Duncan, joined by Georgia state Sens. Dean Burke, Greg Kirk, and Ben Watson, toured the Institute’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) to learn more about the incubator’s efforts to support health technology (HealthTech) innovation and meet startup leaders in its portfolio.

Burke spearheaded the visit from the state government delegation.

A program of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Tech’s economic development arm, ATDC is the state of Georgia’s technology startup incubator. Created in 1980, ATDC has helped its companies generate more than $12 billion in revenue and raise in excess of $3 billion in investment capital.

“One of my most ambitious goals is for Georgia to become the technology capital of the East Coast. Incubators like ATDC are critical to that vision,” Duncan, a Tech alum, said. “Georgia boasts the top talent coming out of our world-class university system, business-friendly environment, low cost of living, high quality of life, and emerging venture capital presence necessary to grow from the Silicon Valley of the South to the Tech Capital of the East Coast.”

The delegation received an overview of ATDC’s focused efforts to support HealthTech innovation and startups, including the July 2018 launch of the ATDC HealthTech Program.

Supported with a financial gift from NASCO, the ATDC HealthTech Program focuses on helping entrepreneurs launch viable companies in that sector, Kirk Barnes, ATDC’s HealthTech catalyst explained to the delegation.

Recently, ATDC entered into a collaboration with Navicent Health’s Center for Disruption & Innovation (CfDI) to support the development of new technologies, treatments, and care created by healthcare technology-oriented companies based in the state. The goal: to improve the health and lives of patients in central and south Georgia.

It’s a goal that resonated with Duncan.

“It’s encouraging to see the system built around these ideas and to see these ideas commercialized,” the lieutenant governor said. “It’s not just about cutting costs, it’s about improving service and quality of care.

“I’m appreciative of the impressive work being done at Georgia Tech and ATDC, and I look forward to working alongside them as lieutenant governor.”

Since its launch, the ATDC HealthTech Program’s portfolio of companies has grown to 48 and includes a host of technologies ranging from digital health and medical devices to drug discovery tools and healthcare robotics.

One of those companies, Rimidi Inc., a provider of software and clinical analytics for chronic disease management, raised more than $6.5 million in its Series A-1 financing, which included an investment from Eli Lilly and Co.

Tee Faircloth, who helped spearhead the summit, is founder of Coordinated Care Inc. (CCI), an ATDC HealthTech company. CCI, one of the companies the delegation met, works with urban and rural hospitals to move patients back to their local hospitals for rehabilitation.

Faircloth said such summits give state leaders valuable insight into how public support of programs such as ATDC and public-private partnerships such as the one with NASCO work.

“With the incoming administration’s focus on rural healthcare, it’s great to see them embrace innovation as an agent of change so early on. This summit continues the dialogue of how we, as technology companies focused on bringing solutions and innovation to healthcare, can work with state and local leaders,” Faircloth said.

“We want to find areas where we can work together in these public-private partnerships to leverage the resources of the Atlanta and Georgia ecosystems so that we really improve healthcare for all Georgians.”

For Georgia Tech’s Office of Government and Community Relations, it’s business as usual to promote Tech’s legislative priorities. After securing the final round of construction funding last year for the Price Gilbert Library and Crosland Tower renewal project, this year Tech will request $4.3 million for planning and design funds for Tech Square Phase III, a two-tower complex in Tech Square to enhance innovation and academic programming.

Georgia Tech will also seek to strengthen partnerships for Georgia Smart Communities programming, an initiative out of Georgia Tech that serves both metro and rural communities throughout the state to enhance infrastructure through technology-based solutions.

Together with the University System of Georgia (USG), the Georgia Tech team will also work to promote important System-wide priorities. This includes $82.6 million in new Formula Funds for enrollment growth, shared among all USG institutions to support critical day-to-day operations and academic quality, and $75 million in Major Repair and Rehabilitation Funds to repair aging facilities across the USG, including more than $100 million for Tech in deferred maintenance needs.

On Tuesday, Feb. 12, Georgia Tech will join the USG’s other research institutions under the Gold Dome for the annual Student Day at the Capitol. This event allows students to share their appreciation for the ongoing support from state lawmakers and learn more about Georgia’s legislative and budgetary processes.

During the 2019 legislative session, Georgia Tech will have 13 students serving full-time as interns to legislators, committees, and staffers through the Georgia Legislative Internship Program, offered in collaboration with the Georgia General Assembly and colleges and universities throughout Georgia.

The relationships include the immediate neighborhoods surrounding campus, the state of Georgia, and the public school system.

“We have a unique role in our office because we are outward facing,” Burke said. “Our full-time focus is external. When you engage externally, you get to hold up a mirror and really see what the outside world thinks of you. Whether you think you’re doing well or not, the outside world will let you know.”

Burke and his Community Relations staff regularly receive feedback from hundreds of visiting students, parents, and teachers. The department works with schools and centers across campus to bring students from metro Atlanta and beyond to campus to see engineering and computing demos to get excited about STEM. One impactful event the office holds twice a year, Middle Grades Discover Georgia Tech, brings 200-240 students to campus. They divide the students into groups of about 25 students per rotation to keep them actively engaged.

“There is universal excitement among the students about the visits,” Burke said. “We approach the visits with the overall goal of exposure. It’s about helping to pique the students’ curiosity. The more they can be exposed to what engineering or computer science is, the more they can get engaged in their own education and what they want to pursue. For a lot of kids, they won’t necessarily know what engineering is until they have the opportunity to touch, feel, or see something.”

Burke said that Community Relations takes pride in not turning away any group or individual who wants to visit campus. He said that, depending on the community, people may be skeptical of the Institute’s intentions. But, he said most groups welcome the idea of the Institute doing something to enrich the lives of their children.

For Burke, being able to engage with young minds is the most rewarding part of his job.
“I see the joy on their faces, whether they’re middle school students coming here for a one-day experience or high school students who I get to spend a little more time with,” he said.

In addition to working in Community Relations, Burke co-teaches an Honors Program special topics course, Near Peer Mentoring: An Urban Education Experience (HTS 2813), with Carol Subino Sullivan, senior academic professional with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).

Burke said the course spawned from an observation about seven years ago that, at the time, there were only about 40 Tech students who came from the Atlanta Public Schools system.
Burke worked with CTL to apply for the Near Peer Mentoring Challenge Grant. They received the grant, and Burke and Sullivan designed the course to look at the obstacles preventing Atlanta Public Schools students from attending Tech.

“It’s challenging because the data that you’re combing through paints a very grim story about what happens in urban education circles,” he said. “There is such a wide gap in terms of the rigor that students in predominately low-income communities get to experience. There’s also a lack of belief in themselves and what they think they can do. It goes back to the exposure issue.”

In the course, Tech students spend one day in class and one day at Atlanta Public Schools’ BEST Academy doing one-on-one mentoring with middle school students. The goal is for the high school students to apply to and attend a four-year university.

“It’s very impactful for the high school students, but the immediate impact is on our Tech students,” Burke said. “There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t hear from a Tech alumnus regarding something in their professional life that reminds them of the work we did in the class or draws them back to want to do more.”

Burke said his work always reminds him of the responsibility that comes from Georgia Tech being a public university.

“We create a lot of jobs and contribute patented technologies to the world. But I’m cognizant of the fact that many of the children in the communities we talk to are not going to attend Tech,” he said. “Their parents work in jobs where what we do at Tech has little to no impact on their lives. So, what more can we do to honor ourselves as a public entity to those who have less? I think about that all of the time.”

He said that one answer largely lies with working with children, and he recently wrote a paper in an economic development journal outlining details.

“A key contribution universities can make for economic development is through opportunities to deeply engage primary and secondary grade students in activities that could lead them to pursue a STEM career, Burke said.

“We can’t be everything to everybody,” he said, “but we can be mindful and try to meet people where they are.”

Music, Music, Music

When he isn’t working, Burke is a frequent concert-goer, an avid music lover, and a musician. In his suburban Chicago high school, he was a governor’s music scholar who played five instruments. He was supposed to study music, but he gave it up to defy his father, who was a jazz pianist.

“He always said, ‘You’re gonna regret giving up music.’ But, I never really gave it up; I just stopped playing the instruments,” Burke said.

He recently started playing music again, learning a new instrument — a Fender jazz bass guitar. He listens to UK soul music, such as Incognito. He also listens to a lot of jazz artists.

“I try to find artists who are taking the genre in a new direction — any direction,” he said.
“Whether it’s Kamasi Washington, Tom Misch, Radiohead, or Thom Yorke as a solo artist, they take the genre in a new direction. They are doing something outside the realm of traditional music. That’s what attracts me to an artist, more than the genre.”

Burke is married, has four children, and lives in Duluth, Georgia. He has a daughter who works at Tech’s library and a daughter who is a first-year student at Tech.

Congressman Buddy Carter, who represents Georgia’s first congressional district along the coast, visited the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) in Tech Square to learn more about how ATDC is engaged in the health care startup industry. Congressman Carter, a health care professional himself, heard from health care startups about how the federal government might empower entrepreneurs in their pursuit of innovative ideas that better serve patients and families. He also met with staff in Georgia Tech’s Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid to receive an update about what they are doing to help students afford a Georgia Tech degree. They also discussed the impact of current and proposed federal policies related to financial aid.

Up in Smyrna, Congressman Jody Hice visited the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)’s Cobb County Research Facility (CCRF) located near Dobbins Air Reserve Base. Though Congressman Hice represents Georgia’s tenth congressional district in the eastern part of the state, he was visiting CCRF as part of his service on the House Committee on Armed Services, specifically in his role as a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, which oversees and authorizes the Department of Defense’s $88 billion research enterprise.

Back in Atlanta, in his capacity on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Georgia Tech alum and Georgia Senator David Perdue (BS IE ’72, MS OR ’75) hosted a roundtable at the Bill Moore Student Success Center to discuss the importance of Georgia’s nine military installations to the state’s economy and local communities.

Lastly, 25 staff members of Georgia’s congressional offices gathered on campus for Georgia Tech’s Congressional Staff Visit. This annual gathering allows Georgia- and D.C.-based congressional staffers to come to campus for an update on the people, places, and programs of Georgia Tech. This year, the group was briefed on:

• Research in Antarctica to test drilling for ice on Europa by Dr. Britney Schmidt, Assistant Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences;
• Internet-of-things and supply chain security by Dr. Alenka Zajic, Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Dr. Milos Prvulovic, Associate Chair in the School of Computer Science;
• Cell manufacturing technologies by Dr. Krish Roy, Robert A. Milton Endowed Chair in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering;
• 3-D printing for medical devices by Dr. Scott Hollister, Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering; and
• The Student Competition Center by students on several of the teams including EcoCar 3, GT Motorsports, GT Off-Road, HyTech Racing, GT Solar Racing, Wreck Racing and RoboJackets.

The group also engaged with Dr. Charles Isbell, Executive Associate Dean in the College of Computing and Dr. Ashok Goel, Professor in the School of Interactive Computing, about artificial intelligence’s impact on everything from workforce to policy.

“We are grateful that these Members of Congress and their staff would spend time learning how the people and technologies here at Georgia Tech are impacting their constituents,” said Robert Knotts, Georgia Tech’s Director of Federal Relations. “It’s important for them to visit with our amazing faculty, staff and students on campus so they can see firsthand how the Georgia Tech community is impacted by decisions they make in DC.”   

Opening this June in an initial 15,000-square-foot space at Atlanta's TechSquare Labs, Georgia-Pacific's Point A Center for Supply Chain Innovation will serve as a collaborative space for businesses ranging from multi-national corporations to emerging startups and academic institutions. 

Georgia-Pacific is investing between $5 million and $7 million in the overall center and has begun actively recruiting members. Among the first member organizations to offer their unique capabilities and expertise include: Chick-fil-A, Delta Air Lines, Genuine Parts Company, Grainger, Siemens, as well as Georgia-Pacific's parent company Koch Industries. 

Point A's members will explore use cases for applying Industry 4.0 innovations, including robotics, artificial intelligence, blockchain, machine learning and autonomous vehicles, among others, to tackle some of the supply chain's most pressing challenges, including retail models, network efficiency and data visibility. 

Read the entire article here.

Some grew up attending Tech football games and cheering for the Yellow Jackets; others grew up in Bulldog families but decided that white and gold was more to their liking.

Read a few of this year’s Georgia-grown stories.

Wani’s family comes from the territory of Kashmir – the disputed region between India and Pakistan – and he explained that after the British Partition in 1947, Kashmiris were promised the chance to vote on which country they would join. To this day they have not received that opportunity. “Public service is the idea of participation in government, the idea that we have the right of self-determination, the idea of civic engagement -- that was engrained in me at a very young age,” Wani noted. “Some of my family were involved in Kashmiri politics. Learning about the struggle itself really fostered my interest in civics, government, and public participation.”

Even before arriving at Tech, Wani had looked at public service programs offered by the Institute and felt drawn to the Federal Jackets Fellowship program. Once at Tech, Wani joined business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi, where he met ISyE senior Lois Johnson, who had interned as a Federal Jacket at the White House operations office in fall 2016. Johnson encouraged Wani to apply for the program, and she was able to advise him on how prepare for the essay writing and interviews that are part of the selection process.

Ultimately, Wani applied for and was selected for a Federal Jackets Fellowship, the stipend of which allowed him to take an unpaid internship with the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (CSST) during the fall 2017 semester. This committee, Wani explained, has jurisdiction over federal science research programs at agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and even NASA. “That really appealed to me, having an engineering background and getting to work with other engineers and scientists – Ph.D.s and experts in these fields,” Wani said. “I thought it would be the best way to bring Georgia Tech to the Hill, but also to bring the Hill back to Georgia Tech: fostering that symbiotic relationship.” 

When the House was in session, Wani spent much of his time in committee hearings – about two each week – on topics that ranged from quantum technology to geo engineering to the cybersecurity of the U.S. electrical grid. He helped write policy memos for CSST committee members, so they could prepare in advance for the expert speakers brought in to give testimony and he wrote opening statements for Congressional members that went into the record of the hearings. Knowing that something he wrote is now part of the permanent Congressional record is Wani’s proudest accomplishment from his internship.

Although Wani worked on the Democratic side of the CSST, there were, he said, “plenty of bipartisan issues or policies.” These included the U.S. and Israel Space Cooperation Act and the Women and Minorities in STEM Booster Act of 2017.

Unsurprisingly, Russian interference in the 2016 election was the hot topic when Wani was at the Capitol. He attended several meetings of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe – also known as the Helsinki Commission – where he learned more about what Russia is doing to further its own political goals. The CSST had its own committee meeting about the Russian-backed Kaspersky antivirus software, which had been used by the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Homeland Security (DHS). Kaspersky has been used by the Russian government to hack American data, and ultimately, the software was banned by the DoD and DHS. “That was definitely my most memorable experience,” Wani commented.

When asked what he took away from his internship, Wani paused. “I think a long-term sense of optimism,” he said after a moment. “Now I really understand the importance of compromise – you’re not always going to get what you want, but you can still work together. Understanding that both parties want the world to be a better place gives me optimism.

“And in day-to-day politics, we lose sight of the fact that our institutions are greater than we often acknowledge them to be,” he added. “For example, I was able to tour the Capitol a few times, and there’s a place where there’s a star on the tile, which marks where Abraham Lincoln’s desk stood when he was a member of Congress. Standing where Abraham Lincoln stood – that was really cool. Walking by the Supreme Court everyday on the way to work or going to Arlington National Cemetery or to the monuments blew my mind. It reminded me that whatever you may think of politics, these institutions have been here before us and hopefully will last after us.

“I was in constant awe of where I was.”

For more information on the Federal Jackets internship program, visit http://www.gov.gatech.edu/internships/dc.

Professors Timothy Lieuwen and Jianjun (Jan) Shi are two of this year’s 83 new NAE members. They’re joined by adjunct faculty member and former College of Engineering Dean Gary S. May. The group will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the NAE's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in September.

“We are delighted that the National Academy of Engineering has recognized our Georgia Tech faculty members for their outstanding contributions to engineering and as leaders in their fields,” said Steve McLaughlin, dean and Southern Company Chair in the College of Engineering. “We also take great pride that our former dean and Tech alumnus, Gary May, has been recognized, not only for his research, but also for his advocacy in bringing more underrepresented students into engineering. Their induction is a testament to the quality of our faculty members and their contributions to the engineering profession."

Lieuwen is the executive director of Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute and professor and David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. He was honored for “contributions to research and development in low-emissions gas turbine combustion systems and U.S. energy policy.”

Shi was recognized for “the development of data fusion-based quality methods and their implementation in multistage manufacturing systems.” He serves as Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and professor in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

May was elected for “contributions to semiconductor manufacturing research and for innovations in educational programs for underrepresented groups in engineering.” The 1985 alumnus (electrical engineering) is currently chancellor of the University of California Davis and an adjunct faculty member in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature.” The NAE also makes selections based on "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."

The trio joins nearly three dozen other Georgia Tech NAE members. They include Provost and K. Harrison Brown Family Chair Rafael L. Bras, President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough and College of Computing Dean and John P. Imlay Chair Zvi Galil.

“This meeting was a great example of the benefit of bringing together the military community groups from around Georgia,” said Senator Perdue. “We heard some very impressive presentations and had a productive discussion about best practices for increasing our role as a state in our national defense. Maintaining our national security is one of the most important jobs we have in Congress. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am proud of the role our state plays in providing for our national security.”

