2005 History - Building Business in Colorado...
1378_ 4/19/2013 - 8/29/2005- HISTORY and perspective from 2005! We will transport you back to 2005 - eight years ago to listen to interviews and see tons of photos from 2005 business events. Just click on the Listen/Subject link and we can take you back. You will see the 100s of photos that are not found on other websites. Let us know what you think email radio@w3w3.com.
LISTEN TO: Phil Weiser, Merc Mercure, Chris Johnson, Stan Feld... Keywords: Stan Feld, M.D., Healthcare system, Merc Mercure, photonics, Chris Johnson, VoIP, Phil Weiser, political environment changes, Silicon Flatirons Center, University of Colorado, Law School
Autism incidence increasing, you can make a difference 1375_ 4/11/13 -
A few weeks ago Kevin Custer spoke to us about his work with the Colorado Autism Society and their new CEO, James Buckles. This is a topic we need to be much more aware of. When we refer to autism, we refer to it as Autism Spectrum Disorder, because there is a wide range of developmental disabilities that cause impairment in the areas of social interaction and communication and behavior. So for that reason we may have somebody that is very high functioning and capable of doing really incredible things and maybe socially awkward - but you may have someone on the spectrum that is non-verbal and can't really communicate. So you have those two variations and everything between. It really is very challenging to understand autism.
The autism rates have gone up. The CDC says it basically comes down to two things. We have a better educated, better informed population of medical providers, doctors, people who know and can recognize it. The other is there is just more autism - the incidence rate has increased. Autism is one of the few disorders that is not race specific, it has nothing to do with geography. The only unique element of autism is that it is four times more likely to occur in boys than girls. The incidence rates are the same in the U.S. as they are in all countries, developed and undeveloped.
Kevin said, "For businesses wanting to get involved and support, the website, AutismColorado.org is the place to start. The biggest thing we see is to train your employees to understand what's going on. If you have more than seven employees, one of them has a family member with autism. If that is the case, you're going to want to understand how you can better support that employee. With our Autism 101 program, we'll come into your business and explain about it. Then contacting James to figure out how we can help your business give support back to the community as far as being an autism friendly business."
The ASC has a 'Walk' coming up June 9th, and James said, "We'd love companies to think about getting involved in the Walk Program. What we find is once their employees get involved, they'll come forward and be excited about this opportunity, create a team around supporting the disorder of autism. It's just a valuable way for a company to give back and at the same time will see benefits from being involved." Listen for more information....
RELATED LINKS:
Autism Society of Colorado ||
Walk ||
ASC Programs ||
Donate ||
Arc Capital Development ||
KEYWORDS: Walk for Autism, Kevin Custer, James Buckles, Autism Society of Colorado, autism spectrum disorder, autism friendly business. sensory friendly films, CDC, Beau Jo's, autism friendly environment, bytes=7426615
LISTEN TO: Kevin Custer & James Buckles, CEO, Autism Society of Colorado
1371_ 4/5/13 - Kevin Custer serves as the president of the board for the Autism Society of Colorado, he also works on the national board of directors. and Kevin is the founding partner of Arc Capital Development, a strategic equity firm that focuses on education and healthcare. Strategic equity is different than private equity or venture capital in that we invest from $150,000 up to $1 million at a strategic time in a company, when it's time for them to get to the next inflection point. Different from venture capital - it's later stage than that, earlier than private equity. Larry asked, "Why education and why healthcare?" Kevin replied, "We see a convergence of those two. We look at the healthcare space and we specialize a lot in the development of the schools. We see that as an emerging market. When you look at a healthcare market, you look at the different service providers, be it hospitals, clinics, professionals prescribing or non-prescribing, even the consumers now are starting to look at that. One of the largest providers of healthcare services in the U.S., specifically for children is the U.S. School System, because every child starting at the age of three is eligible for services through the school system. What we've seen happen is that market really starting to emerge. Larry asked Kevin what he meant when he said 'emerging market'. Kevin said, "There has always been a need for products and services in the development of the school area. What we have seen happen, specifically with Autism, is fifteen years ago there were a couple hundred thousand people with Autism in the United States - now there's close to two million. Just our school system alone has had a 10X increase and they need services, they need products, they need adapting equipment, things like that. On top of that the CDC believes one in six people need some type of adaptive or assistive help in their daily life. That is people with developmental disabilities, they've had a stroke, traumatic brain injury, whatever it is, we see that as the emerging market. That's 15-20 million people, just in the U.S. who need product and services. Products and services have been around for a long time, but they've been very expensive and complicated to use." ...there's more...
