State Partners with Utah-Based Video Game Companies to Expand Interactive Entertainment Presence

The State of Utah is making its debut appearance at the annual Game Developers Conference (http://www.gdconf.com/), taking place in San Francisco, CA, March 2-4, 2011.

Located in South Hall booth #1824 of the San Francisco Moscone Center, the Utah “Life Elevated” booth will provide an introduction to the vast employment opportunities, business incentives, and quality of life advancements Utah has to offer. The State boasts top-notch universities, sophisticated metro areas, and a year-round active lifestyle. Utah is an increasingly popular option for prospective employees and companies looking to expand or relocate.

Utah’s thriving interactive entertainment community is already home to world-class video game developers and publishers such as Disney Interactive, Electronic Arts, Epic Games’ ChAIR Entertainment, Smart Bomb Interactive, NinjaBee, and Eat Sleep Play.  Each company is working in collaboration with several state agencies and partners, including The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED), edcUTAH, and USTAR, Grow Utah Ventures, and MediaOne to encourage additional growth of the sector in Utah.

For information on Utah’s Digital Media Industry visit: http://www.edcutah.org/documents/UtahDigitalMediaIndustry_022311.pdf

Additional booth activities include:

• Hands-on gameplay stations featuring “Made in Utah” games, including: Toy Story 3 from Disney Interactive, contributions to The Sims 3^™ and Monopoly Streets from Electronic Arts, and Infinity Blade from ChAIR Entertainment.
• Official announcement about the 2011 PushButton Digital Media Summit, Gaming and Electronics Expo (GEEX), taking place in Utah this fall. Additional details will be provided to those companies and individuals who are interested.
• Guest appearances by Utah-based game companies, company leaders will answer questions, provide demos, sign autographs, etc.
• Daily giveaways and an exciting grand prize event on Thursday, March 3 at 5:40 p.m. featuring developer appearances and giveaways, including skis, snowboards, ski resort lift tickets, backpacks, free games, and more.
• Interviews available upon request.

“Utah is well known for its picturesque landscapes, world-class ski resorts, strong technology base, and film industry, but people are less familiar with the large amount of digital media and video game development that takes place within the state,” said Spencer P. Eccles, executive director of the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development. “As Utah continues to attract companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, and Twitter, we’re looking forward to the opportunity to attend GDC as a state and united digital industry to discuss the advantages of doing business in Utah.”

Higher education/industry collaborations target markets from environmental clean-up to pharmaceutical drug discovery

Yeast that captures heavy metals to clean mine waste, lasers that speed building construction and high-speed gene cloning that may help drug companies to develop lower-cost pharmaceuticals are among the projects funded in the latest round of USTAR Technology Commercialization Grants (TCGs).

The USTAR Governing Authority has awarded $358,427 to innovative commercialization projects at six regional higher education institutions across the state.

This latest round represents the fifth round of regional TCGs in the past two years. In that time, the program has aided 87 projects, and, to date, has helped in the launch of 12 new companies and 35 new jobs.

USTAR officials selected the most recent 11 grant recipients from a total of 46 applications. Eleven TCG applications from Dixie State College, Salt Lake Community College, Snow College, Southern Utah University, Utah Valley University and Weber State University were selected. Ten of the eleven approved grants included an industry co-applicant.

The TCG program was announced in the summer of 2009, with a main focus on bringing innovative new technologies to market from Utah’s public universities and colleges. The grants also foster collaboration between industry and public higher learning institutions.

With a typical award size of $30,000, TCGs assist faculty at regional institutions to prototype, test, assess markets and commercialize new products and services in high-growth markets. Faculty members and students work with Utah-based companies and other organizations willing to sponsor technology development. Funds for the TCG program have come primarily from the Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“We are highly encouraged by the results we are seeing out of this program, which has allowed Utah’s institutions of higher education to play a significant role in economic development across the state,” said Ted McAleer, USTAR executive director. “Faculty and students at Utah’s public universities are creating exciting and innovative technologies and are creating companies and products that will improve lives.”