National security has been and continues to be a crucial part of Georgia’s economy. Georgia Tech plays a unique role in this. In addition to performing the second-most university-based research and development work for the Department of Defense in the country, the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is engaged with several military bases throughout the state. In particular, GTRI is expanding its footprint in Cobb County adjacent to Dobbins Air Force Base. GTRI also has employees in Warner Robins to support the work GTRI does with Robins Air Force Base.

Georgia Tech also serves transitioning service members around the state to assist them in securing high-quality jobs in the civilian world through the Veterans Education Training and Transition Program (VET²). One of the first of its kind in the nation, this program equips veterans for civilian careers through a combination of classroom learning and/or online instruction as well as internship opportunities with employer partners seeking to hire veterans. All active duty military, reserve, or National Guard personnel, veterans and military spouses who are transitioning to a civilian career are eligible.

“I’m pleased that Senator Perdue turned to Georgia Tech when convening military community leaders from around the state to discuss how we can all work together in order to help Georgia’s national security sector thrive,” said Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson. I’m incredibly proud of the work that researchers at Georgia Tech continue to do to help our Department of Defense solve some of its toughest problems.”

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up at Georgia Tech.

I am originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, but my formative years were spent in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Oak Ridge was the geographical center of the Manhattan Project during World War II, and our local economy still heavily relies on scientific research and development.

Our public high school had fantastic efforts to expose its students to the positive impact that pursuing STEM careers could have on our local community, country, and world. So, my incredible and influential teachers at Oak Ridge High School (ORHS), as well as a good friend and Yellow Jacket from ORHS, inspired me to attend Georgia Tech, as a relatively close and prestigious, technologically focused university.

You have said, to use your words, that you are “a proponent of servant leadership.” What shaped your perspective in this regard?

To me, servant leadership consists of devoting my time and my career to advancing others and their well-being. I’d be lying if I didn’t credit a lot of my interest in being a public servant to President Obama. I am so lucky to have grown up the past eight years with a president who has always empowered and encouraged young people to engage with the government. I am inspired to be a part of a group – in this case, the federal government – that impacts every single person living in this country and others around the world.

What are some of your leadership roles and activities around Georgia Tech’s campus?

I was formerly a part of Wreck, Tech’s awesome women’s Ultimate Frisbee team; headed the operations of 3 Day Startup, a business hackathon; and helped establish Spoon University, a journalism-focused club centered on food-related topics on our campus.

I am also an active member of Alpha Kappa Psi, the co-ed professional business fraternity. I have served as our chaplain, vice president of operations, and director of public relations, among others. This organization has shaped my college experience more than any other I have participated in. It has advanced my personal and professional growth and given me a community I can always rely on. If it wasn’t for AKPsi, there’s no way I would have had the confidence necessary to obtain the White House internship.

I am also in the process of starting a nonprofit organization on campus called Sunday Dinner Project (SDP). SDP will bring together groups of people with different perspectives or fundamentally opposing views over a meal to listen to each other and discover the commonalities they share.

Describe your role as an intern at the White House. What is your proudest accomplishment?

I was an intern for White House Operations. I tracked purchases and acquisitions of tens of thousands of dollars of goods and services. I also managed scheduling and logistics of 27 conference rooms serving over 5,000 employees and various stakeholders, triaged requests, and coordinated large events for senior staff members. My proudest accomplishment was my development of two supply chains that streamline the fulfillment of facilities requests and goods and services requests. The supply chains and process maps increased distribution and fulfillment efficiency of furniture, appliances, etc. across the entire White House campus.

What was your favorite experience from living in D.C.?

I was able to get tickets to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in September 2016. It was powerful, educational, and moving, and had a lasting impact on the way I look at the past, present, and future. Anyone visiting D.C. should try to check it out and allot a solid chunk of time to fully immerse themselves in the museum.  

Did you get to meet President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama? What was that experience like?

I did, and both experiences were insanely emotional. They are both huge role models for me, and I know they are important guiding lights in many lives around the country and the world. That made me feel inexplicably lucky to be in their presence. Both have an incomparable balance of being both strong and approachable, both preacher and listener.

The president met with all the interns and told us, “Be kind. Be useful. Be fearless.” Mrs. Obama inspired me to continue a career in public service, and she also spoke of her journey personally and professionally and shared with us some of the most important lessons she learned along the way.

Would you recommend the Federal Jackets program to fellow Georgia Tech students, and why?

Absolutely! I was offered an unpaid internship in an expensive city, and I knew that in order to afford the incredibly unique experience I needed to seek outside funding. If it wasn’t for the Federal Jackets Fellowship, I would not have been able to work at the White House at all.

The fellowship was the foundation of the most pivotal four months of my life – opening my eyes to the world of public service. It’s a great outlet for other Georgia Tech students to explore the impact they can have on the government with the support of the Institute behind them.

How has the program enhanced your experience as a Tech student?

The program has hugely enhanced my experience at Georgia Tech because it provided me with the exposure to a diverse group of non-engineering staffers, leaders, and interns who shared with me their personal paths to the White House. I learned more about the value of working with people who think differently and provide perspectives different than my own. It also provided me with more knowledge and unique insight about paths I can take post-graduation, whether that be within the federal government, local government, nonprofits, graduate school, or even the private sector.

What do you see as the role of engineers in public service?

We are impeccable problem solvers. We want to improve, innovate, and create a multitude of things and projects that benefit others. There is a huge space for us within the local, state, and federal government because public servants also want to improve, innovate, and create programs and policies that benefit others. I strongly recommend this Huffington Post article written by a former Stanford engineering student that specifically addresses “Why Public Service Needs Engineers and Scientists.”

“The multiyear renewal project of Price Gilbert Library and Crosland Tower continues to be the Institute’s top priority,” said Vice President for Government and Community Relations Dene Sheheane. “Securing the $47.4 million initial-phase construction funding for the comprehensive renewal project would enable us to vastly increase core campus space for students. Planning, design, and preconstruction for the project is underway as a result of previous years’ allocations.”

Sheheane and his colleagues will also work to strengthen partnerships for advanced manufacturing initiatives in Georgia among higher education institutions, government, and industry to position Georgia as a competitive leader for 21st century manufacturing.

Together with the University System of Georgia (USG), the Georgia Tech team will also work to secure important system-wide priorities:

• Secure $66.7 million in new Formula Funds for enrollment growth to be shared among all USG institutions. Funding supports critical day-to-day operations and is essential to maintaining academic quality.
• Secure $60 million in Major Repair and Rehabilitation Funds to repair aging facilities across the USG. Georgia Tech’s allocation will be directed toward important deferred maintenance needs.

During the legislative session, the Office of Government and Community Relations also engages external partners in sharing Tech’s story. Members of the Capitol Jackets advocacy network, which includes alumni and partners on campus, receive a biweekly newsletter with updates from the state Capitol.

On Wednesday, Feb. 1, the Georgia Tech community along with the USG’s other research institutions will convene at the state Capitol for the annual Georgia Tech Student Day at the Capitol to share appreciation for the ongoing support from state lawmakers and showcase some of the great research and initiatives happening at Georgia Tech.

Each session, Georgia Tech students have the opportunity to serve as full-time interns to legislators, legislative committees, or legislative staffers through the Georgia Legislative Internship Program, offered in collaboration with colleagues and universities throughout Georgia and the Georgia General Assembly. This year, Georgia Tech has several interns at the state Capitol serving in various capacities. 

To learn more about these events and programs, and to sign up for email newsletter updates about Georgia Tech’s community, state, and federal relations efforts, visit gov.gatech.edu.

Chancellor Wrigley has served as executive vice chancellor for administration for the University System of Georgia for the past five and a half years, prior to that serving as senior vice president for external relations at the University of Georgia. Chancellor Wrigley also served five years as chief of staff for former Georgia Governor Zell Miller.

At the Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators in Athens in December, Chancellor Wrigley set forth several of his priorities as the System’s new chancellor, which include boosting graduation rates and containing college costs. The University System is utilizing several strategies to help reduce college costs, including a program to provide free digital textbooks for a number of courses. Other cost-saving initiatives include providing more online courses and consolidating colleges.

One of the ways Georgia Tech seeks to reduce the cost of education is through the G. Wayne Clough Georgia Tech Promise Scholarship Program, which provides a debt-free education to all qualified Georgia residents whose family income is below 150 percent of the federal poverty level (~$35,000). To date, 475 Tech Promise students from around the state have graduated from Georgia Tech debt free.

“We at Georgia Tech embrace Chancellor Wrigley’s initiatives of boosting graduation rates and reducing college costs,” said Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson, “and we look forward to continuing to partner with Chancellor Wrigley in service to the University System and our state.”

The High-Risk, High-Reward Research (HRHR) program, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s Common Fund, awarded 88 grants to highly creative and exceptional scientists with bold approaches to major challenges in biomedical research. The awards span the broad mission of the NIH and include groundbreaking research, such as engineering immune cells producing drugs at the site of diseased tissue; developing a sensor to rapidly detect antibiotic resistance of a bacterial infection; understanding how certain parasites evade host detection by continually changing their surface proteins; and developing implants that run off the electricity generated from the motion of a beating the heart.

 “The program continues to support high-caliber investigators whose ideas stretch the boundaries of our scientific knowledge,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. “We welcome the newest cohort of outstanding scientists to the program and look forward to their valuable contributions.”

Kwong is a recipient of the New Innovator Award for his project “Noninvasive and Predictive Biomarkers of Organ Transplant Rejection.” His research program is directed towards the advancement of human health by developing biomedical technologies that draw from the fields of engineering and immunology.

“Detecting early signs of organ transplant rejection is critical for the survival and health of the recipient, but the diagnostic gold standard is the biopsy – it is invasive and lacks predictive power. Our proposal is to develop an entirely new class of synthetic biomarkers that have the capacity to amplify disease signals and predict the onset of rejection at the earliest stages,” said Kwong.

NIH traditionally supports research projects, not individual investigators. However, the HRHR program seeks to identify scientists with ideas that have the potential for high impact, but may be at a stage too early to fare well in the traditional peer review process. These awards encourage creative, outside-the-box thinkers to pursue exciting and innovative ideas in biomedical research.

In 2016, the NIH issued 12 Pioneer awards, 48 New Innovator awards, 12 Transformative Research awards, and 16 Early Independence awards. The awards total approximately $127 million and represents contributions from the NIH Common Fund; the National Cancer Institute; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Institute of Mental Health; and the Big Data to Knowledge initiative.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

Media Contacts:

Walter Rich

Communications Manager

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology

Admiral Rogers addressed the “Privacy Technology, Policy, and Law” class taught by College of Computing Professor Annie Antón and Scheller College of Business Professor Peter Swire. The class has more than 60 students with backgrounds in computing, management, and public policy.

After brief opening remarks, he engaged in a lively discussion with students about the challenges facing the NSA in its mission to ensure national security while protecting civil liberties and individual freedoms such as privacy.

The director of the NSA stressed that the agency's mission is to protect the United States and the Constitution, which enshrines individual liberties, including privacy. Student questions included the NSA's role in the encryption debate, recent high profile cyberattacks, and the proposed split of Cyber Command from the NSA. He also encouraged Georgia Tech students to apply to work with his agency.

This is not Admiral Rogers’ first visit to Georgia Tech. Two years ago he filled the G. Wayne Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons Auditorium with students during his Talks at Tech presentation.

The ranking is based on 12 indicators that measure academic research performance, publications and citations, international collaboration, number of doctorates granted as well as global and regional reputation.

Highlights of this ranking include the following indicator and subject rankings:

• No. 9 in materials science
• No. 10 in engineering
• No. 16 in computer science
• No. 23 in chemistry
• No. 34 in global research reputation
• No. 44 in mathematics

Georgia Tech’s full global rankings are available at U.S. News and World Report. To view Georgia Tech’s standing in a variety of reputable rankings, visit the Institute’s rankings website.

They engaged with students using teaching modules developed in collaboration with CEISMC's AMP-IT-UP project. The modules' content are based on ECOGIG research, specifically the impacts of hydrocarbons on deepwater ecosystems (corals in particular).

The ECOGIG Ocean Discovery Zone is an exhibit booth and hands-on activity station designed to give non-scientists of all ages access to information about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico and the importance of healthy ocean ecosystems. Read more about the Ocean Discovery Zone here.

You can see photos from the event online here, all images courtesy of Steven Taylor
CEISMC -Communications Manager, Georgia Tech,

As an I/UCRC, CAEML will collaborate closely with companies, who will help evaluate and select projects. The corporate connections will help researchers better understand the real-world problems faced by manufacturers and provide a pipeline of ideas between academia and industry. They also will help fund the center’s work; currently, 11 companies have committed a total of $550,000 for the first year. NSF will contribute an additional $450,000 per year.
 
The collective goal is to create a system to make the design evaluation process much easier, says Paul Franzon, a professor of electrical engineering and CAEML site lead at NC State.
 
“I like to say that a silicon chip is the most complex artifact made by man,” Franzon said. “There are billions of components in a chip-- it is mind-boggling. We’re creating models that help deal with these complexities, so that when we design chips, we design them to work the first time.”
 

Visit the CAEML Program Website Here

For more information, contact Dr. Madhavan Swaminathan (madhavan.swaminathan@ece.gatech.edu)

Until recently, that testing required the use of a real helicopter or costly display components that must be configured to operate in a laboratory environment. Thanks to an MFD/MPD emulator developed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in collaboration with the Army Reprogramming Analysis Team (ARAT), the testing can now be done on ordinary laboratory computers anytime it is needed. The new emulator saves a significant amount of money and can help get software updates to deployed Army aviation forces faster.

“This is an exact replica of what’s on the helicopter, so when they’re testing the software upgrades in the laboratory, they see exactly what the pilot is going to see in the helicopter cockpit,” said William Miller, a GTRI principal research scientists who helped lead the project. “When the final software for the electronic warfare system is deployed to the field, it is already tested with the display. That saves money and time.”

The project began with two days of observation into the operation of a multi-function display in operational helicopters at Dobbins Air Reserve Base north of Atlanta and Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. GTRI engineers watched as the pilots put the Aviation Survivability Equipment (ASE) through all its operations and recorded what happened on video.

Next, a development team led by GTRI Research Scientist Heyward Adams began developing the emulator in a standard military Windows-based computer, using cards to simulate the sensors that would normally be providing data to the MFD. The emulator plugs into the aircraft’s 1553 bus, and can simulate inputs from two radar warning receivers: the AN/APR 39A(V)1/4 and AN/APR 48A .

Though the lab-based computer isn’t flight-worthy, it provides the exact look-and-feel of the Apache and Black Hawk EW systems so Army mission software developers can make sure the graphical elements are clear and correct.

“We ingest the data that’s coming out of the cards just like the real hardware would in the helicopter and represent it accurately,” Adams said. “The graphics we generate provide the exact look and feel, which we showed to pilots of the helicopter to make sure we were accurate.”

The emulator is already in use by Army mission software developers in the ARAT laboratories in Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. The GTRI researchers say the system could be easily adapted to other aircraft.

“The framework we used to develop the emulator is scalable, so it’s not tied to just one specific multi-function display,” Adams said. “Our system is set up in such a way that we could quickly and cost-effectively emulate other systems, or even an entire cockpit.”

The ASE tracks threats such as surface-to-air missiles. Because the helicopters fly at low altitudes, there’s little time to react, and no time for errors. Most threats are handled automatically, but the crew needs to know what is happening at all times.

“For pilots flying these helicopters, this is a primary display for all the threat information they are encountering,” said Miller. “This is their lifeline, and pilots have to be confident that the system will work right every time.”

Research News
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Media Relations Contacts: John Toon (404-894-6986) (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Ben Brumfield (404-385-1933) (ben.brumfield@comm.gatech.edu).
Writer: John Toon

“During two decades of serving in the military, I never once had to review a job description, create a resume, or participate in an interview,” said James Wilburn, director for Military Programs at Georgia Tech Professional Education. “The VET² 101 program will provide much needed assistance to our men and women transitioning from the service. With the number of soldiers being cut dramatically at bases nationwide, we worked to create an online course that transitioning veterans will be able to access anywhere in the world giving them the skills they need to start the transition process into the corporate workforce.”

The reduction in military force announced in 2015-16 will have the largest impact to Georgia’s military installations – specifically Ft. Benning and Ft. Stewart. This short online course, “VET² 101,” will teach career soft skills, including resume building and interview skills. The course is based on Boots to Loafers, Finding Your True North by retired Lt. Col. John W. Phillips. Phillips currently collaborates with the Military Program, (VET²), offered through Georgia Tech Professional Education, and his book is required reading for students enrolled.

The new online VET² 101 course will be a prerequisite to the traditional VET² program. VET² is a fully-funded program and there are no costs for service members nor is there any cost to the corporate partners providing internships. The program combines professional education with job experience by partnering active, transitioning and recently separated service members with an employer to receive classroom and online instruction. After completing a week of academic training, veterans have the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in a three-week internship placement opportunity with an employer.

“We look forward to leveraging the good work of Georgia Tech Professional Education in developing a training system for our state’s military personnel as they transition into the civilian workforce,” said Ben Hames, Deputy Commissioner of Workforce, Georgia Department of Economic Development. “This online course provides us with an additional tool to support our veterans.” 

GDEcD’s Operation: Workforce initiative, designed to connect transitioning service members with career opportunities in the civilian workforce, continues to partner with Georgia Tech Professional Education to support these and other workforce development opportunities for veterans. Registration is available at pe.gatech.edu/VET101.