RELATED LINKS:
Arc Capital Development ||
Autism Society of Colorado ||
Autism Society National ||
Walk Page ||
ASC Programs ||
Donate ||
KEYWORDS: Kevin Custer, Arc Capital Development, Autism Society of Colorado, ASC
Programs, Strategic Equity, Emerging Market, Social Express, Capital, bytes=5287082
LISTEN TO: Kevin Custer, Founding Partner, Arc Capital Development
Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek come to Colorado 3/20/2013 [832_ 4/26/10] - At the 26th National Space Symposium, Larry and Pat had an opportunity to have a discussion with Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame. But Nimoy is so much more than that. They decided to talk about other topics that help us learn more about him and what has shaped his character over the past 79 years as well as understanding his hot buttons. We started out by reflecting on some poetry Leonard read as 'whale song' was heard in the background...that was decades ago but it opened up insights to his current interests and concerns. When asked, Is there something businesses can do to motivate children?" His reply was an ouch. "I'm not a sociologist, I'm not a businessman, I can't speak intelligently about that. I'll tell you what I am concerned about; I'm concerned about how much television kids watch that is not uplifting, or educational or inspiring in any way. It's all about celebrity, and if you're celebrity, come and tell us about your celebrity. What have you accomplished? I'm a celebrity - I'm famous for having a lot of children, so I want a TV show - It's crazy. What we have descended to in our education, it's crazy! It's really sad, I could go on about that, I'm not going to." He had a great deal to say about advice he would give to someone following his career path. "The biggest fantasy, myth about my work, about being an actor is people who think a look will get you somewhere, be at the right place and time, that kind of thing - luck plays a big role, but I never believed that, not even as a teenager ...Education, it's all about education. Learn, learn, learn and devote yourself to a profession. Be professional about it." Larry asked, "Do you feel the U.S. is losing its position in terms of space?" Leonard replied, "Yes, I don't know to what degree this is true. I don't want to be an alarmist about this, but I do think we've got some work to do." We did end with a Vulcan salute. Listen for much, much more... April 8th Begins 29th National Space Symposium... Related Links:
29th National Space Symposium ||
Space Technology Hall of Fame® || National Space Symposium ||
Space Foundation ||
More About Nimoy || Keywords: Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek, Spock, Vulcan, National Space Symposium, Space Foundation, Education, Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award 4/26/10 Chnl: News bytes: 5458968 LISTEN to Leonard Nimoy, aka Mr. Spock
Tom Smerdon, success in marketing new ideas 1364_ 3/13/13 -
From a business person's point of view, the Technology Transfer Office is one of the most important things that the university provides, for business, individual professors and students, with everything from awards and recognition but most importantly really helping them along when they come up with an idea. Larry is with Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President of the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office in Boulder. Tom said, "There are a couple of the things I'd like to bring to the listeners attention. One, which we're really excited about, is the recent acquisition of a CU startup. F5 Networks has acquired LineRate Systems, a Colorado startup that’s developing technologies around what’s called software define networking. F5 noted that the networking technologies will help bring superior service agility, application intelligence, and programmability to software defined data centers. The thing that is exciting about this is, not only was this a startup basically out of Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering here on the CU Boulder campus, but the company was also an early recipient of the Proof-of-Concept investment from the Tech Transfer Office. This was the first money into the company which really helped it acquire some critical equipment early on and facilitated the development of the technology that was later further developed in its Louisville office and ultimately the subject of the sale to F5. This is one of the success stories for Tech Transfer and we're really excited for the company and the founders. A couple of events that are coming up; we are doing our Tech Transfer Awards a little differently this year. Previously there had been a single awards event covering the system campuses held in Denver. This year we're going to have campus focused events, so we have the Boulder Awards event which is scheduled for April 1st. This is in conjunction with the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. The program, Entrepreneurship Under the Microscope, is an evening event with a keynote speaker and we will be awarding the Inventor of the Year, New Inventor of the Year, and Company of the Year during a fun networking event with CU-Boulder faculty and students, and members of the Boulder entrepreneurial community. We have the second awards event planned... there's more...