The latest round winners include:

Applicant: Dixie State College
Industry co-applicant: SmackDab Technologies
Project: The SmackDab Laser Layout System converts digital blueprints and directs visible lasers to specific coordinates over large areas, helping speed up the building construction process. (more…)

The BioInnovations Gateway – or BiG for short – is a business incubator in South Salt Lake that specializes in nurturing life science start-up companies…with a unique approach.

What makes BiG different is that it combines business incubation with workforce development. Students from six local high schools, Salt Lake Community College, and Utah Valley University work as interns for BiG client companies. The companies have an opportunity to work with and train new workers for potential hire. Already some local high school students have transitioned to high-tech life science jobs.

BiG has released a short video to tell its story. You can view it at USTAR’s YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbWok0tSGR4&feature=youtube_gdata

With the support of USTAR and the Granite Technical Institute, BiG provides 25,000 square feet of wet and dry labs, high-end equipment, and office space for up to seven start-up companies to develop products. And student interns have exciting paths to explore with current client companies.

One of these clients is Knudra – which is developing cell-level testing to support the development of new drugs. Another client is Symbion Discovery – which is developing natural products to fight cancer and AIDS.

BiG’s focus on turning students into the workforce of tomorrow doesn’t just help emerging companies. Just last month, Intermountain Healthcare – one of the state’s largest providers – announced a partnership the Granite Technical Institute and BiG to give high school students invaluable hands-on experience in designing and creating medical device prototypes.

A goal of the partnership is to provide Intermountain’s doctors and nurses with a way to develop ideas that lead to improved patient care. At the same time, students learn the technical skills needed to create a Food and Drug Administration-approved device.

BiG was recently profiled on Zions Bank “Speaking on Business” radio program:

http://www.zionsbancorporation.com/zionsbank/resources/audio/20110207.mp3

For more information on BiG, visit http://www.bioinnovationsgateway.org

The SocialBiz Conference is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 17, at the Karen Gail Miller Conference Center on the Salt Lake Community College – Miller Campus in Sandy, UT. Thanks to our friends at the Miller Business Resource Center for alerting us to this opportunity.

Have you joined the conversation? Is your business ready to engage directly with your customers, encourage feedback and get them to “like” you? Social media marketing is rapidly becoming the preferred marketing channel for businesses of any size. Do you know which social media channel is right for you?

Each social media channel comes with a different set of rules, a different audience, different user expectations, and different preferences. It’s important to learn the difference between them — because the differences can and will affect your success. 

Join KeyBank, the Miller Business Resource Center and other sponsors for a half-day conference on how to bring your business to life through social media.

Keynote Speaker: Jeffrey Harmon, Orabrush Chief Marketing Officer. Learn how Jeffrey created a YouTube sensation that has garnered millions of hits and sent Orabrush sales skyrocketing!

Breakout Sessions:

• Blogging
• Facebook
• Linkedin & Twitter
• Social Media Profitability
• Search Engine Optimization
• Smart Phone & Tablet Technology

Register: Visit https://www.spedregistration.com/ OR call 801-957-5200 to register over the phone.

Cost: $20 per person

Agenda:

• 7:30 AM to 8:00 AM – Registration and Networking
• 8:15 AM to 9:00 AM – Keynote Speaker, Jeffrey Harmon
• 9:15 AM to 10:30 AM – Breakout Sessions I
• 10:45 AM to 12:00 PM – Breakout Sessions II
• 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM – Lunch + Panel Discussion

Recent discussions at the State School Board have focused on potential budget cuts to public education. Articles in the Deseret News and on KSL’s web site have enumerated several worst-case scenarios.

The Deseret News states, “The board brainstormed cuts in $20 million increments. Eliminating adult education, school nurse funding, the Utah Science Technology and Research Initiative and a few other line items would take care of the first tier, according to the board.”

Please note that these articles refer to a program created in 2008 – also called USTAR – that offers competitive grants to provide an extended contract year for mathematics and science teachers for public school districts and charter schools. The Utah State Office of Education (USOE) is responsible for the administration of this program.

That public education program is separate and distinct from the technology-based economic development initiative formed in 2006.

Like many other state-funded programs, the USTAR initiative described at this web site does face some potential budget cuts (in line with general guidelines), but not elimination. We regret the confusion that may be caused by the shared branding of two different programs.