ABOUT GEORGIA TECH PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION:

Georgia Tech Professional Education is an academic division of the Georgia Institute of Technology, offering professional master’s degrees, short courses, and certificate programs to meet the needs of working professionals and industry partners. Programs are available at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center in Atlanta, the Georgia Tech-Savannah campus, and worldwide through a variety of formats. In addition to professional course offerings, the division manages meeting and event facilities, and administers K-12 outreach and English as a Second Language programs. Last year alone, Georgia Tech Professional Education served individuals representing more than 3,000 companies, with an enrollment of more than 26,000.

For more information on the Military Program offered by Georgia Tech Professional Education, please visit:https://pe.gatech.edu/savannah-campus/military-programs.

Many of Tech’s current faculty and staff were not at Tech during the Olympics, and some of today’s undergraduates had not been born. As a result, many in the Tech community may not be aware of the herculean effort that transformed the campus for the Olympics.

This story takes a look at Tech’s role in the Olympics through the eyes of some of the key contributors. For those who were at Georgia Tech or living in Atlanta in 1996, it will be a walk down memory lane. For those who were not, we hope the story provides insight into some of the work that occurred before the Games, and how it shaped Tech’s Olympic legacy that remains today.

First-hand accounts include:

• Michael Edwards, who served as Olympic venue manager for the aquatic center;
• Annie Antón, who served as an Olympics envoy while a PhD student at Tech;
• G. Wayne Clough, who was president of Georgia Tech during the Games;
• Matt Ryan, who played handball for Team USA; and 
• Sam Shelton, who developed the Olympic torch used for the '96 Games.

Gryzbowski had hoped to enroll at Georgia Tech to become a civil engineer. But after earning two bronze stars for his heroic service during World War II, life took him on a different path. Financial struggles meant he had to enter the workforce instead of becoming a helluva engineer.

Eighty years later, and it has still been on his mind. A fellow veteran and volunteer from the group No Veteran Dies Alone contacted Congressman Bob Dold, who got in touch with Georgia Tech about Mr. Gryzbowski’s story. When President G.P. “Bud” Peterson caught word, we started packing a special shipment for this hero.

In the package? A RAT cap, the headgear traditionally worn by all Georgia Tech freshmen since 1915, and a copy of the T-Book that helps any new Yellow Jacket get acclimated to the traditions of Georgia Tech. Also in the package is a letter from President Peterson welcoming Gryzbowski as an honorary freshman in our incoming class.

“Georgia Tech would have been honored to have you as a student,” Peterson says in the letter. “I can’t thank you enough for the sacrifices you have made to serve our country and our world.”

Like many of our students, Gryzbowski says he has always been interested in fixing things. He told the Chicago Tribune he once asked a civil engineer what it takes to become one, and he was told, “A lot of figuring.”

“Well, figuring I like,” Gryzbowski said. “I like fiddling with numbers.”

Along with all the freshman must-haves, Peterson included an invitation to campus.

“If you are ever in the area, we at Georgia Tech would be honored to have you on our campus,” he wrote.

See more coverage of this story from NBC's Today Show and the Chicago Tribune

Moniz also toured the Southern Company’s Energy Innovation Center at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute in Atlanta’s Tech Square and the Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory on the Georgia Tech campus.

In his opening address, Moniz said Georgia Tech has the opportunity to play a key role as a center of innovation in developing regional energy solutions. He described a new DOE initiative to establish regional innovation partnerships.

Moniz said different regions have different needs, opportunities and resources, including natural, human and institutional resources. He added that Georgia Tech could serve as an institutional resource for the Southeast.

"We think that is good policy because those portfolios will take on different characters in different parts of the country," he said.  

The Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions (CNES) Laboratory is designed to foster industry collaboration and support translational and pre-commercial research in clean, low carbon energy technologies. Research spans all aspects of the energy cycle from production and generation to distribution and use, and is focused on addressing the most pressing energy and environmental challenges. Core research conducted within the lab includes solar technologies, combustion, gasification, catalysis and bio-catalysis, as well as carbon capture and sequestration.

“We’re honored to have Secretary Moniz back on the Georgia Tech campus, and it was especially meaningful to have him see one of our showcase facilities,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive director of the Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute. “We have a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with the Department of Energy as we work together to find clean, reliable, affordable and sustainable sources of energy.”

Lieuwen hosted the secretary for a tour of the CNES Lab, which has LEED Platinum status and was funded in part by Recovery Act funding through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST.)

The Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech was established to serve as a conduit for integrating, facilitating, and enabling Institute-wide programs in energy research and development.

Moniz also spent time with Georgia Tech partner, the Southern Company. Southern Company has worked with Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute on a number of research initiatives, including a promising 2005-2007 study on wind. DOE is a longtime supporter of and partner in Southern Company’s efforts to invent America’s energy future through robust, proprietary research and development (R&D).

Through the Energy Innovation Center, Southern Company is extending its R&D commitment by identifying better, more reliable and more efficient ways to increase value for customers through products and services. Many of the ideas being tested in the center come from the Southern Company system's more than 26,000 employees, while others are surfaced through partnerships with leading universities, research organizations and like-minded companies such as Nest and Tesla.

“Southern Company’s decades-long partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy has produced cutting-edge technologies that are reshaping electricity generation in America,” said Southern Company Energy Innovation Center Vice President Michael E. Britt. “Through the Energy Innovation Center at Tech Square and our partnership with Georgia Tech, Southern Company is expanding on its longstanding commitment to finding real energy solutions in coordination with like-minded leaders in R&D – from established corporations to fast-growing startups.”

In addition to the work taking place at the Energy Innovation Center, Southern Company operates DOE’s National Carbon Capture Center in Alabama and has received DOE support for the development of the world’s most advanced coal plant in Mississippi and two of the first new carbon-free nuclear units in a generation of Americans in Georgia.

Moniz also took the opportunity during his remarks to recognize leaders at Georgia Tech such as former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, namesake and distinguished professor in Georgia Tech’s Nunn School of International Affairs, and Provost Rafael Bras for their roles in advising federal energy and national security policy makers.

"We get lots of advice from Georgia Tech and we appreciate it," Moniz said.

More than 2,000 will receive bachelor’s degrees in two ceremonies on May 7, and the graduate ceremony May 6 will award 900 master’s degrees and 180 doctorates.

The Ph.D. hooding ceremony kicks off the two days of ceremonies at McCamish Pavilion at 10 a.m. May 6. Doors open at 9 a.m., and graduating students should arrive at the adjacent Zelnak Practice Facility no later than 9:15 a.m. Tickets are not required for this event.

The Ph.D. and Master’s Commencement Ceremony is 7 to 9 p.m. in McCamish. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., and graduating students should arrive at Zelnak no later than 6 p.m. The speaker is John Holdren, who serves as an assistant to U.S. President Barack Obama for sciences and technology. During the ceremony, the Institute will confer an honorary doctorate upon Michael Tennenbaum, a Georgia Tech alumnus and founder of the Tennenbaum Institute for Enterprise Transformation at Georgia Tech. Tickets are not required for this event.

The Bachelor’s degree ceremonies are both May 7 with the first from 9 to 11:30 a.m. in McCamish. Doors open at 7:30 a.m., and graduating students should arrive at Zelnak no later than 8 a.m. Graduates will be from the following programs:

• Computer Science and Computational Media in the College of Computing.
• Computational Media in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
• Industrial Design, Building Construction and Architecture in the College of Architecture.
• Psychology, Discrete Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Biology in the College of Sciences.
• Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Polymer and Fiber Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Aerospace Engineering in the College of Engineering.

Coca-Cola Enterprises CEO John Brock, a double Georgia Tech graduate in chemical engineering, and his wife, Mary Rockett Brock, will receive honorary doctorates during the ceremony. It is the first time in the history of the Institute that a married couple has received honorary degrees. Mary Brock is also a keynote speaker. The Brocks co-chaired the successful $1.8 billion Campaign Georgia Tech, which concluded in December 2015.

The final ceremony of the weekend is 3 to 5:30 p.m. at McCamish and features an address by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. Doors open at 1:30 p.m., and graduating students should arrive at Zelnak no later than 2 p.m. Graduates will be from the following programs:

• Literature, Media and Communication; Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies; Public Policy; History, Technology and Society; Science, Technology and Culture; International Affairs and Modern Languages; International Affairs; Economics and International Affairs; Global Economics and Modern Languages; and Economics in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
• Business Administration in the Scheller College of Business.
• Biochemistry, Applied Physics, Physics and Chemistry in the College of Sciences.
• Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Nuclear and Radiological Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering.

Tickets are required for both of Saturday’s ceremonies, and students must participate in their assigned ceremony. Learn more at www.commencement.gatech.edu.

“We’re extremely proud of the companies we will be presenting this year at Showcase; they represent a diverse array of technologies that are providing real solutions in different markets ranging from financial technology and advanced manufacturing, to agriculture and information security, among others,” said Jennifer Bonnett, ATDC’s acting general manager. “The Showcase is a fun and engaging way to show investors, entrepreneurs, and others these successful companies are innovative leaders in their fields and creating jobs right here in Georgia.”

Each year, ATDC member companies that have met rigorous growth milestones are selected to graduate from the startup incubator’s ATDC Signature program. The 2016 graduating companies are:

• Synapp.io: The company’s data validation technology in the email compliance and deliverability space monitors the health of email contact lists and automates data maintenance to prevent email deliverability challenges.
• Zoompf: This startup’s technology continuously audits its clients’ entire websites for the common causes of slow performance to provide prioritized, easy-to-fix steps to solve those issues as they occur. 

• NextInput: The company is a producer and marketer of next-generation, pressure-sensitive touch technology for smartphones, tablets, laptops, automotive touch zones, and many other touch-related applications.

For more information about the Showcase or to RSVP, please visit http://atdcstartupshowcase.com. The cost to attend the event is $25 per person (early bird until April 12); $50 between April 13 and May 11, and $75 at the door. Students and faculty of any Georgia university enter free with valid ID.

About ATDC:

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) is one of the longest-running and largest university-based startup incubators in the country. Founded in 1980, ATDC has graduated more than 160 companies from its ATDC Signature program. To date, those companies have attracted roughly $2 billion in investments. ATDC, which also has programs in Savannah, Athens, and Augusta, is a unit of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, the chief economic development arm of the Georgia Institute of Technology. For additional information, visit www.atdc.org.

Adibi received a $145,000 award for his project, “An Ultrafast Testbed for Comprehensive Characterization of Photonics, Electronic, and Optoelectronic Properties of Integrated Nanophotonic Structures.” The goal of this DURIP project is to develop an ultrafast characterization testbed for the characterization of high-speed integrated photonic devices such as high-speed integrated photonic modulators and detectors. This tool will facilitate existing research at Georgia Tech and will enable new research for the study of ultrafast, low-power integrated optoelectronic devices and systems, such as modulators, switches, and detectors. Such devices are essential in multiple applications of integrated nanophotonics, including information processing, communications and networking, sensing, and computing.

Adibi was one of 176 researchers representing 96 research institutions that were announced as DURIP award recipients by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) earlier this month. The program supports the purchase of state‑of‑the‑art equipment that augments current university capabilities or develops new capabilities to perform cutting‑edge defense research and associated graduate student research training.

The awards are the result of a merit competition jointly conducted by three DoD research offices: the Army Research Office, Office of Naval Research, and Air Force Office of Scientific Research. A highly competitive program, the three offices solicited proposals from university investigators conducting science and engineering research of importance to national defense. These areas include advances in materials, structures, and manufacturing science; quantum and nanosciences; computing and networks; electronics, electromagnetics, and electro‑optics; acoustics; neuroscience; fluid dynamics; robotics and autonomous systems; and ocean, environmental, and life sciences and engineering.

The two-person team behind FireHUD invented a real-time monitoring system and Head Up Display that provides biometric and environmental data to firefighters and officials outside. The goal is to decrease the level of uncertainty firefighters face.

The inventors – Zachary Braun, a computer engineering major, and Tyler Sisk, an electrical engineering major – won $20,000 plus a free patent filing and a spot in Flashpoint, a Georgia Tech accelerator that helps company founders think about their business model and formation.

The two will now represent Georgia Tech at the inaugural ACC InVenture Prize. This competition, which will involve student startups and inventions from each of the 15 universities in the Atlantic Coast Conference, will take place at Georgia Tech April 5 and 6.

The Georgia Tech students behind Wobble finished second Wednesday night and scored $10,000, a free patent filing and a spot in Flashpoint.

Wobble is an automated balance test to assess athletes following concussions. The device would keep athletes safe and reduce the risk of permanent brain damage.

The inventors are: Hailey Brown, mechanical engineering; Matthew Devlin, biomedical engineering; Ana Gomez del Campo, biomedical engineering; and Garrett Wallace, biomedical engineering.

TruePani walked away with $5,000 as winners of the People’s Choice Award, which goes to the fans’ favorite invention.

This all-female team designed an antimicrobial cup and water storage device that makes drinking water safer. The social entrepreneurs came up with the device after two of the team members traveled across India.

The inventors are: Samantha Becker, civil engineering; Sarah Lynn Bowen, business administration; Naomi Ergun, business administration; and Shannon Evanchec, environmental engineering.

The InVenture Prize brings together student innovators from all academic backgrounds across campus in an effort to foster creativity, invention and entrepreneurship.

More than 500 students signed up for this year’s contest. They were narrowed to the six teams that competed in the finale, which was broadcast live on Georgia Public Broadcasting. Learn more about all six finalists here. 

To demonstrate their appreciation for ongoing support from state lawmakers, Georgia Tech students, faculty, and staff will convene for the annual Georgia Tech Student Day at the Capitol on Monday, February 1. Learn more and sign up >

Meet this year’s class of Georgia Tech GLIP interns below.

Laura Breithaupt
Hometown: Marietta, Georgia
Major: Biochemistry
GLIP assignment: House Health and Human Services Committee

Renee Dodson
Hometown: Fayetteville, Georgia
Major: International Affairs & Modern Languages
GLIP assignment: Senate Health & Human Services Committee

Victoria Doris
Hometown: Newnan, Georgia
Major: Public Policy
GLIP assignment: House Media Services

Alexis Jones
Hometown: Columbus, Georgia
Major: Business Administration
GLIP assignment: Office of Legislative Counsel

Lizzie Lisenby
Hometown: Forsyth, Georgia
Major: Business Administration
GLIP assignment: House Judiciary Committee

Evan Long
Hometown: Lilburn, Georgia
Major: International Affairs
GLIP assignment: Office of Senate Majority Whip Steve Gooch (R-51)

Katherine Richardson
Hometown: Alpharetta, Georgia
Major: Biomedical Engineering
GLIP assignment: Senate Veterans, Military, and Homeland Security Committee

Hunter Tredway
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Major: Public Policy
GLIP assignment: Senate Science and Technology Committee

The Georgia Legislative Internship Program is offered in collaboration with colleges and universities throughout Georgia and the Georgia General Assembly. The internship program for Georgia Tech students is administered by the Office of Government and Community Relations. Learn more >

Read about Georgia Tech’s 2016 legislative priorities >

The work of the new Marcus Center for Therapeutic Cell Characterization and Manufacturing (MC3M) will help provide standardized production and quality testing for these living cells, which have great therapeutic potential. Standardized manufacturing techniques already exist for drug-based pharmaceuticals; the new center will help provide similar methods and standards for manufacturing therapeutic cells.

Expected to be the first of its kind in the United States, the center will include a validation facility for good manufacturing practices in cell production. In addition to The Marcus Foundation, funding will come from the Georgia Research Alliance and Georgia Tech sources for a total investment of $23 million. The center will also seek support from federal agencies, clinical research organizations and other sources.

“The aspirin you buy today from one pharmacy is essentially the same as the aspirin you buy from another pharmacy, but cell-based therapies may have different efficacy depending on the source and manufacturing processes,” said Krishnendu Roy, Robert A. Milton Chair and professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “There are established ways to quickly assess the efficacy and safety of small-molecule drugs that are acceptable around the world. We want to develop and establish similar processes for therapeutic cell manufacturing.”

Ultimately, the growing need for these cell therapeutics could require large-scale production facilities similar to those used in today’s pharmaceutical production. But living stem cells and immune system cells are readily affected by the varying conditions under which they are grown, stored and packaged, meaning the same type of cell produced at different facilities could behave very differently. Unless those cells can be produced with consistency, in large scale and at low cost with high quality, use of the new cell therapies could be limited and their promise would not extend to large numbers of patients.

“The critical goal is to either minimize differences caused by varying manufacturing conditions, or to have a very defined characterization process so we exactly know how much the cells have changed and what specific characteristics are predictive of their efficacy in patients,” explained Roy, who will lead the new center. “That consistency will allow us to produce affordable products that can make this new technology available to the large community of people who need it.”

The new center will collaborate with research and clinical institutions around the country, especially those at which The Marcus Foundation funds research on cell-based therapies, including Duke University, the University of Miami, City of Hope, Emory University, as well as the University of Georgia and other national and international universities.

“Access to this network will provide us a huge advantage by bringing together experts to work on a common problem,” Roy said.

"Stem cell treatments and cell-based immunotherapies are, and will be, the treatment of the future,” said Bernie Marcus, who co-founded The Home Depot. “Manufacturing and characterization of stem cells and immune cells is a major first step, and that is why The Marcus Foundation chose Georgia Tech and its teams – they have the experience and the personnel to achieve key goals in this process."