RELATED LINKS:
CU Technology Transfer Office ||
CU TTO Channel ||
TTO Blog ||
LineRate Systems || KEYWORDS: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President, Tech Transfer Office,
University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, LineRate Systems, F5, Awards, bytes=4401426
LISTEN TO: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President. Tech Transfer, University of Colorado
Tom Smerdon First to Invent Rule under the America Invents Act 1360_ 3/6/13 -
Larry is in Boulder with Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President of University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office. "There are several interesting events that we're keeping an eye on. One is the upcoming implementation of 'The First to Invent Rule under the America Invents Act. This goes into effect on March the 16th. So this has required us to look at some of the provisional applications that are pending and accelerate the filing of the U.S. Utility Applications. We've been doing that as well as setting up some informational and outreach efforts to inform the faculty of this change. One of the exciting legislative initiatives that Tom and his team are keeping an eye on is the Advanced Industries Acceleration Act. This was recently introduced in the House as HB1001 and basically it would expand the current Bioscience Discovery and Evaluation Grant Program [the BDEG] which currently provides for state grant funding / proof-of-concept funding for bioscience technologies as well as grants for early stage bioscience companies. It would expand that to six other advanced industries in Colorado. These are advanced manufacturing, aerospace, electronics, cleantech energy and natural resources, infrastructure engineering and information technology. While we make some changes to the basic BDEG funding, the basic structure is preserved. So there would continue to be proof-of-concept grants that would go to research institutions - that definition has been expanded somewhat, but it would include the state research institutions, University of Colorado. It would also provide some company matching grant funding, although the match would now be one dollar from the state to two dollars from the company and it will also provide infrastructure funding as is currently provided under the BDEG program. There are some caps on those funding amounts but in the case of proposals that would involve more than one advanced industry, those caps are removed. But again, it's pending and we'll have to see what the final legislation looks like. we've been working closely with the Office of Economic Development and International Trade on some related advanced... there's more...