For the Fall 2010-2011 round, 21 out of 45 proposals submitted to the Governor’s Office of Economic Development’s Centers of Excellence program were approved recently. A number of the winning submissions have USTAR ties. Congratulations to:

• USTAR researcher Ling Zang (Explosives detection by nanofibers)
• Jack Buchanan (Sensicore water monitoring) and Brandon Lloyd (Produced water treatment and carbon nanoribbon solar cells), assisted by USTAR analysts
• Previous USTAR Technology Commercialization grants winners Donald Sanborn (Credibility Assessment Technologies), David McNally (Ferromagnetic surgical tools), Michael Bartl (Novel synthesis of nanocrystals), and Bedri Cetiner (Smart antennae technology)
• Ben Rollins, USTAR and Moran Eye Center analyst (Coated glasses to reduce migraines)

More information is available at http://www.business.utah.gov/site-media/page-media/content/centers/2010-11-COE-Grant-Recepients-Final.pdf

Thanks to Eric Warren of the Utah State University Research Foundation for the following profile of Aravind Dasu, another COE winner with a USTAR connection through the Energy Dynamics Laboratory:

Utah State University’s Energy Dynamics Laboratory (EDL) announced that it has received a grant valued at $40,000 from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development Centers of Excellence program.  The grant was awarded for further development of the Smart Occupancy Sensor that has been designed and is being tested at EDL.

 “This prestigious recognition will help enable EDL further develop important technology that will become ubiquitous in office buildings and homes across America,” said Dr. Aravind Dasu, director of EDL’s Intuitive and Solar Buildings branch.  “The Centers of Excellence award will help transform the way we use light by turning raw data from electro-optical and infrared sensors into intelligent information that decodes the scene of a space by determining the activity of occupants, properties of the environment, furniture, and light sources, and learning occupant activity patterns.”

According to the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, The Centers of Excellence Program is a State funded grant program developed by the Utah Legislature in 1986 to help accelerate the process of taking university-developed cutting-edge technologies to market, thereby driving economic development and creating jobs for Utahns.

The Smart Occupancy Sensor is a dual mode hardware device, which when mounted on a ceiling in an office or at a home, will reliably and instantaneously turn lights on when a space is occupied and turn them off when a space is unoccupied.  The infrared and CMOS imaging sensor is unique from motion sensors currently used in many offices and homes because its response time is about five seconds, compared with the average current motion sensor response time of 15 to 20 minutes.  Additionally, EDL’s Smart Occupancy Sensor does not suffer from the infamous “hand waving” issue – where lights turn off in an occupied room when the sensor cannot detect movement.

Considerable energy is wasted in building illumination that is unnecessary given the tasks being performed by occupants at any given time. Today’s office lighting systems are based on a nearly 100 year old paradigm that suggests we must design and build “static” office lighting systems for worst-case-scenario lighting needs. For example, a lighting system must be designed so that the number of foot-candles is sufficient for older occupants to read 10 point font while sitting at a desk. Younger occupants and those performing other tasks, such as having a meeting, working at a computer workstation, or talking on the telephone need considerably less light. With the advent of technologies such as machine vision, light emitting diodes, wireless communication, sensors/controls, robotics, and radio-frequency identification, the existing paradigm is becoming outdated and transformational systems-level change is possible.

“EDL is creating tomorrow’s energy paradigms today – paradigms that favor systems-level transformational change over incremental progress,” said Jeff Muhs, director of EDL.  “The Center of Excellence award will enable us to demonstrate a suite of technologies that can cut energy use by more than half.”

Founded in 2009, EDL develops and deploys transformational energy systems, providing considerable improvements to U.S. energy security in the following five areas: Intuitive and Solar Buildings, Vehicle and Roadway Electrification, Environmental and Wind Measurements, Next Generation Fossil Energy, and Algae Energy Systems. EDL focuses on prototyping, demonstrating, deploying, and commercializing innovative technologies for renewable and advanced energy systems that will help solve national and international environmental issues. EDL provides customers and partners with innovative, high‐value solutions and services that can rapidly be commercialized through industry friendly practices and efficient technology transfer.