The new center will be a collaboration among research groups at Georgia Tech, as well as numerous outside institutions, noted Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.

“Reproducible production of high-quality therapeutic cells and understanding what markers predict cell effectiveness could give clinicians worldwide new tools in the battle against some of the most difficult human health challenges we face today,” Peterson said. “Transitioning these cells into broad clinical use will require the kind of multidisciplinary collaboration that Georgia Tech is known for. Beyond Georgia Tech, this effort will involve The Marcus Foundation, top clinical institutions, the private sector and the Georgia Research Alliance.”

The center will involve multiple research organizations at Georgia Tech, including the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology, the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute and the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. Also involved will be faculty researchers from the College of Sciences, College of Computing, and various schools in the College of Engineering, which includes the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering operated by Georgia Tech and Emory University. The center will also work closely with the Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech, the Georgia Immunoengineering Consortium, and the Regenerative Engineering and Medicine (REM) Center, a partnership between Georgia Tech, Emory University and the University of Georgia.

“There is no question that stem cell and immune cell manufacturing have the potential to significantly impact our lives, especially as we age,” said Ravi Bellamkonda, chair of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. “We are fortunate to have a visionary foundation in The Marcus Foundation, and the foresight of the Georgia Research Alliance providing leadership in this endeavor.”

Work of the center will help make new cell-based therapies more widely available to patients.

“The timing of this investment in cell manufacturing by The Marcus Foundation is absolutely critical,” said Robert E. Guldberg, executive director of Georgia Tech’s Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. “Cell therapies are being evaluated in nearly 9,000 clinical trials worldwide, but their potential to impact human healthcare will be severely limited until we can scale up their production reproducibly and at low cost. There are currently FDA-approved, clinically effective cell therapy products sitting on the shelf and unavailable to patients because the cost of manufacturing them is simply too high.”

The cell manufacturing effort grew, in part, out of a major planning grant awarded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to the Georgia Research Alliance in 2014. That effort focused on developing a road map for cell manufacturing in the state of Georgia – an initiative expected to provide significant economic development benefits. Georgia Tech has been leading this road mapping effort that involves more than 30 industry partners and 16 academic institutions as well as key federal agencies.

“The NIST grant kick-started our efforts to develop a national road map for cell manufacturing,” said Michael Cassidy, president and CEO of the Georgia Research Alliance. “The cell manufacturing industry is an emerging and growing industry with annual revenues of about $1 billion. This initiative has the potential to turn scientific research into new businesses and jobs for Georgia.”

Initial funding is for five years, and ultimately the center will be expected to support itself with corporate, government and nonprofit funding, Roy said.

“This is a unique public-private philanthropic partnership to address a grand challenge,” he added. “We hope to make significant contributions to improving cell-based treatments and lowering their cost. This could provide huge benefit not only to the health of our fellow citizens, both adults and children, but as a manufacturing initiative, could be transformative to the economic development and workforce in Georgia.”

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Georgia Institute of Technology
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The secretary, who was joined by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, was also touting the Treasury Department’s myRA (my Retirement Account) program, a key initiative designed for individuals who want to save for retirement but don’t have access to traditional, employer-sponsored retirement accounts. The initiative is a fee-free Roth Individual Retirement Account that invests in a new U.S. Treasury retirement savings bond.

Lew and Reed toured ATDC, Georgia’s technology startup incubator that works with entrepreneurs who want to launch successful companies in the state. Headquartered in Technology Square, ATDC has operations across the state, including in Savannah, Athens and Augusta.

Lew and the mayor toured ATDC’s Tech Square operations and learned about how the incubator helps entrepreneurs through its education and coaching curriculum. They also met with some of the startup entrepreneurs in ATDC’s highly competitive Signature program, comprised of those companies that receive intensive one-on-one coaching and guidance and are deemed most likely to succeed as stand-alone enterprises.

“There’s no shortage of ideas here,” Lew said. “It’s not just about ideas, it’s about getting funding and being able to have a business come out of the idea.”

Lew and Reed hosted a roundtable with several CEOs and startup founders in ATDC Signature to talk to them about access to the financial system and hear challenges entrepreneurs face, and listen to their ideas.

“What we see going on here is what we’re talking about when we describe the U.S. economy as being a place where innovation will come in the future because it involves your dreams,” Lew said.

Entrepreneurs’ ideas can only become actual businesses if startups have sufficient access to the nation’s financial system. “Financial inclusion is a big part of that,” Lew added, “because if you don’t have a history or a relationship with the financial system, it’s going to be really hard to get the loan or the financing necessary to take an idea and make it a reality.”

— Péralte C. Paul

“Among our top priorities this year is securing $47.4 million for the renewal of Price Gilbert Library and Crosland Tower,” said vice president Dene Sheheane. “This initial-phase construction funding of the comprehensive renewal project would enable us to vastly increase core campus space for students. Planning and design for the project is underway as a result of the $1.7 million state allocation in FY15.”

Sheheane and his colleagues will also advocate for the following initiatives:

• Secure $1.62 million to expand startup incubator ATDC. The second of a two-year expansion project, this funding would provide additional professional coaching staff to support creation of new start-up companies in Georgia.

• Strengthen partnerships with Georgia AgriTech Innovation Initiative. This GTRI-led initiative involves building industry-focused partnerships to pursue and solve grand challenges in agriculture and to position Georgia as the leader in cutting-edge research, technology development and education.

Together with the University System of Georgia (USG), the Georgia Tech team will also work to secure important systemwide items:

• Secure renewal of the provision allowing carry-forward of certain USG funds. Under this provision, USG institutions can carry a small amount of funds from one fiscal year to the next, allowing for better planning and allocation of resources.

• Secure $54.45 million in new Formula Funds to be shared among all USG institutions. This funding supports critical day-to-day operations and is essential to maintaining academic quality.

• Secure $60 million in Major Repair and Rehabilitation Funds to repair aging facilities across the System. Georgia Tech’s allocation will be directed toward more than $100 million in deferred maintenance needs.

During the legislative session, the Office of Government and Community Relations also engages external partners in sharing Tech’s story. Members of the Capitol Jackets advocacy network, which includes alumni and partners on campus, receive a biweekly newsletter with updates from the Gold Dome. (Learn more or sign up.)

To demonstrate their appreciation for ongoing support from state lawmakers, the Georgia Tech community will convene at the State Capitol for the annual Georgia Tech Student Day at the Capitol on Feb. 1. (Learn more.)

Each session, Georgia Tech students have the opportunity to serve full-time as interns to legislators, legislative committees, or legislative staffers through the Georgia Legislative Internship Program, offered in collaboration with colleges and universities throughout Georgia and the Georgia General Assembly. (Learn more.)

Learn more about these events and programs, and sign up for newsletter updates about Tech’s state and federal relations efforts, at www.gov.gatech.edu.

The trio, Khatera Ballard, Wes Jones, and Jackson Smith, founded the company in 2011 and sold the gelato — an Italian-style ice cream — via a food truck and through direct small-batch manufacturing sales to local Atlanta chefs and restaurateurs.

“From the beginning, we have had a very specific goal of being the Southeast’s major regional gelato brand,” said Ballard, who met Jones and Smith when she married one of their friends. That goal includes creating more than 250 flavor combinations and sourcing most of its ingredients, including all of its dairy, from Georgia farmers.

Honeysuckle Gelato’s focused strategy appears to have paid off for the three business partners, who are the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s (GaMEP) December Faces of Manufacturing.

Georgia’s manufacturing industry is a critical component of the state’s economy. The Faces of Manufacturing series shows how the 365,000 Georgians who work in the industry — including more than 53,000 in food manufacturing — help their communities stay economically strong and viable.

Honeysuckle Gelato’s products are now found in more than 100 restaurants and 85 retail outlets across the Southeast, including a regional deal with Whole Foods. Just this year, the company inked a deal with Delta Air Lines, which now offers Honeysuckle Gelato to first class passengers on some cross-country flights.

“On July 7, on an Atlanta to Los Angeles flight, Honeysuckle Gelato made its debut,” Smith explained.

Starting a business was a longtime dream for Smith and Jones, who have been friends since the second grade. After college, Smith spent two years teaching in China but then moved to New York City in 2010 and began working as a tutor under the No Child Left Behind program. He searched for a permanent job, eventually landing an ice cream production manager position under Jon Snyder, a local gelato legend in New York.

Eventually, he moved back to Atlanta and began experimenting with making gelato in his parents’ kitchen. That led to discussions with Jones, and eventually Ballard, who relocated to Atlanta from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to found the company.

In coming up with the company’s name, Smith, the creator behind the flavors, said the idea was to highlight a sweet and fresh sense of nostalgia and give a nod to its roots as a business based in the South.

The Delta agreement, plus the company’s opening of a retail shop in Atlanta’s Ponce City Market, doubled their manufacturing output this year. Additionally, Jones said, “These two opportunities allowed us to add two new full-time jobs to our team and several new hourly-based employees.” The company has a total staff of 18.

About Honeysuckle Gelato

Founded in 2011, Honeysuckle Gelato is a craft dessert manufacturer headquartered in Atlanta. Today, the company has 18 employees and its products can be found in retail locations across the Southeast. Additionally, Honeysuckle Gelato is served in restaurants across Atlanta and the company recently opened its first retail location in Ponce City Market. Since its launch, the company has created more than 250 flavor combinations, its top seller being Sea-Salted Caramel. Visit www.honeysucklegelato.com?

About the Faces of Manufacturing 

Each month, GaMEP will highlight a different person as the Face of Manufacturing. Those chosen as the Face of Manufacturing will be selected by a 12-member committee composed of representatives from Georgia Tech, economic development groups, manufacturing companies, and related associations.

The ceremony for Ph.D. and master’s degree graduates will be from 7 to 9 p.m., Dec. 11, at McCamish Pavilion on 10th Street. No tickets are required to attend. Students should arrive no later than 6 p.m. and report to Zelnak Center, adjacent to McCamish. Bernard Marcus, co-founder of The Home Depot, will be presented an honorary degree during the graduate degree ceremony.

The evening’s speaker will be George Nemhauser, the A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Institute Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. The 2015 recipient of the Georgia Tech Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award, Nemhauser is an expert on operations research, combinatorial and integer optimization and sports scheduling.

The Dec. 11 ceremony will also include the first-ever graduates from the groundbreaking Online Master of Science in Computer Science program. More than 20 OMSCS graduates are expected to be present to receive their degrees.

The bachelor’s degree ceremony will be 9 to 11:30 a.m., Dec. 12, also at McCamish Pavilion. Tickets are required for guests. Students should arrive at the Zelnak Center no later than 8 a.m. Sen. Perdue, a Georgia Tech alumnus and the junior senator from Georgia will deliver the Commencement address. Perdue has more than 40 years of business experience as the former CEO of Reebok athletic brand and Dollar General stores.

More than 1,200 will receive bachelor’s degrees while the graduate ceremony will award 969 master’s and 196 doctorates.

Delta Air Lines will invest $2 million to build the facility, in which it plans to enhance operations and improve customer experience by tapping into the knowledge at Georgia Tech.

“Delta Air Lines and Georgia Tech have a rich heritage of working together in everything from research to hiring our co-ops and graduates. We are delighted that Delta’s collaborative research center will provide even greater opportunities for Georgia Tech students, faculty, and staff to work with this outstanding global airline,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.

Delta has pioneered many firsts in the airline industry including the use of a hub and spoke system in 1955, being the first U.S. airline with motion graphic maps in the cabin showing the aircraft’s position and route in 1992, and launching the first mobile baggage tracking app in 2011.

The innovation center at Georgia Tech will also be a first for any college in the United States.

“This facility is the first of its kind for the domestic aviation industry. Tapping into the bright minds at Georgia Tech is an opportunity to gain new perspectives and approaches across Delta for changes that will advance our business now and for years to come,” said Gil West, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Delta. “At Delta we are continuously seeking to improve and elevate our operations and the customer experience.”

Inside the space, Georgia Tech students will have the opportunity to improve Delta’s day-to-day business operations as well as customer experience.

The new research center will be completed by 2016 in the Centergy Building. The building is already home to other industry innovation centers for The Home Depot, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Panasonic, and AT&T.

Delta also plans to invest $3 million to the Georgia Tech Foundation to fund the Georgia Tech Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility (AMPF). The AMPF establishes Georgia Tech as a national leader in advanced manufacturing with a collaboration among the Schools of Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Interactive Computing.

“We are grateful to The Delta Air Lines Foundation for their generous commitment that will facilitate breakthrough research in advanced manufacturing,” President Peterson said.

"They told us their design wasn't as good as they wanted it to be," explained Brian Jo, one of the five mechanical engineers who comprised the team." They wanted it to be more useful, more powerful, and more versatile. they told us to make a better design. Using the same tools that they had, and adding  a little bit more onto that, we decided to make a different design. We made it cheaper, more efficient, and more powerful. It was difficult, because over there in Sudan they have limited tools. Using what we had we created a design able to achieve all of the goals.

We're hoping that while Not Impossible Labs is in Sudan we can continue to send them designs as we develop them. There's still room for improvement."

Another winner was Team Cold Cap, an interdisciplinary team made up of mechanical and biomedical engineering students who developed a chilled apparatus for chemotherapy patients to wear that would prevent them from losing their hair during cancer treatments, greatly boosting the morale of those battling the disease. According to team member Alexandra Richardson they have three provisional patents filed and are exploring options to take the Cold Cap to market. 

Other teams were sponsored by local or national companies. A group of ISyE students worked with Orpheus Brewing in Atlanta, identify a bottleneck in their brewing process and allowing them to increase production by 25 percent at no extra cost. Coca-Cola, which was the premiere sponsor of Capstone, sponsored several teams, including one which developed a door-less cooler shown to increase sales and another that found ways to improve their weekly shipping forecast.

Skyveillance, which was made of electrical and computer engineering majors, built an integrated network of antennas to detect signals transmitted by drones- a valuable tool as government agencies seek ways to regulate drone activity in restricted airspace.

Showing that you don't have to be bound by your discipline, a group of mechanical engineering students with virtually no aerospace experience took on the challenge of fabricating mounting and cabling hardware and conducting thermal/structural analysis for the RECONSO cubesat which is being built at Georgia Tech and has a launch date in 2017.

Overall 113 teams from five schools (biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, industrial design, industrial and systems engineering, and mechanical engineering) participated in this semester's design expo, capping off their undergraduate careers in style. With commencement quickly approaching many have already lined up jobs with companies like Delta, The Home Depot, Proctor & Gamble, and St. Jude Medical. Others will move on to graduate school or look for ways to turn their projects into startup companies, like CardiacConnect, a biomedical team which received a golden ticket to the the 2016 Inventure Prize. 

The 2015 Fall Capstone Design Expo confirmed that Georgia Tech students are indeed "Creating the Next". For pictures from the event, view our Flickr page.

2015 Fall Capstone Design Expo Winners

Overall Winner - Need a Hand: Project Danieal

Interdisciplinary - Cold and Bold: Chemotherapy Cold Cap

Mechanical Engineering - Right on Track: CSX Lag Screw Installation

This team was sponsored by CSX. Students developed an innovative tool to assist with installation of lag screws on rail roads that would help improve employee health, safety, and performance. CSX transportation works closely with Georgia Tech research labs and this project was a great example of how industry is leveraging collaboration between academic research and education.

Electrical & Computer Engineering - Fret-Master 5000: MIDI Smart Guitar

Industrial Design - JAVAM: Human and Cargo Access for the Elderly/HMI Study

Biomedical Engineering - Nasaid: NasalBliss

Industrial & Systems Engineering - RaceTrac Petroleum: Supply & Distribution

Writer: Ben Wright
Photos: Candler Hobbs

Given the Southeast’s heat, humidity and variable fresh water supplies, the development of any building aiming for zero net energy and water consumption brings unique challenges. Building a facility that meets Living Building Challenge 3.0 criteria — as The Kendeda Fund and Georgia Tech hope to do — will provide the opportunity to create a living-learning laboratory for hands-on educational and research opportunities that will be a model for the region and similar environments around the world.

According to Georgia Tech, the project will be integrated into the Institute’s Eco-Commons, a series of campus green spaces designed to conserve natural resources, including energy and water, and provide the community with educational and recreational amenities. This endeavor not only supports Georgia Tech’s goal to use its resources as efficiently as possible, but also manages stormwater runoff and helps protect drinking water sources.

“Georgia Tech is honored to partner with The Kendeda Fund on this groundbreaking project. The Living Building Challenge aligns with our longstanding vision for the campus and provides a unique opportunity to physically demonstrate how Georgia Tech practices thoughtful stewardship of all of our resources and how our innovative thinking can transform future generations,” said Steve Swant, executive vice president for Administration and Finance at Georgia Tech. “These are disciplines we have proudly instilled in our campus master planning as well as our academic, research and community outreach efforts.”

The Kendeda Fund has committed to investing $25 million over the next several years to privately fund 100 percent of the design and construction costs of the project as well as an additional $5 million to support programming activities. The Kendeda Fund and Georgia Tech intend for the project to become the first Living Building Challenge 3.0-certified facility of its size and function in the Southeast.

The Living Building Challenge is a program, advocacy tool and philosophy that defines the most advanced measure of sustainability possible in the current built environment. Meeting the challenge requires close adherence to some of the most stringent building performance standards in the world. To be certified under the program, a building must meet all the program requirements over a full 12-month period of continued operations and full occupancy. 