RELATED LINKS:
CU Technology Transfer Office ||
CU TTO Channel ||
TTO Blog ||
CID4 ||
CBSA ||
KEYWORDS: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President, Tech Transfer Office,
University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, The First to Invent Rule America Invents Act., Biotech Technologies, Bio Science Discovery,
Office of Economic Development and International Trade, Bioscience Discovery and Evaluation Grant Program - bytes=5151245
LISTEN TO: Tom Smerdon, Interim Assoc. Vice President, Tech Transfer Office, University of Colorado
Rick Duke & Kevin Smith, Venture Capital Money 1349_ 2/13/13 -
Part 2: As the companies we work with learn, the models sometimes change and new knowledge generates new directions. What we've learned working on the CID4 model is that there are great technologies in the state of Colorado. There are incredible entrepreneurs trying to get those technologies out. The one thing we are short of, as many people are, is investment capital. If we had more investment capital to put to work through CID4 we would, but we are limited. So we branched out and created a class of client that we work with. Which would be a company that takes advantage of our consulting service, for no charge as well as some of the programs we run as opposed to getting direct capital investment that we talked about earlier. Those programs include office hour programs which we conduct at both Boulder and Fitzsimmons, where individuals can come in an have one-on-one consultations with subject matter experts. We also do a lot of work on business plan development and make introductions to potential financing sources. In our view, the model that CID4 started with trying to provide active hands-on management, now we're continuing to expand on that, but also not invest but providing guidance. Rick Duke is very active in helping to raise finances, but there's a lot of confusion about what venture capitalists are doing today and what they're not. Dr. Duke said, "Venture capital changed dramatically around 2008-09 and I think there was an expectation it was going to come back in a relatively short period of time. And I think it surprised all of us when we haven't seen the return of venture capital at the level that it was in the late 90s and early 2000 period. Most notably for Colorado, at least in the life sciences area, we don't see much in the way of that initial lead VC firm that we had and enjoyed during that early 2000 period. That has really forced us to go out to the coast to look for venture capital money for our client companies. Or, actually to look at some of the angel investors and angel investor groups that have been forming recently here in Colorado.." .Listen for much more...
RELATED LINKS:
CID4 ||
CU Technology Transfer Office ||
CBSA ||
CU TTO Channel ||
TTO Blog ||
KEYWORDS: Rick Duke, Kevin Smith, CID4, Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and
Diagnostic Development, Colorado Life Science Industry, Bioscience Discovery Evaluation Grant program, CU Technology Transfer Office,
Proof of Concept > bytes=8753217
LISTEN TO: Richard Duke & Kevin Smith, CID4
Rick Duke & Kevin Smith, CID4 Investing
Supporting the Colorado Life Science Industry... 1346_ 2/7/13 -
Larry sat down to get an update from Kevin Smith, President & CEO and Richard (Rick) Duke, Ph.D., Founder & CSO - CID4 [Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development] a 501-C3 non-profit organization, launched back in 2009 with a mission to support the growth of the Colorado Life Science Industry both in terms of numbers of companies and numbers of jobs. Kevin explained, "Over the period of time since we started operations we work with companies, both to invest in and provide active management, to help guide them through the valley of death, when they're running out of cash but before they can actually access larger amounts of investment capital. So far we've invested in six companies - put $2 million to work. Those companies have created 65 direct jobs and they've attracted $20 million in investment capital into their businesses and used to grow their businesses here in Colorado." Rick said, "I think what sets us apart from other types of organizations like this is that we provide active management to our portfolio companies or project companies for that matter." A lot of that technology is early spin outs out of the University of Colorado or other research institutions where you've got a faculty member who is an entrepreneur and inventor, but doesn't necessarily have the experience in starting a company, or managing the operations, or developing a business plan, or product development plan. This is where CID4 often takes a fairly active role. Getting the company off the ground. Initiating operations and literally pitching the company to both angel investors and venture capital investors - with the goal of graduating them, raising a significant amount of capital to where they can now move out on their own." It's important to understand that CID4 is a not-for-profit company and what that means is the money that they invest in a portfolio company, if there is a return on that investment, rather than that traditionally being shared with the management of the venture capital firm, in fact, in our situation, that money goes back into technology development. This is unique from a number of... Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS:
CID4 ||
CU Technology Transfer Office ||
CBSA ||
CU TTO Channel ||
TTO Blog ||
KEYWORDS: Rick Duke, Kevin Smith, CID4, Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic
Development, Colorado Life Science Industry, Investments, CU Technology Transfer Office, bytes=5738060
LISTEN TO: Richard Duke & Kevin Smith Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic
Development
Learning how to build healthier brain habits 1334_ 1/12/13 -
We've enlisted Kirsten Nelson to help us cover the blur conference with so much cutting edge technology and business to check out here. We're talking with Ariel Garten, CEO and cofounder of InteraXon, specializing in non-invasive brain-computer interfaces - thought controlled computing products and applications... It's just what it sounds like, it is the ability to interact with content directly with your mind. The 'Muse' is a sensor that sits on your forehead and uses your brain waves and then lets you play games with your brain, interact with lighting systems, control music, or allow you to see inside your own mind, and see your own brain activity. You can use that information to improve your cognitive fitness, improve your emotional regulation and see what your brain is doing at different times of the day. Kirsten asked Ariel if there were specific groups that could benefit from this kind of technology. Ariel said, "...everyone can benefit from learning how to build healthier brain habits, how to improve their own mental functioning and, the way they interact in the world. In particular kids with ADD can benefit from it. Kids with ADD have lowered levels of beta waves and actually playing games with their brain - specifically with their beta waves can decrease their ADD symptoms as effectively as Ritalin." Where is this technology going in the future? Ariel explains, "In the far future it will be as ubiquitous as voice or gesture technology is now. Using your mind to interact with technology is going to be a really basic way to interact with the world." InteraXon was formed in 2007 when Ariel Garten decided to commercialize the thought controlled computing technology initially developed by world-renowned cyberneticist Dr. Steve Mann and his colleague, Dr. James Fung...There's more...
