Innovation Celebration 2007 Winners
Announced
The Vice Chancellor for
Research of the University of Illinois,
the Academy for Entrepreneurial
Leadership, and the Champaign County
Economic Development Corporation are
pleased to announce the winners of the
second annual Innovation Celebration.
Innovation
Celebration recognizes those individuals
and organizations that have made
significant contributions, taken risks,
and provided leadership to ensure the
continuing economic success of Champaign
County, the ongoing success of the
University’s economic development
mission, and the growth of
entrepreneurial talent and energy in our
community.
Entrepreneur Advocacy Award
2007 Winner:
Thomas A. Bruno
The
Entrepreneur Advocacy Award
recognizes those individuals or
organizations in the community who
have actively engaged, encouraged,
coached and mentored entrepreneurs
in the community, providing a broad
base of support to help multiple
entrepreneurs achieve success.
Nominated for his
foresight and open-mindedness on
development projects, Tom Bruno has
earned the distinction of a strong
advocate for entrepreneurs and
economic development. Recognizing
the current impact of the University
of Illinois is only half of what
sets Bruno apart from others; the
other half of the equation is his
ability to envision “what could be”
as well as a keen ability to think
“out of the box.” He is also
recognized for extraordinary
enthusiasm at working to champion
the vision into reality. Backing
projects like the UIUC South Campus
plan and M2, Bruno has demonstrated
a willingness to listen,
cooperation, patience and excitement
about Champaign County.
Founding Thomas A.
Bruno & Associates in 1980, Bruno
is past president of the Champaign
County Bar Association and serves on
the Illinois State Bar Association
Assembly, the governing body of the
ISBA. He has also been a
councilmember on the City of
Champaign, Illinois City Council
since 1997 and presently sits on the
Champaign County Economic
Development Corporation Board of
Directors, serving as chair in
2003-2004.
Social Entrepreneurship Award
2007 Winner:
Sonia Rodríguez for Proyecto CHE
The
Social Entrepreneurship Award
recognizes individuals who have
served as change agents in our
community by incorporating
innovative approaches, improving
systems and processes, and creating
sustainable solutions to reshape
society and benefit humanity,
successfully implementing
entrepreneurial principles to
address social concerns.
Ms. Sonia Rodríguez, an
undergraduate student at the
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, and a group of
like-minded students started a
program called “Proyecto CHE
(Children for Higher Education).
Proyecto CHE’s mission is to promote
Latino cultures and encourage Latino
youth to consider, prepare and
eventually enroll in college. To
achieve this mission, Sonia and her
team went out to the local Latino
community, convinced parents and
recruited students, created original
programming and activities, and
implemented their programs on
Saturdays for four full hours.
Because the program takes place at
La Casa Cultural Latina, these youth
have direct access to a college
campus, most of them for the very
first time. By giving tours of the
UI campus, inviting UI faculty and
teaching assistants to speak, and
using Latina/o undergrads to run the
program, the youth receive a
powerful message that the university
is open to them. Something as simple
as taking the group bowling at the
Union can have a powerful impact as
these students begin to see that
they too can have access to a higher
education and have fun.
Economic Development Impact Award
2007 Co-Winners: Champaign Park
District and the UIUC College of
Communications (Mary Susan
Britt, Assistant Director of
Development and Alumni Relations and
Assistant Director of Roger Ebert's
Overlooked Film Festival pictured
above), for Roger Ebert's
Overlooked Film Festival
The Economic Development
Impact Award recognizes those who
have successfully commercialized
innovations while demonstrating a
commitment to local economic impact,
with emphasis on beneficial
outcomes.
Since its beginning in 1999,
Ebertfest has grown from a local
event that attracted 8,000 attendees
to an international event that
attracted 25,000 attendees in spring
2006. Now into its ninth year,
Ebertfest has had a continuing
positive economic impact on the
local economy. Many of the attendees
of Ebertfest are from out-of-town;
they stay at local hotels, dine at
local restaurants, and shop at local
stores and malls over the five-day
event. The result is a tremendous
amount of new revenue for the local
economy and merchants.