“We could not imagine a better partner than Georgia Tech to join us in pursuing the Living Building Challenge,” said Barry Berlin, a long time advisor to The Kendeda Fund who oversees its investments and Atlanta-area philanthropy. “This project builds on nearly two decades of work by The Kendeda Fund to advance sustainability throughout Atlanta’s built environment. We look forward to helping an entire region learn what’s possible as we embrace the most rigorous building performance standards in the world.”

Pending final approval by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents and reaching defined milestones, the goal is to begin construction in 2017 with occupancy targeted for late 2018 and building certification planned for 2020.

#  #  #

About The Kendeda Fund

The Kendeda Fund is one of the leading philanthropic investors in civic and environmental programs in the Atlanta area, and is committed to providing solutions to social and ecological challenges at the local and national levels. The Fund accomplishes its mission by advancing green building design, community-design and public interest architecture; championing community wealth building and sustainability strategies; and leveraging innovation of cities to advance equity and sustainability. Previously, The Kendeda Fund provided $300,000 in funding for Georgia Tech’s Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business. Learn more at www.kendedafund.org.

About the Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology, also known as Georgia Tech, is one of the nation’s leading research universities, providing a focused, technologically based education to more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Georgia Tech has many nationally recognized programs, all top-ranked by peers and publications alike, and is ranked in the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News and World Report. It offers degrees through the Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Sciences, the Scheller College of Business, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech has more than 100 centers focused on interdisciplinary research that consistently contribute vital research and innovation to American government, industry, and business.

With her biomedical engineering and medical interests, she sought to apply to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other federal health-related departments. She ended up accepting an internship with Price, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for more than 10 years. More importantly to See, Price worked in private practice as an orthopedic surgeon. Before his election to Congress, Price was an assistant professor at Emory University’s School of Medicine and medical director of the orthopedic clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, teaching resident doctors in training.

“While the majority of what I did was quite different than anything in my BME major or even the engineering curricula at Georgia Tech, I came across many things in Washington that relate to biomedical research and remind me of my classes and professors,” said See, who is from Memphis, Tennessee.

One of those things is the 21^st Century Cures Act (HR 6), federal legislation that received overwhelming bipartisan approval in the House of Representatives. Among other things, the act makes research collaborations easier; incorporates the patient perspective in drug development and the regulatory review process; promotes personalized medicine; streamlines clinical trials, making it less expensive to bring drugs to market; provides incentives for developing drugs that treat rare diseases; and basically helps “the entire biomedical ecosystem coordinate more efficiently to find faster cures while investing in 21^st century science and next generation investigators,” according to See.

The 21^st Century Cures Act, which has moved to the Senate for consideration there, would also create a $10 billion innovation fund over five years for the NIH and a $550 million innovation fund for the FDA. In addition, there are special provisions to make room for young or new researchers. 

“I had the opportunity to attend healthcare and medical briefings almost everyday, put on by third-party organizations or offices trying to gain support for their legislation,” said See. 

To her surprise, one briefing featured Ravi Bellamkonda, chair of the Coulter Department at Georgia Tech and Emory (and president of The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering). After the briefing, See sat in on a meeting with Bellamkonda and Robert Knotts, director of federal relations for Georgia Tech, during sessions with congressional office staffers. 

In the Georgia Tech D.C. Internship program, students work full time with a member of Congress, a congressional committee, or an executive branch office in or around Washington, D.C., for about 10 weeks during the summer, and 16 weeks during spring or fall. Students secure their own internship based on academic performance and personal interests. The opportunity includes a $5,000 stipend in the summer or a $7,500 stipend in the spring or fall to offset expenses (housing, transportation, and living expenses). This program is open to both undergraduate and graduate students of all majors. 

In See’s case, the experience took her outside of the usual BME comfort zones.

“Working on legislation is not something the average biomedical engineer has the opportunity to do,” she said. “While this may not further me in a medical career, learning about the legislative process is extremely important. I learned that so much of what biomedical engineers accomplish is funded by government agencies and that all of the regulations in the health and science industry flow through the government.”

See gained new insights and came away with some ideas on how the process might be improved, and how she might become part of the process. 

“If researchers and doctors helped make the regulations on the front end, I think we would not only save time and money, but better policies could be developed at the onset,” she said. “I had a lot of opportunities to learn about the government's involvement and investment in healthcare and medical research. I may have some interest in going into medical policy, so I think this was great exposure."

Read more about the internship program here.

CONTACT:

Walter Rich
Communications Manager
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology

President G. P. “Bud” Peterson kicked off the visit by welcoming the guests and sharing an update on the tremendous momentum surrounding the Institute’s educational and research programs. He highlighted recent successes, including the opening of the interdisciplinary Engineered Biosystems Building, the campus address by President Obama on college access and affordability, and the welcoming of the best qualified, most diverse freshman class in Georgia Tech history.

The Congressional staff members attended demonstrations and briefings highlighting Georgia Tech’s expertise in areas such as smart textiles manufacturing, research commercialization and disaster preparedness. These sessions included a tour of the Smart Textiles Lab, a presentation by Professor Julie Swann from the School of Industrial & Systems Engineering and a breakfast with representatives from Waffle House and the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce to discuss the importance of partnership between universities and industry and the invaluable impact it has on economic development.

The staffers particularly enjoyed a discussion on student-led innovation and entrepreneurship with Professor Craig Forest from the School of Mechanical Engineering and a rock star panel of student entrepreneurs: Rachel Ford, Scott Schroer and Megan Fetcher. The discussion focused on the entrepreneurial culture growing throughout the Institute, and the students shared how a myriad of resources on campus, particularly the InVenture Prize competition, aided in their success as young entrepreneurs.

“This annual visit is a special opportunity to showcase what Georgia Tech is doing for the state and nation," said Tech federal relations director Robert Knotts. "Federal funding and federal policies have a major impact on Georgia Tech’s successes. Allowing these congressional staffers to see firsthand what we’re doing with federal funding is incredibly important.”

To close out the visit, participants learned about Georgia Tech’s involvement in training the next generation of scientists and engineers through a variety of K-12 programs offered on campus for students and teachers alike. Staffers observed demonstrations by students and teachers from Meadowcreek High School who participated in summer programs hosted by Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC).

The Office of Government and Community Relations often hosts federal officials and their staff on campus to promote the Institute’s strategic vision and goals as they pertain to federal research and education programs and policies. If you are interested in inviting a federal official, please contact Robert Knotts, Director of Federal Relations, at knotts@gatech.edu.

HOW IT WORKS

Offered each semester, selected students work full-time in federal government offices in and around Washington, D.C. for 16 weeks in the spring or 10 weeks in the summer. The opportunity includes a $7,500 stipend in the spring and a $5,000 stipend in the summer to offset expenses (housing, transportation, and living expenses). This program is open to both undergraduate (sophomore and above) and graduate students of all majors. International students are eligible to apply; however, some federal offices only accept applications from United States citizens.

HOW IT WORKS

Offered only in the spring, the 2016 Georgia Legislative Internship Program is an opportunity to meet state lawmakers and experience the legislative process first hand while working full time in offices in and around the state capitol in downtown Atlanta. The internship period lasts approximately 12 to 16 weeks (January to April), depending on the length of the legislative session. The internship is open to all majors; however, it is restricted to Georgia-resident undergraduate students (sophomore and above) only. It is a paid internship, and students may also earn up to 12 hours of academic credit. A limited number of internship positions are available.

The GRA Academy of Eminent Scholars numbers 63, and in 2014, was responsible for generating more than $300 million in competitively-funded research activity. GRA Eminent Scholars employ some 1,200 faculty, graduate students, and technicians in their labs, and last year filed 47 invention disclosures and were granted 23 patent applications. 

Kane and Emelianov come to Georgia Tech from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively, while Divan returns to Tech after taking a four-year leave to establish an electrical energy startup company in the Bay Area.

“We are proud to welcome Deepak Divan, Stanislav Emelianov, and Ravi Kane to our Academy and to Georgia Tech,” said C. Michael Cassidy, President and CEO, Georgia Research Alliance. “They bring to Georgia vast knowledge and expertise that will help to further development in the fields of cancer nanotechnology, energy management, and medical imaging.”

Ravi Kane Joins ChBE as Betty Chair/Eminent Scholar

Ravi Kane has joined the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering as a professor and holder of the Garry Betty/V Foundation Chair and GRA Eminent Scholar in Cancer Nanotechnology. Kane will hold also program faculty status in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

Previously, Kane served on the faculty of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he was head of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and held the P.K. Lashmet Professorship.

“Ravi is a wonderfully creative and effective researcher, and we are thrilled to have him join us at Georgia Tech,” said Professor and ChBE School Chair David Sholl.

Holding master’s and doctoral degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Kane focuses his research on the interface of biotechnology and nanotechnology.

His research group is designing nanoscale polyvalent therapeutics and working on the molecular engineering of biosurfaces and nanostructures. The Kane group is also interested in using protein engineering, nanotechnology, and other tools to combat cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, influenza, and antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

Having contributed to more than 125 scientific publications, Kane has received numerous honors throughout his career. In 2004, MIT Technology Review named him one of the top 100 young innovators in the world.

Since then, he has received an American Institute of Chemical Engineer’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Young Investigator Award, Global Indus Technovator Award, American Chemical Society’s Biochemical Technology Division Young Investigator Award, Society for Biological Engineers’ Biotechnology Progress Award for Excellence in Biological Engineering Publication, as well as other recognitions for research and teaching excellence.

Elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering College of Fellows in 2013, Kane is a member of the editorial board for the Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

Kane’s Chair was endowed by the family of Charles Garrett “Garry” Betty (BS ChBE 1979). Betty was president and CEO of the Internet service provider EarthLink from 1996 until his death from a rare type of cancer in 2007. He was inducted into the Georgia Technology Hall of Fame in 2005.

Betty’s wife, Kathy, received the 2013 College of Engineering’s Dean’s Appreciation Award for her continual support of Tech.

Divan Named as Eminent Scholar/Pippin Professor

Deepak Divan has been appointed as the John E. Pippin Chair Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and as a GRA Eminent Scholar. In this new role, Divan will also serve as director of the Georgia Tech Center for Distributed Energy, which will focus on enabling the transition of the global electrical energy infrastructure from a fossil-fuel powered, top-down controlled system to a massively-distributed, resilient, smart, and sustainable system.

“We are excited to welcome Deepak back to Georgia Tech,” said Steven W. McLaughlin, the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of ECE. “He is internationally recognized and respected in the electrical energy arena, and he will be an effective leader in developing the energy delivery systems of the future.”

An ECE faculty member since 2004, Divan works in the areas of dynamic grid control, advanced and integrated power electronics, and sustainable energy systems. He is known for his seminal work in technologies that protect equipment against power disturbances that impact industries such as utilities, semiconductors, automotive, and food processing. He served as director for the Intelligent Power Infrastructure Consortium, a university-industry-utility consortium to foster and accelerate the development and adoption of early-stage, pre-competitive high-risk and high-impact technologies in power applications.

For the last several years, Divan has been on leave in order to establish and lead his third startup company, Varentec, which is funded by leading VCs Khosla Ventures and investor Bill Gates. Varentec, based in Santa Clara, California, builds distributed power management and monitoring solutions for the electric grid. Divan currently serves as the scientific founder and Chief Scientist for the company. He is also the scientific founder of two additional companies–Innovolt, based in Atlanta, which makes next-generation power protection and asset management devices and where he serves on the Board, and Soft Switching Technologies Corporation, where he served as CEO and developed a range of devices to help manufacturing facilities ride through power disturbances. At Soft Switching, Divan also conceptualized and helped to develop the I-Grid, the first publicly accessible Internet-based power monitoring network in the U.S., which allows industries and utilities to diagnose widespread power quality events and unsolved downtime events. Soft Switching was acquired by Rockwell Automation in 2012. Finally, his work at Georgia Tech has provided the foundation for another start-up company – Smart Wires, which is located in Oakland, California, and provides power flow control devices for the transmission grid.

Divan holds more than 60 issued or pending patents, with over half in use by industry, and he has published over 300 refereed journal and conference papers, including 12 outstanding prize paper awards.

In 2015, Divan was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He served as president of the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) in 2009-2010, and he was named as the first recipient of the IEEE Newell Field Medal, the highest honor given by IEEE in the area of power electronics “for leadership in the development of soft-switching power converters.” Divan also served as an IEEE Industry Applications Society Distinguished Lecturer in 2004 and 2005, and he was elected as an IEEE Fellow in 1998.

Emelianov Named as Eminent Scholar/Pettit Chair in Microelectronics

Stanislav (Stas) Emelianov has been appointed as the Joseph M. Pettit Chair in Microelectronics and as a GRA Eminent Scholar. He is based in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) with a joint appointment in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

“Stas is a thoughtful and innovative researcher who has made a significant impact in his field, and we are delighted to have him join the ECE and BME faculties at Georgia Tech,” said McLaughlin and Ravi Bellamkonda, the Wallace H. Coulter Chair Professor in BME. “Stas will be a fantastic bridge between ECE and BME, and will also work closely with Winship Cancer Institute to pursue his cancer related research.”

Prior to joining Tech, Emelianov was on the faculty of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Most recently, he served as the Cockrell Professor of Biomedical Engineering and as an adjunct professor of imaging physics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. His research interests are in the development of advanced imaging methods capable of detecting and diagnosing cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other pathologies.

Emelianov also focuses on assisting treatment planning, enhancing image-guided therapy, and monitoring of treatment outcomes. He has led a team that discovered a minimally invasive way to detect plaques that are most likely to cause heart attacks. He has also conducted groundbreaking work on deep vein thrombosis, predicting rupture of plaques for cardiovascular applications, and imaging sentinel lymph nodes and micrometastases for cancer.

Emelianov and his collaborators have published over 470 refereed journal and conference papers and 13 edited books and book chapters, and he has 15 patents that have either been issued or are pending. In serving his professional community, Emelianov is the editor of Photoacoustics and is an editorial board member for the IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control.

Emelianov has held leadership roles in ultrasonics conferences and symposia sponsored by both IEEE and SPIE. In addition, he is a member of the Acoustical Society of America and the American Society for Engineering Education. He was also elected to the College of Fellows for the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2011.

While at UT-Austin, Emelianov served as the BME associate chair for research and chair of the undergraduate curriculum committee, and he received several teaching awards at both the department and university levels. He has graduated 20 Ph.D. students and four M.S. students, many of whom have received fellowships, national research service awards, and honors and awards from both IEEE and SPIE. He has also advised 45 undergraduate researchers.

Story Contributors: Brad Dixon, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 404-385-2299; Jackie Nemeth, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 404-894-2906; Walter Rich, Biomedical Engineering, 404-385-2416.

RSVP for the Info Session: http://bit.ly/GTIntern

Georgia Tech DC Internship Program - Spring/Summer 2016

Offered each semester, selected students work full-time in federal government offices in and around Washington, D.C. for 16 weeks in the spring or 10 weeks in the summer. The opportunity includes a $7,500 stipend in the spring and a $5,000 stipend in the summer to offset expenses (housing, transportation, and living expenses). This program is open to both undergraduate (sophomore and above) and graduate students of all majors. International students are eligible to apply; however, some federal offices only accept applications from United States citizens.

Quick Facts:

• Work for the federal government in Washington, D.C.
• Students pursue their own internship position based on career interests.
• Offered every semester; open to both undergraduate and graduate students of all majors.
• Application Deadlines: Thursday, Sept. 24 (spring program) or Thursday, Oct. 8 (summer program).
• Earn $7,500 stipend for spring program (16 weeks) or $5,000 for summer program (10 weeks).
• Eligible for course credit.
• Learn more >

The Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Academy of Engineers hosted a media roundtable Wednesday in Washington, D.C., on the topic: “10 Years after Katrina: Are American Cities Ready?”

While Katrina remains one of the deadliest and costliest hurricanes in U.S. history, in the immediate aftermath many people thought the problem was isolated to New Orleans because it was built below sea level, said Georgia Tech President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough.

Opinions have changed in recent years, said Clough, who led an independent panel investigation of the Department of Defense and response to the storm.

“Hurricane Sandy was a wake-up call that this could happen to anyone,” Clough said. “Sandy changed people’s minds and … in many ways had more of an impact than Katrina did.”

Panelists listed several cities at risk, including Miami, Tampa, Charleston and Norfolk.

Some cities are at risk because of geography, rising sea levels and climate change. However, too many cities fail to have the needed discussions and preparations because they have not recently felt the impact of a natural disaster, said Reggie DesRoches, the Karen and John Huff School Chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Increased emphasis on local communities is something government leaders, engineers and others should do to improve disaster resilience response, panelists said. While communities will receive help from their region, state and the federal government, there are many things local citizens must decide.

“Will they move off a barrier island or elevate their homes or invest in communications?” asked Lt. General Thomas Bostick, commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “How do you adapt and come out stronger than you were?”

Since Katrina, the Corps is working more closely with stakeholders and is taking a more systematic approach that goes beyond infrastructure, Bostick said. This approach includes collaborating with local communities. During the recent flood season, the Tulsa district turned to social media and had more than 65 million hits, he said.

During the nearly 90-minute discussion, the six panelists answered questions posed by reporters from the Associated Press, Science News and U.S. News & World Report. Audience members, including guests of Georgia Tech and the National Academy of Engineering, also participated in the discussion.

