electronics for electromechanical gyroscopes.
Kyle Ferrio, vice president of advanced research at Ridgetop, noted that the company will be applying expertise from prior successful prognostics and health management programs the company has conducted for critical NASA, Air Force, Navy, and commercial applications.
Ridgetop has won more than $20 million in SBIR grants, according to the federal government website SBIR.gov.
MAKE IT TO MAKETOPOLIS
Reminder: Tucson’s first-ever “maker faire” will happen this Saturday downtown at Maker House, 283 N. Stone Ave.; Xerocraft Hackerspace, 101 W. Sixth St.; and outdoors in an adjacent lot.
Part of the Arizona Sci-Tech Festival, the fair will feature a variety of “makers,” tinkerers, builders, engineers, hackers, crafters, hobbyists and “everyone curious about making cool stuff,” organizers say.
The deadline to reserve an exhibitor booth is today; for more information, go to www.maketopolis.org