In addition, Ebertfest has been a
major force in saving Champaign’s
downtown historic Virginia Theatre.
Early on, one of the goals of the
founders of Ebertfest was to provide
financial assistance toward
restoring the old palace theater to
its original grandeur. Now, through
donations and Ebertfest ticket
sales, the theater has been restored
and equipped with the latest
technologies.
Initially, officials at the College
of Communications and Roger Ebert
wanted to bring to C-U a positive
experience that would enlighten,
entertain, revitalize the Virginia
Theatre, and help the local economy.
All of these goals have been
achieved and more. Ebertfest has
grown to a world class event that
meets the highest standards of
achievement and serves as a legacy
of goodwill that has positively
impacted the local economy and
community.
Technology Transfer Award
2007 Winner: Dr.
Bill Boulanger for Obiter Research
The Technology
Transfer Award recognizes those who
have successfully commercialized
innovation, either themselves or
through commercial channels, as
evidenced by accomplishment.
Founded in 2001 by
Dr. Bill Boulanger, Obiter Research
has fast become a source of pride
for the University of Illinois
Research Park. Dr. Boulanger,
who earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry in
1984 from the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, started Obiter
Research as a one-room, one-person
operation within the University of
Illinois business incubator
manufacturing specialty and
hard-to-find chemicals. Today the
company has grown into an
11-employee operation using five
labs.
On July 20, 2006,
Obiter broke ground on their new
facility in north Champaign and
expects to take possession of the
new building in early 2007. At the
groundbreaking, Obiter and its staff
was hailed as “good citizens of the
incubator” and a model for start-up
companies. Terran Enterprises is now
in the process of building the
19,400 square-foot facility to
support small-scale chemistry and
mid-scale process manufacturing; The
second phase of the project will
triple the capacity of the phase one
expansion and is expected to kick
off in four to six years.
Obiter has also spun
off a new ventured: Peopull, LLC, a
healthcare purchasing group that
helps Illinois small businesses
procure health insurance at a lower
cost.
Innovation Discovery Award
2007 Winner: National
Center for Supercomputing Applications
The Innovation Discovery Award
recognizes those individuals or
organizations that in the past three
years have made significant and
groundbreaking discoveries with the
greatest potential for societal and/or
economic impact.
The
National Center for Supercomputing
Applications (NCSA), one of the five
original centers in the National Science
Foundation's Supercomputer Centers
Program, opened its doors in January
1986. Since then, NCSA has contributed
significantly to the birth and growth of
the worldwide cyberinfrastructure,
operating some of the world's most
powerful supercomputers and developing
the software infrastructure needed to
efficiently use these systems, such as
Mosaic™, the first readily available
graphical Web browser. Today the center
is recognized as an international leader
in deploying robust high-performance
computing resources and in working with
research communities to develop new
computing and software technologies.
Some of NCSA’s recent projects include
the National Center for Advanced Secure
Systems Research which addresses the
nation's need for a reliable and secure
cyberinfrastructure; the Technology
Research, Education, and
Commercialization Center, which brings
expertise, knowledge, and technological
innovation to government and to both the
public and private sectors of education
and business; and the TeraGrid that
unites more than 102 teraflops of
computing power, facilities capable of
managing and storing nearly one petabyte
(one quadrillion bytes) of data,
high-resolution visualization
environments, and toolkits for grid
computing into a distributed
infrastructure for open scientific
research.
Entrepreneurial Excellence in Management
Award
The Entrepreneurial Excellence in
Management Award recognizes those who
have best demonstrated managerial acumen
and skill in assembling resources,
creating an organization, decision
making under uncertainty, being forward
looking, and implementing action plans,
and creatively solving problems.