While the panelists agreed much has been learned since Katrina and improvements have been made, they said deficiencies remain.

For example, there needs to be a deeper understanding of the social science and behavioral component surrounding natural disasters, said Lauren Sauer, associate director of the National Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response at Johns Hopkins University.

Alton Romig Jr., executive officer of the National Academy of Engineering, said there is a lack of clarity when it comes to communication and authority around natural disasters. A lot of tools fail to get “into the right hands at the right time,” he said.

Reporters asked about the logic in designing the New Orleans levees and floodwalls to withstand a 100-year storm – one with a 1 percent chance of occurring in any year. While that design allowed the city to withstand Hurricane Isaac, there are questions as to whether something stronger should have been built.

Greg Baecher, professor of civil engineering at the University of Maryland, explained the 100-year storm was based on protecting real estate. This country needs to come to an agreement as to what is an acceptable or tolerable risk for human life, said Baecher, who conducted inter-agency federal risk analysis after Hurricane Katrina.

“What is the right level of protecting people,” he asked. “It’s probably less frequent than a 1 percent storm.” 

RSVP for the Info Session: http://bit.ly/GTIntern

2016 Georgia Legislative Internship Program

Offered only in the spring, the 2016 Georgia Legislative Internship Program is an opportunity to meet state lawmakers and experience the legislative process first hand while working full time in offices in and around the state capitol in downtown Atlanta. The internship period lasts approximately 12 to 16 weeks (January to April), depending on the length of the legislative session. The internship is open to all majors; however, it is restricted to Georgia-resident undergraduate students (sophomore and above) only. It is a paid internship, and students may also earn up to 12 hours of academic credit. A limited number of internship positions are available.

Quick Facts:

• Work at the State Capitol in Downtown Atlanta.
• Offered spring semester only; open to undergraduate students (all majors) who are residents of Georgia and have sophomore standing or above. First-year students are welcome to attend the info session.
• Application Deadline: Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 12:00 p.m. 

• Earn a weekly stipend for duration of 2016 Legislative Session (spring 2016).
• Earn course credit.
• Learn more >

The Intel Diversity Scholars Program will recruit and retain underrepresented minority students to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors and prepare them for graduate school. The effort is anticipated to benefit about 1,000 students over five years through mentoring, scholarships and professional development workshops.

Earlier this year, Intel announced a new goal: to achieve full representation of underrepresented minorities and women by the year 2020 in its U.S. workforce, along with a $300 million Diversity in Technology Initiative to help build a workforce pipeline.

“Filling the tech industry pipeline with diverse students is critical to increasing the number of diverse engineers and computer scientists in the field,” said Rosalind Hudnell, vice president of human resources and chief diversity officer at Intel. “The goal of this program is to inspire and support more women and underrepresented minorities to earn technical degrees so we can hire them down the road – we want to foster those future tech innovators.”  

Georgia Tech is a leading producer of women and minority STEM graduates and graduates nearly 10 percent of all African-American Ph.D. engineers in the nation.

“It is a national imperative that the U.S. continue to enhance the engagement of students of all backgrounds in STEM fields to create a more robust economy,” said Gary May, dean and Southern Company Chair in the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech. “The higher education and private sectors must combine forces to achieve the impact that is necessary. As a national leader in producing outstanding underrepresented engineering graduates, Georgia Tech is pleased to partner with Intel in this transformative initiative.”

The gift will expand several Georgia Tech initiatives already underway, including:

• Summer Engineering Institute. The three-week Summer Engineering Institute hosts rising 11^th- and 12^th-graders from around the country. Students learn basic engineering and computer science techniques and gain hands-on experience through working in teams to solve real-world engineering problems.
• RISE. Retaining Inspirational Scholars in Technology and Engineering (RISE) provides financial support to talented underrepresented minority and non-traditional students. The Intel Diversity Scholars program would provide scholarships, with priority going to those whose majors align with Intel’s interests: electrical engineering, computer science and computer engineering.
• Peer-2-Peer Mentoring. This program provides specialized guidance and support to undergraduate students majoring in STEM, while also helping them adjust to the climate and culture at Georgia Tech. Mentors and mentees develop leadership, communication and networking skills.
• SURE. Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering (SURE) is a 10-week research program to attract qualified minority students from across the country into graduate school in the fields of engineering and science. In addition to conducting research, participants receive mentoring from faculty and graduate students and participate in professional development and technical seminars.
• FOCUS. This program invites college juniors and seniors from around the country to attend a three-day event designed to raise awareness of graduate education among underrepresented students. Participants learn about financial resources, visit research laboratories, network with other scholars and receive help with the graduate school application process.

The Intel and Georgia Tech program was announced in conjunction with the first-ever White House Demo Day, which celebrates the important role entrepreneurship plays in America's economy. Unlike a private-sector Demo Day, where entrepreneurs and startups pitch their ideas to funders, the new event invites innovators from around the country to "demo" their individual stories in Washington, D.C.  

Instead, as an undergraduate at Georgia Tech, Burton launched a startup that could provide access to improved sanitation for billions of people around the world.

On Saturday she represents Georgia Tech in Washington, D.C., by speaking at the National Maker Faire, which kicks off today and features inventors and tech enthusiasts from across the country. The event is part of the White House’s “Week of Making,” running though Thursday,

“Being an entrepreneur is tiring and it’s been a lot of work, but everything at Georgia Tech is hard,” she said. “That doesn’t make it impossible. Here I’ve learned how to make everything possible.”

This is just the latest honor for Burton, who graduated in December with a degree in industrial design.

She was part of the team that won the 2014 InVenture Prize, an annual Georgia Tech contest that rewards students with cash prizes and free patents for big ideas that solve the world’s problems. The all-female team invented SafiChoo, an inexpensive mobile toilet, and conducted field tests on the device last summer in a refugee village in Kenya.

“InVenture was the turning point for me,” she said. “I realized then that my goal as a humanitarian-focused entrepreneur is possible and that the time to do it is now.”

While the original team members moved on to other endeavors, Burton continued working on the device this fall and in November launched a social organization called Wish for WASH, which stands for water, sanitation and hygiene. The group seeks to bring innovation to the world of sanitation with SafiChoo serving as the company’s first product. 

About a dozen undergraduate students help Wish for WASH in different capacities, providing interdisciplinary expertise with backgrounds in business, policy, biomedical engineering and civil engineering. This past fall, the company sponsored a Capstone team of biomedical and mechanical engineers who made the SafiChoo bidet more efficient.

As for Burton, she took a course on social entrepreneurship at the Scheller College of Business in the fall and this past spring pursued a post-baccalaureate independent study in social entrepreneurship through the college.

She moves to Zambia July 1 to begin a one-year fellowship with Global Health Corps. Burton will continue to work with Wish for WASH and hopefully conduct another round of field tests on the latest iteration of SafiChoo.

“When I realized this is what I wanted to do, I asked for help and the Georgia Tech community opened all these doors for me,” Burton said. “There is a growing spirit of entrepreneurship at Georgia Tech, and people are starting to realize there are a lot of incredible people in the Georgia Tech family.”

"I could not be more honored to receive this recognition from President Obama,” said May. “Mentoring engineering students and broadening participation among underrepresented groups has been a pillar of my career, and it is truly gratifying for my contributions to be acknowledged. I want to thank the White House and all of the students who have enriched my life in so many ways."

May created the Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering/Science (SURE) program, for which he was granted more than $2.7 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Through SURE, he annually hosted minority students to do research at Georgia Tech in the hopes that they would pursue a graduate degree. More than 73 percent of SURE participants enrolled in graduate school. May was also the creator and director of the Facilitating Academic Careers in Engineering and Science (FACES) program, for which he was granted over $10 million from NSF to increase the number of African-American Ph.D. recipients produced by Georgia Tech.

The mentors received their awards during a White House ceremony. May is pictured with John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and France A. Córdova, Director of the National Science Foundation.

The Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring is awarded by the White House to individuals and organizations to recognize the crucial role that mentoring plays in the academic and personal development of students studying science and engineering—particularly those who belong to groups that are underrepresented in these fields. By offering their expertise and encouragement, mentors help prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers while ensuring that tomorrow’s innovators represent a diverse pool of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics talent throughout the United States.

Picture credit: National Science Foundation

TI is an enduring partner in Georgia Tech’s efforts to provide an experiential learning environment for Tech students, according to Steven McLaughlin, Steve W. Chaddick school chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

“Georgia Tech is focused on providing an environment that nurtures project-based learning and professional leadership,” said McLaughlin. “Inside the TI Maker Space, electrical and computer engineering students — as well as students from other disciplines across Georgia Tech — will work together to solve technology design challenges that will not only give them the necessary project skills for career success but also provide the experience to address problems facing the industry and the world.”

The TI Maker Space will offer a dedicated, project-based lab area for undergraduate courses that cover subjects such as embedded systems, analog devices and communications, as well as senior design projects. The company will conduct annual reviews to ensure equipment is current, fully leveraged and meeting the needs of students and faculty.

“We are very excited to be a part of what is happening at Georgia Tech, and have benefited greatly through the years by engaging its faculty and students,” said Steve Lyle, TI’s director of Engineering Workforce Development and University Marketing programs. “We are hopeful that these spaces will inspire generations of engineers and computer scientists to create innovations that will change the world.”

For more than 80 years, innovation has been a thread that runs through everything TI develops, and its semiconductor innovations are unlocking the possibilities for a smarter, safer, greener, healthier and more enjoyable world. The company works with universities worldwide to advance electrical engineering education and research focused on building a brighter future for everyone.  For more information about TI, visit www.ti.com.

Dr. Christian’s visit kicked off at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) with a briefing on various research initiatives in a meeting led by Dr. Stephen Cross, Georgia Tech Executive Vice President for Research and GTRI Director.

“We are proud of our alumnus, Dr. Thomas Christian, for the many important civilian leadership positions he has held in the United States Air Force, including since November 2014 as the Director of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research," said Cross.  “Tom's infectious enthusiasm for high quality scientific and technological pursuit coupled with innovative exploration to translate research results into use is inspirational. We appreciated the time he took to visit us, especially the time he spent with our young investigators.”

Dr. Christian then made several stops around campus, including the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnologies, the Manufacturing Institute, and the Institute for Materials. The two-day visit also included a briefing with the Georgia Tech School of Aerospace Engineering, led by school chair Dr. Vigor Yang. Dr. Christian received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the GT Aerospace Engineering School in 1968, 1970, and 1974, respectively. To round out his visit to Georgia Tech, Dr. Christian joined several faculty and staff for a discussion on how to attract graduate students for post-doctorate work at AFOSR, led by Dr. Laurence Jacobs, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering.

Georgia Tech has a long history of supporting AFOSR and the Air Force’s overall mission. In 2014, AFOSR’s 60^th anniversary monograph highlighted two Georgia Tech projects: a technology development program on active flow control concepts for future improvements to the C-17’s propulsion system (1988-1995, led by mechanical engineering professor Dr. Ari Glezer), and the development of an environmentally friendly aluminum and ice propelled rocket (2007-2009, collaborative team included aerospace engineering school chair Dr. Vigor Yang). In the last state fiscal year (July 2013 to June 2014), Georgia Tech has conducted more than $206 million of work for the United States Air Force and has won nearly $11 million in contracts from AFOSR since July 2013.

Much of Dr. Christian’s early career was spent in Warner Robins, Ga. In March 2013, he was named associate deputy Assistant Secretary (Science, Technology and Engineering), Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, at the Pentagon. In November 2014, he was appointed to the director’s position of the AFOSR. For more information about Dr. Christian or AFOSR, please visit www.afosr.af.mil.

Invented by computer science major Alex Roe, mechanical engineering major Scott Shroer, and business administration major Will Sweet, FlameTech is a safety device for gas grills. The team won $20,000, and both the first- and second-place finishers will receive free US patent filings by Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing and a spot in Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator program, Flashpoint.

“It is really great because we worked so hard and we scraped money together. Now, this give us a little more to go out and manufacture, print circuit boards and things,” said Will Street. “It lends a lot of credibility to our product as well.”

The OculoStaple is a medical device to safely treat ptosis, drooping of the upper eyelid. The medical device was created by biomedical engineering majors Jacquelyn Borinski, Mohamad Ali Najia and Drew Padilla, who also won $10,000 in prize money.

Haplit, an interactive device for teaching Braille to those who were born blind or are living with degenerative disease, was created by Philip Bale, a computer science major; Megan Fechter, a business administration major; and Chandler Matz, a computer engineering major. The People’s Choice award received $5,000 in prize money.

More information about InVenture Prize, Georgia Tech's student invention competition.

The Energy Innovation Center – which will be located in Tech Square – will look for better, more reliable and more efficient ways to increase value for customers through products and services.

“The Energy Innovation Center is a concrete example of Southern Company’s decades-long commitment to harnessing the power of innovation for the benefit of the families our utilities serve,” said Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO Thomas A. Fanning. “We look forward to collaborating with Georgia Tech and other strategic partners to develop the next generation of energy technologies and customer-focused programs.”

The center will become a place where ideas, innovation and investment will intersect to develop a better customer experience.

“Southern Company and Georgia Tech have collaborated in numerous areas through the years, and now we are delighted to welcome them to Technology Square,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.

“As the most recent addition, Southern Company’s presence in Tech Square will continue the growing momentum of the Southeast’s premier innovation ecosystem,” he said.  “We look forward to increased opportunities to partner as they pursue customer-focused energy innovation.”

The company joins a number of corporate giants that have come to Georgia Tech to create innovation and research centers. Others include: AT&T Mobility, Home Depot, Panasonic Automotive Systems Co. and ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas.

As part of the award announcement on March 31, Jay Williams, the assistant secretary of commerce for economic development, visited the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI²), Tech’s chief economic development and business outreach unit.

He toured and met with several startup companies incubating at the Advanced Technology Development Center, one of EI²’s economic development programs. Williams also met with Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.

The i6 Challenge is a national competition that seeks to fund small, but targeted high-impact initiatives that support startup creation, innovation, and commercialization.

The award, which Georgia Tech is matching with an additional $517,787, will be used to provide education, support, and programs to develop the entrepreneurial community in Georgia in the three communities.

It will be administered through EI².

Specifically, the award will:

• Further the development of startup ecosystems in Athens and Augusta, both located in economically distressed counties.
• Serve as a catalyst for the growth of two university-anchored startup ecosystems in downtown Atlanta.

“What’s exciting about this grant is that it really is about partnerships — the cross-community and multi-university partnerships we have in Atlanta, Athens, and Augusta,” EI² Vice President Stephen Fleming said.

In Augusta, Tech will be working with the Clubhou.se, a technology-oriented, non-profit business and community incubator. In Athens, Tech has partnered with Four Athens, that community’s technology incubator.

In Atlanta, Tech is collaborating with Georgia State and Clark Atlanta universities, Morehouse College, the Morehouse School of Medicine, and Spelman College to develop entrepreneurship programs that support their unique visions.

Lucror Resources, an Atlanta-based developer, is partnering with Tech in the development of an entrepreneurial hub in downtown Atlanta’s Flatiron building that will include the city’s Women’s Entrepreneur Initiative.

By Péralte C. Paul

For more information and to register, visit https://www.uschamber.com/event/georgia-2015-cybersecurity-summit.

Gunter teamed up with two friends and together they invented Watto Motto, a device that detects when water is about to overflow a bathtub or sink and sounds an alarm as an alert.

They designed multiple prototypes. They interviewed potential customers and researched market needs. They followed steps used by many Georgia Tech student inventors.

But they’re not students at Tech. They’re fifth-graders at Due West Elementary in Marietta.

Due West is one of four elementary schools participating in this year’s InVenture Challenge. The program started in 2012 to expose more students to engineering and entrepreneurship.

An extension of the annual InVenture Prize for Georgia Tech undergraduates, the InVenture Challenge encourages K-12 students to identify problems and test solutions.

“It was complicated but really a lot of fun,” Gunter said. “We weren’t sure it was going to work and we were scared it would break, but when it worked we starting jumping because we really thought we were going to mess it up. “

Top teams from each of the 11 elementary, middle and high schools participating in the challenge will exhibit their work on campus April 1.

Students participating in the challenge work collaboratively and make the designs themselves, which allows learning to occur naturally, said Roxanne Moore, a research engineer with Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) who helps run the program.

This is the first year elementary schools participated. Nancy Ernstes, a gifted teacher at Cheatham Hill Elementary, wanted her students to take part after seeing the success her daughter’s roommate had with the 2014 InVenture Prize. The roommate, Rachel Ford, won second-place as a member of team Succette, which created smarter baby pacifiers.

The InVenture Challenge encourages students to take risks and learn from their mistakes, said Ernstes.

“It has made them understand that engineering is really at their level and they can develop ideas and push themselves in that way,“ she said.

The students tackled problems big and small.

“No one wants melted ice cream,” said Fernando Kirkconnell.

To prevent that, the fifth-grader from Cheatham Hill Elementary helped create Cold To Go, a plastic device that will keep ice cream cold and fresh.

The three-member team designed a double-walled plastic cup, filled with a mix of rubbing alcohol and water that people can freeze. Ice cream scooped into the cup and left on a kitchen counter stayed solid for more than two hours, the students said.

The container fits in car cup holders, making it perfect for to-go orders.

“We think we can market this to stores that can put their logos on it and sell it to their customers,” said Hayden Miller, another member of Cold To Go. “But for now we’re just kids.” 

