Repost from www.univalor.ca
The AUTM Better World Report illustrates the real impact of technology transfer.
In its last edition, a technology recently licensed by Univalor to the South Korean company, Dongil Rubber Belt Co. Ltd. is presented:
“Brace Buffers Buildings to Protect People and Profits” (on page 75).
One of the cool projects that I presented last week at TechConnect Summit (which by the way was a great success. Congrats to Jennifer for the organization!), is a wearable photonic colored fibers developed by Pr. Maksim Skorobagatiy at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal.
Smart textiles are now everywhere (Frost and Sullivan estimates that in 2020, 80% of the textile will be smart!). Applications already include interactive clothing for sports, hazardous occupations, and military, industrial textiles with integrated sensors or signage, fashion accessories and apparel with unique and variable appearance, etc…
Mainly because of their commercial availability but also their low cost, photonics textile manufacturers usually use silica glass-based telecommunication fibers which cause several challenges in the textile world (How to extract the color from the fiber core? How to generate the color? How to weave them? etc…).
Here comes Pr. Skorobogatiy’s invention!
Instead of using glass-based fibers, he proposes to use photonics crystal fibers made of different layers of polymers which will act as a spectral filter. Therefore, from a single white light source, only a given color will be leaked out of the fiber.
No more need to paint the fiber or to use 3 RGB LED, the color is defined by the fiber design itself (geometry, polymers used, etc…)!
Finally, one of the cool properties of Maksim’s fibers is their ability to change color by mixing the reflected ambient light with the irradiated guided light (inside the fiber).
Under the daylight illumination, and in the absence of guided light, in the fiber is still colored. Consequently, when both the ambient illumination and guided light are present, the overall color of the fiber will be determined by mixing of the two colors in the radiation far field (ex : green + red = yellow).
Applications of this new invention include the development of variable colored uniforms or signs. It could also be used as an anti‐counterfeit label or an intelligent jewelry.
Check out the prototypes’ pictures on Pr. Skorobogatiy’s website. They’re amazing!
As usual, I welcome your comments and feedbacks! Any other idea of applications?
Thomas
Hello,
After a wonderful sunny week-end, I’m leaving to Houston to attend TechConnect Summit 2009. This year, 5 of Univalor’s technologies have been accepted.
In case you are attending, I’ll be at Univalor’s booth (# 1029). I’ll also be sending updates on Twitter #TechConnect.
Developed by Pr. Mohamad Sawan and his team at the Polystim neurotechnologies Laboratory , this electrical platform allows blinds to recover vision. This system consists of a miniaturized implant connected to the cortex and communicating to a camera (which acts as an eye prosthesis). Pr. Sawan’s visual prosthesis project passed the stage of perfecting a first generation functional prototype (proof of concept). Now, in view of confirming complete validation, elaborated in vivo tests must be made in collaboration with medical research institutes in Montreal.
MR-SUB: The “Fantastic Voyage”
Because of the high number of patients diagnosed with cancer, tumor targeting, target chemotherapy and chemoembolization are of special interest for modern medicine. Nevertheless, many tumors are still out of reach to catheterization (in particular the ones that must be targeted in regions only accessible through smaller diameter vessels). Some 40 years after the release of the “Fantastic Voyage”, Prof. Martel came up with the solution. He developed a MRI based platform which enables to reach targets usually inaccessible to catheterization. Its applications include cells targeting, chemo-embolization and local hyperthermia.
Color-Changing and Color-Tunable Photonic Crystal Fiber for Textiles
“Smart textiles” are already everywhere. Essentially used for their technical performances and their functional properties, they are forecasted to represent 80 % of textiles by 2020. Current photonic textiles, usually made from conventional optical fibers (fiberglasses, usually used in telecommunications), have been shown to be limited in terms of applications since they cannot be woven and don’t provide a uniform coloration in time. Prof. Skorobogatiy proposes to use plastic fibers constituted by successive layers of polymers. From a single light source, Pr. Skorobogatiy’s fibers naturally emit a homogenous color which is controllable in real-time. Furthermore, since they are made of polymers, they can be easily woven using a common loom.
In the past decades, the flow cytometry technologies became a routine test for counting, and discriminating microscopic particles in a stream of fluid. To better discriminate each cell type, these techniques require a first step of fluorescence labeling. This step makes difficult to reuse the sample for further experimentations. Using a refractometer as a detector permits to skip this step. The Prof. Yves-Alain Peter and his team introduce a low cost and high resolution refractometer. Due to its organization, it is capable to characterize a particle in a volume. All its components are fabricated simultaneously in one conventional microfabrication process.