RELATED LINKS:
InteraXon ||
C3 Writing ||
Defrag 1 Site, 2 Shows 3 Days ||
Defrag/blur Info ||
Blur Conference Photos ||
Defrag Conference Photos ||
KEYWORDS: Ariel Garten, CEO, InteraXon, Kirsten Nelson DefragCon 2012, blur, Software, Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces, Muse, ADD, Brain Waves, bytes=3091542
LISTEN TO: Ariel Garten, CEO/Founder Interaxon
Looking at industry alliances and collaboration 1324_ 12/13/12 - When we last spoke with Tom Smerdon he was manager/director of Licensing & New Business Development; today he is Interim Associate Vice President, University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office. In his humble way, Tom tells us, "In the wake of Dave Allen's departure, I inherited Dave's position here." Although they've not filled his former position, so Tom's a busy man, still doing a little bit of what he used to do. But mostly Tom is doing the AVP job and thoroughly enjoying it. We asked him to tell us about his new position... "Basically it's more of a management position. Tech Transfer Office is a system office. So we cover the Boulder Campus, Anschutz Medical Campus, Downtown Denver as well as the Colorado Springs Campus. and we have a satellite Tech Transfer Office in connection with Anschutz Medical campus as well as the main office here which includes the administrative staff. We have close to 20 full time employees. And in addition to the case managers, the professionals that work on evaluating technologies, working with perspective licensees and helping to do the deals as well as managing the patenting process, we have a very top notch administrative staff that handles marketing and communication. Lindsay Lennox, Kathe Zaslow, working on a number of service agreements, materials transfer agreements, confidentiality agreements, different collaboration agreements. Last year we completed over 800 of those types of service and related agreements that are technically licensed to draw options." Tom talked about the great job other team members are doing. Larry asked, "What's going on now?" Tom replied, "Well, we're trying to maintain our performance of the past. Last year we received a little over 225 invention disclosures. So we're continuing to work on the challenges that are evaluating technologies that are disclosed to the office and then getting them licensed. Beyond that one of the initiatives we've been working on to work with the campuses to pursue ways of promotion industry alliances. There is a concern that the level of federal funding, which last year on a system basis, was $815 Million in total funding support, most..." There's more, listen now... RELATED LINKS: CU Technology Transfer Office || CU TTO Channel || TTO Blog || CUTTO General Administrative Office || KEYWORDS: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President, Tech Transfer Office,
University of Colorado, Technology Transfer, Lindsay Lennox, Kathe Zaslow, Tara Dressler, Rick Silva, Kate Tallman, CU TTO >
bytes=6271376 LISTEN TO: Tom Smerdon, Interim Associate Vice President Tech Transfer Office, University of Colorado
1371_ 4/5/13 - 