Worldpay will fully fund a new Financial Technology accelerator at ATDC for the next three years, which will include hiring a FinTech expert to serve as an entrepreneur-in-residence to mentor startups. Worldpay executives are also mentoring entrepreneurs at the center, providing both payments expertise and Worldpay’s global resources to support companies within the new program.

“As the leaders in modern money, Worldpay is creating new payments experiences for software and applications that business owners use to run their businesses smarter across all channels,” said Worldpay US President and CEO Tony Catalfano. “To sustain our competitive advantage, we must continue to innovate and attract top talent, both key drivers behind this groundbreaking partnership.”

“The ATDC has empowered scores of entrepreneurs to grow their ideas into successful companies,” added Catalfano, who also serves as the board chairman of the American Transaction Processors Coalition. “Our commitment is about investing in the smartest, most-creative innovators so the next generation of financial technology will be built right here in Georgia.”

“We are always focused on bringing businesses to our state, but we also want to encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs to build their businesses right here in Georgia,” said Georgia Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle. “This is a groundbreaking public-private partnership that will create jobs and help secure Georgia’s place as the country’s leader in financial technology for another generation. I congratulate Georgia Tech and Worldpay on this collaboration and look forward to seeing the results.”

The announced partnership underscores Georgia Tech’s statewide economic development mission.

“This gift from Worldpay will enhance the innovation ecosystem that is rapidly developing in Tech Square,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “We are fulfilling our mission to create new products that will foster new companies and job opportunities for all of Georgia.”

As a statewide startup incubator, ATDC is always looking at the technologies that are of interest to entrepreneurs in Georgia, said ATDC Director Stephen Fleming.

“Financial technology is important for us and the state because it’s a sector where Georgia is a leader,” added Fleming. “ATDC will use Worldpay’s gift and executive mentorship to ensure that Georgia stays at the cutting edge of FinTech.”

More than 70 percent of all U.S. payments are processed in Georgia’s “Transaction Alley,” according to the American Transaction Processors Coalition. More than 60 percent of the industry’s companies are based in metro Atlanta, supporting more than 40,000 jobs in the state.

Tuesday’s announcement comes on the heels of Worldpay’s announced relocation of its U.S. headquarters to Midtown Atlanta this year. The company will invest more than $10 million to move more than 600 employees to the city and add an additional 600 workers over the next four years.

About Worldpay

Worldpay is a leading global payments technology and services company, which allows merchants to accept payments anywhere in the world, across any channel. Headquartered in London and operating in over 30 countries, the company offers services across the entire payments value chain, including transaction capturing, merchant acquiring and transaction processing.

In 2014, the business processed a total of 10.7 billion transactions with a value of more than half a trillion dollars, making it one of the largest payments companies in the world. The company employs over 4,700 people in markets throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Worldpay US is headquartered in Georgia, and recently announced it will move its headquarters to Midtown Atlanta this year.

Worldpay is owned by private equity firms Advent International and Bain Capital alongside management and employees. For additional information, visit Worldpay.com.

About Georgia Tech

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the world’s premier research universities. Georgia Tech is a national and international leader in scientific and technological research and education and is the nation’s leading producer of engineers as well as a leading producer of female and minority engineering Ph.D. graduates. Ranked among the top public universities by U.S. News & World Report, the Institute enrolls more than 23,000 students within its six colleges. For additional information, visit www.gatech.edu.

About the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC)

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) is one of the oldest and largest university-based startup incubators in the country. ATDC, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, has graduated about 150 companies from its program. ATDC is a unit of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech’s chief economic development arm. For additional information, visit www.atdc.org.

Their inventions include a surgical device to correct drooping eyelids, an interactive tool to learn Braille and a way to make the perfect cup of coffee.

The InVenture Prize competition is designed to encourage and support undergraduate students’ interest in invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. More than 500 students signed up for this year’s contest.

"Once again we were impressed with what Georgia Tech students invent to solve some of the problems facing society," said Chris Reaves, director of Undergraduate Research and Student Innovation, and one of InVenture’s organizers. "InVenture is part of the changing culture at Georgia Tech where our students are becoming entrepreneurs.” 

This year’s finalists are:

Eqip: Eqip is a website marketplace that allows musicians to experiment with expensive audio tools before committing to a purchase. Team members are Shehmeer Jiwani and Adam Szaruga, both computer science majors.

Flame Tech Grill Defender: Flame Tech is a safety device for gas grills that alerts users when gas levels become dangerous. Team members are Alex Roe, a computer science major; Scott Schroer, a mechanical engineering major; and Will Sweet, a business administration major.

Haplit: Haplit is an interactive device for teaching Braille to those who were born blind or are living with degenerative diseases. Team members are Philip Bale, a computer science major; Megan Fechter, a business administration major; and Chandler Matz, a computer engineering major.

OculoStaple: The OculoStaple is a medical device to safely treat ptosis, drooping of the upper eyelid. The team members — Jacquelyn Borinski, Mohamad Ali Najia and Drew Padilla — are all biomedical engineering majors.

QuantaBrew: The QuantaBrew is an airtight container that dispenses a set amount of coffee grounds each pour, simplifying the process of making coffee every morning. The inventor is Jack Breen, a mechanical engineering major.

Shortweb: Shortweb aims to improve the way we access information on the Internet by allowing people to highlight and save text on any webpage and share that information with others. Team members are Ricardo De Andrade, who is majoring in industrial engineering and computer science; and Miguel Oller, a mechanical engineering major.

The winning team earns $20,000 and the second-place team receives $10,000.

Both the first- and second-place finishers will receive free US patent filings by Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing and a spot in Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator program, Flashpoint.

A $5,000 People’s Choice Award will go to the fans’ favorite invention. Voting will be by text messaging during the finale.

The finale will take place April 1 at the Ferst Center for the Arts on campus. Tickets are free and can be requested here.

The event will also be aired on Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Venue and Security

• Doors to McCamish Pavilion will open at approximately 10:30 a.m.
• Ticketed guests will be able to access McCamish at the venue’s main entrance, located at 10th and Fowler.
• All guests will be subject to security screening. It is requested that guests avoid bringing backpacks to the event if possible. This will help expedite the screening process.
• No umbrellas will be permitted in the facility.
• Guests should expect to stand in line for extended periods of time in an outdoor location while waiting to go through event security. Since umbrellas are not permitted in the venue, guests should plan on having to wait in potential inclement weather situations.

As a result of this law, there are now tighter timeframes and increased responsibility for award recipients. This means administrative reports will have to be submitted more quickly and often with a greater level of documentation.

“If you perform government-funded research, financial performance and technical performance are linked in the minds of the agencies,” said Jilda Garton, vice president for research and general manager of Georgia Tech Research Corporation. “The idea that you can perform the research now and catch up on the paperwork later is something we will have to be more careful about.”

The Uniform Requirements were developed in response to a directive from President Barack Obama to streamline guidance and increase accountability for federal grants. The Council on Financial Assets Reform (COFAR) took eight sets of existing regulations and collapsed them into one set, published in December 2013. As the new set of regulations was being developed, Georgia Tech and all others affected by the proposed changes were invited to provide comments and suggestions.

In addition to tightening the reporting timeframe, the government also is interested in seeing the award recipients’ internal control processes and will require a higher documentation standard for purchasing. For example, purchasing materials or supplies that cost more than $3,000 will require getting two quotes and choosing the less expensive option, or ensuring a valid reason for not choosing the less expensive option.

“Prior to this law, we didn’t require bids on anything under $10,000, but that has changed to $3,000,” said Garton. “Therefore, a lot more purchases will have to be documented.”

Because this change will require many university procurement systems to be updated, this purchasing requirement will not go into effect until July 1, 2016.

“The good news for Georgia Tech is that if you make purchases through Buzzmart there is already a competitive process, so you won’t have to provide additional documentation,” Garton said.

From ‘Should’ to ‘Must’

Garton noted that many rules that used to be “good practices” under the old regulations are now requirements. The word “should” has changed to “must,” and her office counted 823 “musts” in the new document.

But, award recipients will not receive additional funding to help them comply with the Uniform Requirements. Some may view this as another administrative burden.

“How can we do more with the same amount of funding is the trick,” Garton said. “Our interdisciplinary taskforce and department administrators from the College of Engineering, the College of Sciences, the College of Architecture, the College of Computing, and GTRI have been working on this since April. They have been part of the process because they will get the operational responsibility. We are doing our very best to make these changes as modest as possible, to automate systems wherever we can, and to bring everything into compliance.”

The plan is to streamline the research administration process and create an electronic pathway to make it easier for faculty to do what they need to do and get the documentation required.

“We are trying to give them better tools, easier access, faster ways to do things, and improve the information they have to manage,” Garton said.

All faculty members already have access to My Research Portal, an online system that provides customized access to every system they will need for research administration.

“If we do it right, this will be a win for the government and a win for us, too,” said Garton. “We will be able to give our faculty a better handle on what’s happening with their grants in real time. They will have better capacity to manage their grants. That helps them as much as it helps us.” 

“Among our top priorities this year is securing $1.9 million to expand our startup incubator, ATDC,” said vice president Dene Sheheane. “This funding would enable us to build out existing space and staff to support new companies in clean energy, nanotechnology and advanced computing. By capitalizing on strong momentum and expertise in entrepreneurship at Tech, we would be helping create more companies and more jobs in Georgia.”

In addition, Sheheane and his colleagues will also advocate for the following initiatives:

• Secure $5 million for the modernization and expansion of the Holland Plant. This upgrade would provide additional capacity to provide air conditioning to 75 of Tech’s 200 buildings on campus, including the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons, the Campus Recreation Center, as well as several residence halls and academic buildings.
• Strengthen support for Georgia Tech “B-Units.” The “B” budget supports non-academic economic development programs. This funding maintains our ability to leverage state funds and attract significant external funding through the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) and Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI).

Together with the University System of Georgia, the Georgia Tech team will also work to secure important budgetary items:

• $44.4 million in new Formula Funds to be shared among all University System of Georgia institutions. Funding supports critical day-to-day operations and is essential to maintaining academic quality.
• $60 million in Major Repair and Rehabilitation Funds to repair aging facilities across the System. Georgia Tech’s allocation will be directed toward more than $100 million in deferred maintenance needs.

“Georgia Tech has consistently benefitted from strong support from the state,” said Sheheane. “Last year we received planning funds for the renewal of the Georgia Tech Library, which will be moving forward over the next year.

“We are fortunate that Georgia has the seventh highest appropriation for higher education in the nation,” he added.

To demonstrate their appreciation for ongoing support from state lawmakers, the Georgia Tech community will convene at the State Capitol for the annual Georgia Tech Student Day at the Capitol on January 13, the second day of the 2015 session. Learn more about Student Day at the Capitol >

During the legislative session, the Office of Government and Community Relations also engages external partners in sharing Tech’s story. Members of the Capitol Jackets advocacy network, which includes alumni and partners on campus, receive a biweekly newsletter with updates. Learn more about Capitol Jackets >   

The Home Depot Technology Center, located at Tech Square, creates an innovation partnership between Tech and the world’s largest home improvement retailer.

That partnership lets Atlanta-based Home Depot tap into Tech’s research expertise, and more critically, the deep talent pool of students.

Home Depot and Tech students will collaborate on new ideas and strategic initiatives for the company.

“I cannot tell you what a great opportunity this is for us to be working with some of the best young minds here at Georgia Tech,” said Matt Carey, Home Depot’s chief information officer. “Georgia Tech provides us with a unique opportunity to get fresh, innovative ideas and forward, out-of-the-box thinking from students who will be shaping and developing our world of the future.”

For students such as Preston Turner, a third-year computer science major, the Home Depot Technology Center provides an opportunity to foster innovative ideas. It also gives him a chance to take an entrepreneurial approach in a real-world setting by working with a Fortune 50 company.

“Home Depot is smart enough to realize that we have one of the best colleges in the nation sitting right here, full of a ton of bright minds getting one of the best educations out there,” Turner said. “Having us here and paying us for the work that we do is really driving new technologies at Home Depot. There are so many innovative things at Georgia Tech — we can take that knowledge and bring it here to the technology center.”

It also helps fulfill part of Tech’s strategic vision to ensure that innovation and entrepreneurship become fundamental characteristics of every graduate.

“This partnership is about co-innovation to create new opportunities and to solve problems, which in turn helps establish enhanced market competitiveness,” said Stephen E. Cross, Tech’s executive vice president for research. “Our students will benefit tremendously as the partnership will provide valuable experiential learning opportunities in ongoing campus innovation venues such as Capstone Design and the Convergence Challenge in direct support of Home Depot’s Technology Center.”

Home Depot is only the latest major company to create a university-based research center at Tech Square, which the Association of University Research Parks named the 2014 Outstanding Research Park. The company joins a number of corporate juggernauts that have come to Tech Square — and Georgia Tech’s expertise — to create their own innovation and research centers. They include AT&T Mobility, Panasonic Automotive Systems Co., and ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas.

— By Péralte C. Paul

Harris introduced the legislation upon the urging of the owner of the Macon newspaper, John Fletcher Hanson.

Harris was a veteran of the Civil War, on the side of the South, having joined the fray when he was just 16 years old. After the war, he entered the University of Georgia. He graduated in 1870 and served an apprenticeship to practice law, a profession he began in 1873 in Macon. 

In those days, the General Assembly met in the Kimball Opera House, having officially moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta in 1870. Harris, newly elected to the House, raised the idea of a state-funded technical school.

A committee to investigate the concept was formed, and Harris was named chair. In 1883, the committee turned in its report, and the bill went up for a vote and failed. In 1884, the vote was closer, but the bill still failed. Harris persevered and, in 1885, the bill finally passed, and Nathaniel Harris became the “father of Georgia Tech.”

Harris would go on to have a brilliant career in Georgia politics and is credited with the following quote: “The founding of the Georgia School of Technology I regard as the most important event of a public nature that occurred in my life.”

Learn more about Georgia Tech’s history at livinghistory.gatech.edu. 

This event is organized by the Student Government Association, with support from the office of Government and Community Relations. It is an opportunity for students to get a first-hand look at state government during the legislative session. Students volunteer to attend through the Student Government Association and will ride a bus to the Capitol for our sixth Georgia Tech Student Day. It is attended by students and legislators with an affiliation with Georgia Tech together with Georgia Tech alumni and friends who work in and around the Capitol. 

HOW IT WORKS

Offered each semester, students work full-time in offices in and around Washington, D.C., for 10 weeks in the summer or 16 weeks in the spring and fall. Once selected, students team up with Georgia Tech staff to find a full time internship with members of Congress, Congressional Committees, or executive branch offices that match your strengths and interests.

The opportunity includes a $5,000 stipend in the summer or a $7,500 stipend in the spring and fall to cover expenses (housing, transportation, and living expenses). This program is open to both undergraduate and graduate students of all majors. International students are eligible to apply for the Georgia Tech D.C. Internship Program; however, some federal offices only accept internship applications from citizens of the United States.

Both President Obama and Commerce Secretary Pritzker are scheduled to attend the out-brief from the AMP Steering Committee today in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, and Georgia Tech Provost Rafael Bras will represent Georgia Tech. 

“The Georgia Tech community should be proud of the role that our team played in influencing this important report,” said Georgia Tech President Peterson. “Manufacturing has been central to Georgia Tech’s mission since its founding and we’re honored to add our collective experience and expertise to help grow the manufacturing economy in our country.”  

Building upon the report, Obama announced today a series of executive actions to strengthen U.S. advanced manufacturing, including a $300 million investment in the emerging technologies of advanced materials including composites and bio-based materials, advanced sensors for manufacturing and digital manufacturing.  Read about the multi-agency and private sector effort > 

Following the White House meeting, Georgia Tech researchers are invited panelists at a briefing hosted by the Innovation Policy Forum of The National Academies to discuss the report’s recommendations for enabling innovation, securing the talent pipeline and improving the business climate for manufacturing. Georgia Tech’s Tom Kurfess, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, will address the report’s findings for enabling innovation, specifically on developing technologies to build a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). Jennifer Clark, Director of the Center for Urban Innovation at Georgia Tech, will speak on Improving the Business Climate and recommendations related to Scale-up Policy. The U.S. has been the leading producer of manufactured goods for more than 100 years, but strengths in manufacturing innovation and technologies that have sustained American leadership in manufacturing are under threat from new and growing competition abroad.

The AMP 2.0 report identifies the role of the Executive Office of the President in coordinating the federal government’s advanced manufacturing activities and defines responsibilities for Federal agencies and other Federal bodies in implementation.

“From our evolving research partnerships with major international manufacturers and our federal government partners to assisting small manufacturers and providing a consistent pipeline of well-trained talent from our student body, Georgia Tech continues to impact the direction of manufacturing in our country,” said Ben Wang, the Executive Director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute and Chief Manufacturing Officer. “We are proud to take a leadership role through the President’s AMP initiative and we will continue to work closely with our local, state and national partners to bolster manufacturing jobs and strengthen our competitiveness."

Johns has held this national leadership position since early 2013, when he was appointed by U.S. Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.

At the opening of the session, Johns discussed statistics and facts about the issue so attendees could ponder ways to move forward and solve the problem. He then led panelists in a conversation to share insights and experiences, and then opened it up to audience members for questions and discussion.