2007 Winner: Dr. Ben
Barbieri (pictured, center)
for ISS, Inc.
For
26 years, Dr. Ben Barbieri has led ISS
to continued success as a result of
continued innovation in their R&D
efforts, their instruments’ software and
technology, and strategic national and
international partnerships.
In addition to expanding
its physical facilities, ISS now offers
a wide array of instruments and
services. However, one thing has
remained constant throughout those
years: the personal attention ISS
clients receive and the focus on
excellent service.
From its inception, ISS
has collaborated with numerous
laboratories across the UIUC campus, and
many ISS employees are UI graduates.
However, ISS also has strong ties to the
Champaign-Urbana community beyond the
University. While half of ISS’s
instruments are sold within the US, the
other half go to scientists in Europe,
Asia, Latin America and the Middle East,
making ISS a truly global company.
ISS is well-known for
the personal relationships it builds
with clients, and Dr. Barbieri certainly
sets a tone for friendliness and
long-term loyalty for his employees to
follow. He has sponsored research,
seminars and workshops and has served as
a mentor to several graduate students of
the UI, and he ensures that ISS makes
their resources available to scientists
and laboratories of the University of
Illinois and other academic
institutions.
The Longevity Through Innovation Award
The Longevity Through Innovation Award
recognizes those enterprises whose
sustained success is the direct result
of continued innovation over many years.
2007 Winner:
Rudy Frasca for Frasca International
At the age of 14—when a
driver’s license seems a distant reality
to most teenagers—Rudy Frasca had
already started flying a plane. In 1949,
he joined the Navy and was stationed at
Glenview Naval Station, where he worked
as a flight instructor teaching pilots
on the Link trainers, an early type of
flight simulator that taught pilots how
to fly by Instrument Flight Rules, and
where his passion for making flight
safer and better began.
After the Korean War,
Frasca left the Navy to attend the
University of Illinois, where he studied
Aviation Psychology and honed his
interest in the field of flight
simulation. In 1958, Rudy built his
first flight simulator in his garage and
Frasca Aviation was founded; the name
later changed to Frasca International to
reflect the emerging character of the
business.
Today, Frasca
International’s facilities includes a
70,000 square foot building with offices
and manufacturing areas, complete with a
machine and wood shop, standard
production area, custom production area,
offices and shipping and receiving
areas, as well as Frasca Field, an FBO
owned and operated by the Frasca family
and Frasca Air Museum, which includes
his collection of WWII aircraft. Today,
Frasca International has delivered over
2,000 devices in some 70 countries
worldwide and over 90% of U.S. colleges
are currently using Frasca flight
simulators.
Student Start-Up Award
The Student Start-Up Award recognizes an
organization formed by students within
the past three years whose demonstrated
success is a result of entrepreneurial
talent, creativity and energy, and whose
future success is indicated by its
current path.
2007 Winner: Michael
Callahan, Ambient
Michael Callahan started
his company, Ambient Corporation at the
age of 22, while developing its
technology with his partner in this
venture, Thomas Coleman. Ambient is a
biotechnology startup company developing
a new communication device, Audeo, which
is capable of producing speech from
intercepted neurological signals sent
from the brain. This device uses
advanced signal processing techniques to
create an interface capable of
circumventing the communicative barrier
imposed by physical disability.
Callahan and his team
won the V. Dale Cozad Business Plan
Competition at the University of
Illinois two consecutive years, earning
$11,000 to aid in the development of the
Audeo. Callahan is currently developing
the technology with partners including
the University of Illinois and the
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the
#1 rehab hospital in the United States;
and with support from National
Instruments and the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications.
Aside from leading this
venture, Callahan has been instrumental
in instituting a Student Entrepreneur
Learning Lab in the Technology
Entrepreneur Center at the University of
Illinois. The lab is designed for
students, like Callahan, to provide them
the equipment they need in order to
pursue their product and innovation
ideas.
For a printable version, please click
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