Direct Writing of Freefrom 3D Microstructures
Many methods allow the fabrication of microscopic pieces. However, because of technological limitations, they have been confined to relatively thin device architectures (a few layers) and are limited by materials constraints. To overcome these limitations, Prof. Therriault proposes a radiation-assisted direct-writing approach which allows manufacturing in a straightforward manner and in ambient conditions 3D functionalized microstructures.
Univalor continues on it ways to promote business opportunities related to technologies developed within its various institutions (more info at Univalor).
Right now, and there could be more announced soon, 3 technologies have been accepted to be presented at WBT Showcase and 5 for Techconnect Summit.
If you plan to attend these conferences, we look forward to meeting with with in Dallas and Houston and if you want to hear about these technologies in particular or any other in our broad portoflio, please contact us at thomas.martinuzzo@univalor.ca or didier.leconte@univalor.ca
Didier
We are looking for early adopters for testing a platform that detects design defects in object oriented applications (existing or in development).
This platform was initiated by professor Yann-Gaël Guéhéneuc from École Polytechnique de Montréal and Université de Montréal. It targets java based programs but can be extend to C# and C++. This platform (called Ptidej) allows for quickly identifying design defects patterns such as blob, spaghetti code, etc. when such defects can lead to reduce the performances of applications and eventually malfunctioning, requiring then major corrections.
Ptidej has the following characteristics:
• It is fast and can be used within any development step;
• It is reliable and the user can define the sensibility of detection; and
• It can be upgrated since it provides a language allowing any user to define a cutsomized pattern detection.
In term of uses, this technology can be used for:
• Controlling the development of an application;
• Assessing the performances of an application prior to its deployment;
• Validating an application developed by a third party; and/or
• As a management tool for managers (hiring process, training, self-training).
Yann-Gael Guéhéneuc and his team are currently working on 1. Improving the tool and 2. Suggesting some particular routes for correcting indentified defects.
While there is still basic research involved, the goal is not academic. Depending on the feedback gathered we are seeking to deploy this platform into the market. On a short term, and considering the work to be done in order to stabilize the current version of Ptidej as well as extending its capabilities, we are considering applying for a technology maturation grant from MDEIE in January 2009. While feedback from potential users is instrumental to such application, we will also be looking for commercial partners, angels and/or entrepreneurs sharing the same views as us with Ptidej’s potential.
We encourage you to download the test version of Ptidej here Ptidej and relay this opportunity in your network
We look forward to hearing from you
Didier
Flintbox is a global intellectual property exchange providing easy and open access to innovation you can access at Flintbox. So if you did experience Flintbox, you certainly know or got in contact with any of Lindsay, Meira or Steve, all remarquable, profesionnal and charming persons.
Flintbox is really of interest if you are involved in innovation and research. It’s a platform that enables connections between people and organizations having common interests in this domain.
While as involved in technology transfer on behalf of the institutions we represent, we use Flintbox as an exposure tool for our technologies, eventually a licensing tool for software and other copyrights, it can accomodate any of your needs. You can build collaboration for your research, you can post your needs and use it to screen for available technologies or research interests, you can present your services.
So far, experience with Flintbox is great! First of all, it’s very easy to use and to maintain information, in addition to providing interesting statistics. Then, we have been contacted by numerous companies through Flintbox. Currently, part of the traffic on Univalor’s website is coming through Flintbox. Bottom line (we always get there no?), by using Flintbox, we’ve been able to multiply our business development capabilities and activities with current staff.
Just to be clear, I’m not an employee of Techconnect organization, but I’m a user of this forum and a great fan, and I try to disseminate my true motivation with that kind of even both internally and externally.
This year was the third time in three that we participated to Techconnect Summit (http://www.techconnect.org/Summit2008/). If you have been there this week of June 2008 in Boston, you certainly heard about the “photonic guitar”. Thanks to Raman Kashyap, the inventor and to Pierre-Matthieu Demizieux, his student, that was us (http://techupdateunivalor.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/88/)!
If you were not able to be there, you should plan next year. Why’s that? First of all, you will be able to see another great invention from one of the institutions Univalor serves! But more importantly, whatever you are involved in technology transfer from university or other organization, or an industry player or an investor, that’s certainly the kind of place you want to be every year. In a very compact 2-3 days show, you will be able to meet with representatives from the industry whom, through their vision of the future of their company, will be able to define areas of interests. You will be able to meet with investors in your new technology based venture. You will be able to meet with researchers and technology transfer professionals to access worldclass technologies and R&D capabilities. All of the above having in common the fact that they consider innovation as a driver for growth.
Let’s hope that there will be more and more initiatives such as Techconnect Summit so we can streamline the process of technolgoy transfer. It could be in many ways, area or domain specific, it could be virtual as well.
And if you are skeptical about such match-making conference, I am pretty sure you will find organizations, such as ours, that made deals following such an event. More than that, I made friends almost all over the world!
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