Georgia Tech panelists included:

• Maya Carrasquillo (student) – President of the National Society of Black Engineers - Georgia Tech Chapter
• Henderson Johnson (student) – Vice President of the National Society of Black Engineers - Georgia Tech Chapter
• Donna Whiting, Associate Director for Teacher Education Partnerships
• S. Gordon Moore, Jr., Executive Director for Student Diversity and Inclusion
• Kamau Bobb, Program Director at the National Science Foundation

The White House has asked colleges and universities to graduate an additional one million students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields in the next ten years. In order to successfully reach this goal, the number of Hispanics, African-Americans, and other underrepresented minorities in STEM majors must increase exponentially.

Georgia Tech continues to rise to the challenge by increasing the number of STEM graduates and focusing our efforts on improving affordability for all students, including Hispanics, African Americans, and other underrepresented groups. Georgia Tech is also committed to building the pipeline future students. Read more > 

The event included a parade and talent showcase, and a resources expo where groups offered information on substance abuse, health and nutrition, and public safety. 

The Westside Communities Alliance also joined the festivities. The Alliance is led by Georgia Tech Deans Royster and French, and is a collaboration between Atlanta’s westside communities and local institutes of higher education.

For the third-year in a row, computing professor Chris Le Dantec and students from the Participatory Publics Lab showcased the Community Historians project. The project is a collaboration with the Historic Westside Cultural Arts Council and connects individual cultural and historic experiences through a cross-media platform. The project supports local civic engagement and cultivates and documents a shared community identity.

The Festival is organized by the Historic Westside Cultural Arts Council.

The Westside Communities Alliance (WCA) Executive Leadership Team, Vice President of Campus Services Paul Strouts, and Professor Michael Schatz were selected from nearly 300 nominees at all 31 USG institutions. 

The awards are meant to recognize and reward employees for high levels of performance, highlight service projects and process improvements, and honor commitment to customer service excellence. 

Cultivating Community

The WCA team, which earned its place in the Team Award category, includes Chris Burke, director of community relations; Sheri Davis-Faulkner, director of the WCA; Mackenzie Madden, associate director of the WCA; and Jacqueline Royster, dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and WCA founder. The group was formed in 2011 with the vision of developing a partnership between Atlanta’s institutions of higher education and surrounding neighborhoods. 

Since its founding, the group has been influential in hosting community events and discussions, and bringing together people from the neighborhoods and campuses to work toward solutions to community issues. 

“We look forward to ever-evolving opportunities for action and success, both on the campus and in the Westside communities,” Royster said. “This nomination affirms our commitment and inspires our ongoing pursuit of excellence.”

Service-Centered Services

Strouts, who came to Tech in 2012 and was nominated in the Leadership Award category, oversees the suite of operations that includes Housing, Dining, Stamps Health Services, Business Services, Human Resources, Barnes and Noble at Georgia Tech, Student Center, and Parking and Transportation Services. 

“While it is trite and cliché, this is a team award,” Strouts said. “The Campus Services team is a dedicated group of professionals unmatched anywhere.”

In his time at Tech, Strouts has increased the frequency of meetings between his staff and students, including a monthly meeting he has with the undergraduate and graduate Student Government Association presidents, and he also started the Buzzin’ Back to School donation drive. 

Enhancing Education

Schatz, professor and associate chair for undergraduate education in the School of Physics, is a finalist in the Individual Award category. He heads up the School’s Pattern Formation and Control Lab, and last year began teaching one of the first massive open online courses (MOOCs) that includes a lab requirement. 

“Mike is an inspired, talented teacher with a real vision for improving physics education,” said Jennifer Curtis, associate professor in the School of Physics who led the effort to nominate Schatz.

In addition to having high school teachers enrolled in his MOOC, Schatz has also been involved with training teachers in Atlanta Public Schools and Fulton County Schools, and was part of a national workshop for teaching assistants in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.

“I’ve been at Tech 18 years, and, to this day, it’s been an exciting place that provides wonderful opportunities to work with very bright students and fantastic colleagues,” Schatz said. “Being selected as a finalist in recognition of our education contributions is, for my collaborators and myself, a very great honor.”

The finalists will be recognized in a ceremony at Kennesaw State University on Oct. 10, where they will learn whether they earned a gold, silver, or bronze level award.  

Learn about the innovation deficit on the Georgia Tech YouTube Channel >

Tools on the www.innovationdeficit.org website include an animated video, an infographic, and a number of charts, graphs, and other materials explaining the innovation deficit and the threat it poses to the nation’s economic future.

The innovation deficit is the widening gap between actual and needed federal investments in research and higher education at a time when other nations such as China, India, and Singapore are dramatically boosting research funding to develop the next great technological and medical breakthroughs to power their economies forward.

The campaign began one year ago today with an open letter to the President and Congress signed by more than 200 university presidents and chancellors, including Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, that described the innovation deficit and called on leaders to close it with investments in research and higher education.

Organizations leading the Close the Innovation Deficit effort said that their members would be speaking to Members of Congress in their districts and on Capitol Hill in the coming weeks.  They will urge lawmakers to place a high priority on investments in research in the FY15 appropriations process and, over the longer term, eliminate sequestration and deal with entitlements and tax reform to make possible the increased investments needed to close the innovation deficit.

In fact, manufacturing comprises 12 percent of Georgia's $454 billion economy and supports more than 486,000 jobs.

On Oct. 3, National Manufacturing Day, Georgia Tech will bring focus to four key issues facing the industry: the skilled labor shortage, a need to ensure the sector's continued economic vitality, polish its image, and make it attractive to future generations. As part of National Manufacturing Day, Tech and its business partners are showcasing Georgia's successes with plant tours, education roundtables, and symposiums across the state including:

• Power Partners in Athens
• Win-Tech in Kennesaw
• Newton College and Career Academy in Covington
• Evco Plastics in Calhoun
• Armstrong World Industries in Macon

(For a complete list of tours and symposiums across Georgia and registration information, please visit Georgia Tech's dedicated National Manufacturing Day page via this link.)

Tech, through three key business and economic development units, supports initiatives and leads state efforts to keep manufacturing a robust part of the economy:

• The Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP), a federally and state funded unit of Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute, works extensively with businesses across the state to reduce costs, increase productivity and revenue, incorporate best technological practices, and save or create jobs.
• The Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute leverages Tech's wealth of faculty research and expertise across the different fields that affect manufacturing, from management and engineering to robotics and policy.
• The Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMIC) partners with business, education groups, and local K-12 school districts throughout Georgia to ensure students' curriculum best prepares them in STEM -- science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The tours and other events highlight the sector's importance, says GaMEP Director Karen Fite. She notes Georgia ranks 11^th compared with other states in international exports and 84 percent of its exports come from manufacturing. What's more, employees in the manufacturing sector earn two to three times what retail employees make and roughly 30 percent higher than the Georgia average, Fite says.

According to Ben Wang, executive director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute, "Our ultimate goal is to engage all of our partners in understanding the major manufacturing challenges, leverage the expertise of Georgia Tech in addressing those challenges, and accelerate the process of getting products to market."

Tech's efforts underscore its longstanding role as a national leader in manufacturing, both in research and innovation, and in providing technical aid to small, medium and large manufacturers across Georgia and the Southeast. In 2012 President Barack Obama tapped Tech President G.P. "Bud" Peterson to serve on the steering committee for the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, charged with enhancing U.S. manufacturing's global competitiveness.

Fite says, "Although highlighted on Oct. 3 through this larger initiative, manufacturing is important to Georgia's economy every day and continues to remain an important focus of schools, the communities, and the state".

As part of the Department of Education's First in the World program, AMAC Accessibility Solutions & Research Center, a part of the College of Architecture, was recently awarded $3.8 million over four years to create the Center for Accessible Materials Innovation. This center, which will target students at minority serving institutions (MSIs), will expand access to digital content for students with disabilities, thereby improving their retention and graduation rates. Christopher Lee, director of AMAC, and Julie Ancis, associate vice president for Institute diversity will be the principal investigators.

The center will develop an informational application related to accessibility features of instructional materials and will produce and distribute accessible textbooks and assistive technology. In addition, researchers will examine the causes of under-utilization of accessible textbooks at MSIs and will develop a related Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).

The First in the World program is a new part of President Obama's initiative to drive innovation in higher education. Over 500 proposals were submitted, with 24 institutions being granted funding. For more information on the program, visit http://1.usa.gov/1ov0Qij.

This is obvious with the integral role Tech is playing with the city’s newest charter school, Centennial Academy (formerly Centennial Place Elementary School). Centennial Academy is practically on campus, located about 200 yards from Tech Tower. Tech is involved with every aspect of the school operation, which is particularly relevant as it evolves from a traditional K-5 school to a conversion charter middle school incorporating grades 6 to 8.

Highlights of Georgia Tech’s involvement with Atlanta Public Schools include:

INTERNSHIPS FOR APS STUDENTS

• Project ENGAGES employs 12 students from BEST Academy and Coretta Scott King Young Women's Leadership Academy in an intense, year-long research internship in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioscience and Bioengineering

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

• Georgia Intern Fellowships for Teachers (GIFT) provides hands on STEM experiences to teachers. Seven APS teachers from all three school levels are participating this summer.

INTERNSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS FOR GEORGIA TECH STUDENTS

• The pre-teaching internship program places students each year at Centennial Academy and Grady High School.
• Similarly, our graduate student teaching fellows are working at Maynard Jackson High School for this upcoming academic year. 

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION

• Through Race to the Top (RT3) funding, CEISMC and the Georgia State University School of Music have partnered with Drew Charter to create innovative STEAM curricula and expand pre-K-8 STEAM curricula to grades 9-12 for cradle-to-college pipeline. The team also is helping teachers incorporate design into their lesson planning. 

ENRICHMENT

• The I3 after school computing enrichment program draws students from Carver High School, Coretta Scott King Young Women’s Leadership Academy, Usher Park Elementary School, and Grove Park Elementary School. The program continues to grow, reaching additional schools.
• Georgia Tech administers one of five Horizons programs in Atlanta for summer remediation and enrichment. Horizons is a non-profit aimed at providing academic enrichment to children from lower income household in the city of Atlanta. The program emphasizes academics, arts, sports, and social growth.
• In addition to 75 summer STEM camps that offer financial aid as available, Georgia Tech offers the Saturday K.I.D.S. Club throughout the year for elementary age students and their parents. More than 125 students from APS enroll in our programs each year.

MENTORING AND TUTORING

• Last year, more than 50 Georgia Tech students served as tutors for Centennial Academy children through student volunteerism organization, MOVE.
• Formal and informal mentoring abounds between Georgia Tech and APS students. The AmeriCorps Pathways into STEM Program places volunteers at several APS schools for 8- or 10-month appointments, and the HTS 3008 Near Peer Mentoring course provides a semester long mentoring platform to explore major/career interests and navigate the college application process.
• Our Westside Communities Alliance collaborates with nonprofit organizations Raising Expectations and InGirls to provide tutoring and mentoring to Washington Cluster students.

 Stay tuned for more as we partner with APS in our surrounding communities.  

These tours are designed for President Peterson to discuss Georgia Tech’s impact across the state. They also provide a chance for him to hear concerns from community members across the region.

Over the course of the past five summer tours, the president has traveled more than 4,000 miles, visited more than 34 cities and nearly every one of Georgia’s 159 counties.

This year’s tour will include: Augusta, Sandersville, Dublin, Hawkinsville, Warner Robins, Perry and Griffin.

“We are extremely grateful to the Institute of Paper Chemistry Foundation for entrusting us with this generous gift,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “Through the Renewable Bioproducts Institute, we will maximize Georgia Tech’s and the state of Georgia’s strengths in sustainability and innovation to develop real-world applications as well as educate the next generation of leadership in the forest and bioproducts industry.”

The Institute of Paper Chemistry Foundation represents the legacy of the Institute of Paper Chemistry (IPC), founded in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1929 to provide scientific research and future leaders for the paper industry. IPC became the Institute of Paper Science and Technology (IPST) when it relocated to Atlanta in 1989. It subsequently merged with Georgia Tech in 2004. 

Last week, Georgia Tech announced that the Institute would be renamed the Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI) to reflect its expanding engagement with a broader range of biomaterials processing industries. Like the university’s other nine interdisciplinary research institutes representing Georgia Tech’s core research areas, RBI brings together a multidisciplinary capability to identify opportunities and address the complex challenges of its industry and government research partners.

“We believe the relaunching of the Institute as the Renewable Bioproducts Institute is a natural development in its evolution and an important advance in its progress,” said IPCF board chair George Lanier. “Georgia Tech is demonstrating its commitment to this industry, which is so important to Georgia and the nation. The industry’s emerging opportunities can be effectively developed there.”

All interdisciplinary research institutes at Georgia Tech are designed to facilitate research collaborations with industries and other partners to develop opportunities in strategic market areas, emphasizing economic development and applied technology. 

“We deeply appreciate the confidence IPCF has placed in us,” said RBI executive director Norman Marsolan, “and we will continue its legacy of growth in bioproducts research and industry leadership development. We are on the threshold of a new era of development of this renewable, sustainable natural resource, and we pledge our efforts to justify IPCF’s faith in us by contributing to the full realization of its potential.”    

The Renewable Bioproducts Institute benefits from a significant endowment originating with the Institute of Paper Chemistry. That endowment has contributed to the support of more than 1,500 graduate alumni through the years and currently supports more than 50 paper science and engineering students who advance the research mission of IPST/RBI through their faculty-directed research. RBI will continue to build on that legacy by working closely with industrial partners to foster an innovative, competitive and profitable bioproducts industry, while the endowment will continue to support graduate studies in paper science and engineering.

For more information on RBI, please visit http://www.news.gatech.edu/features/renewable-bioproducts-institute.

With many of the participants becoming the first in their families to attend college, special resources like professional graduation coaches and (?)access to contacts in the Georgia Student Finance Commission are important components of the program.

The event here on campus provides an immersive college campus experience. Although many of the participants live only miles from our campus, many have not had an opportunity to explore our campus or consider the possibility of studying at Georgia Tech.

Koros is currently the Roberto C. Goizueta Chair and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Membranes at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Koros joined the School of Chemical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2001. He has published over 350 articles and holds 14 US Patents in the areas of sorption and transport of small molecules in membranes, barrier materials and sorbents. His research has been recognized by the AIChE Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology in 1995 and the AIChE Separation Division Clarence Gerhold Award in 1999. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2000, and was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2002 and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003. In 2008, Koros received the Alan S. Michaels Award for Innovation in Membrane Science and Technology from the North American Membrane Society. He also received the William H. Walker Award for Excellence in Chemical Engineering Publications in 2010, and in 2011 he was selected as the 63rd AICHE Institute Lecturer. Professor Koros will be presenting “Nanotechnology-Enabled Expansion of the Boundaries on Large Scale Low Energy Intensity Separations,” on Tuesday, June 17th.

Kumar is a Professor with the School of Materials Science and Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India and obtained his post-doctoral experience in Polymer Science and Engineering under the tutelage of Professor R. S. Stein at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He conducted research as a foreign collaborator at C.E.N.G., Grenoble France. During 1984-89, he worked in the Polymer Branch at the Air Force Research Laboratory, WPAFB OH. He joined Georgia Institute of Technology in 1989. His current research and teaching interests are in the areas of structure, processing, and properties of polymers, fibers, and composites with a focus on carbon nanotubes and other nano materials. He has conducted fiber processing and structure-property studies on a broad range of polymers including synthetic and natural polymers, as well as carbon fibers. Kumar will present “Developments in and Potential of Polymer Nanocomposites,” on Wednesday, June the 18^th.

TechConnect World 2014 will be held at the Gaylord Convention Center from June the 15^th through the 18^th. For abstract information, click the title links in the above article. For more information and registration, please follow this link to the TechConnect World website.

Ten of the 40 companies are either graduates or current members of the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Georgia Tech’s incubator for technology companies. Nine companies, including two of the ATDC firms, are headed by Georgia Tech alumni. Other companies have connections through a student founder, faculty advisor or research collaboration.

The ATDC graduates are Accelarad, Emcien Corporation, Innovolt, MessageGears and Patientco. Current ATDC companies include Azalea Health, Rigor, Sensiotec, SoftWear Automation and Springbot. The “Top 40 Innovative Technology” companies showcased their products and services at the TAG Georgia Technology Summit held in March at the Cobb Galleria Center.

“Through the accomplishments of alumni entrepreneurs, the assistance of ATDC and other connections, Georgia Tech is contributing to the state’s economy through the development of innovative technology companies,” said Stephen Fleming, Georgia Tech vice president and executive director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute which oversees the ATDC. “The companies selected by TAG demonstrate the broad-based impact Georgia Tech has on the state’s technology community.”

The 40 companies chosen for the honor were selected from among 120 applications submitted by companies from across Georgia.

“The 2014 Top 40 finalists are an elite group of innovators who represent the very best of Georgia’s technology community,” Tino Mantella, president and CEO of TAG, said in the organization’s news release on the companies. “The 2014 Top 40 finalists are shining examples of what makes our state such a hotbed for technology, and we applaud them for standing out as leaders in Georgia’s technology community.”

In addition to the ATDC incubator, Georgia Tech also operates the VentureLab program to help researchers spin off companies from the Institute’s research program. Other efforts aimed at startup companies include Flashpoint, an accelerator for technology companies, and the NSF I-Corps program, which helps faculty develop companies from research funded by the National Science Foundation.

The complete list of innovative companies is available on the TAG website. http://www.tagonline.org/news-press/tag-names-top-40-innovative-technology-companies-in-georgia-march/

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