TechAlert - April 2008
Welcome to the April 2008 edition of TechAlert, the bi-monthly newsletter of the Illinois Technology Development Alliance. Our issues feature articles of great interest to entrepreneurs; to investors interested in leading-edge, high-technology opportunities, and to established companies looking for innovative solutions to pressing business needs.
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ARTICLES
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President's Corner
As I conclude my first quarter as ITDA president, I want to express my appreciation to the ITDA staff, our Board of Directors, and especially to our clients and partners for helping make this transition such a smooth one for our organization and for me personally.
During the previous 16 months as interim president, I have been very operationally focused. My priorities were to continue our current programs and services and to ensure that the organization operated cohesively during a change in leadership. Now it is time to shift focus from operations to setting the direction and strategy for the ITDA.
Our goal is to educate technology entrepreneurs as a means to developing the entrepreneurial community and economy in this state. We want to help Illinois, and by extension the entire Midwest, to become the place where entrepreneurs choose to build their businesses; where investors choose to invest their capital, and where better paying jobs are created and sustained by a vibrant high technology economy.
As we shape our longer-term strategy, a key priority for the ITDA is to strengthen our ties and cooperation with other organizations in the community that share our mission of providing support to the entrepreneur. I have already begun to meet one-on-one with the leaders of those organizations to discuss ways that we can more pro-actively cooperate to leverage each other’s talents and programs.
Together we can avoid duplication and build a much stronger portfolio of programs and services to serve the entrepreneurial community than any one organization can do individually.
Every organization has its core competency. At the ITDA, we understand the path to commercialization and have deep expertise in working with the federal government. We are well-respected by NASA and the DoD when it comes to matching agency requirements with innovative technologies from Midwestern entrepreneurs.
We focus exclusively on helping technology-based companies, regardless of industry, commercialize their technologies. From business planning to investor presentation to capital raising, this is the niche we want to continue to serve because we believe it represents the future of this region’s economy.
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Santec Systems, Inc.: Innovating Ultrasonic Inspection Processes
Santec Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Wheeling, IL has developed a unique, ultrasonic imaging technology that offers high resolution and is simpler, faster, and more economical than alternatives in the marketplace today. Last year SSI received a $100,000 competitive award from the NASA Illinois Commercialization Center (NICC) to continue commercialization projects.
“The award moved us in really nice directions,” says Jaswinder S. Sandhu, CEO of SSI. “We made improvements to our core technology and introduced a new product, a probe scope designed for ultra-sound field mapping that is being sold today. We also are looking at the possibility of applying our imaging to breast cancer detection.”
Mammography is the state of the art for screening breast cancer, but Sandhu says that up to about 20 percent of cancer can be missed by mammograms. Moreover, up to 20 percent of the results can be false-positive, which may subject a woman to tremendous stress during the time of additional testing.
“If at the time you do a mammogram, you can also take a mammography-like ultrasound breast image that can detect missed cancers and provide additional information that can help rule out false-positives, it would be a major advancement in the state of the art. I believe our technology has the potential to fulfill this goal,” Sandhu says.
“We are working on an experimental device to begin testing the technology,” he adds. “More than a million breast biopsies are performed in the US every year, and about 80 percent of those are benign.”
In another area of opportunity, SSI is working to finalize an agreement with Boeing for a unit to carry out an industrial, non-destructive testing (NDT) application of SSI’s imaging technology. SSI has developed an ultrasonic inspection tool that provides a fast and cost-effective inspection of spacecraft components, horizontal and vertical stabilizers, ailerons, and helicopter blades to insure their integrity during manufacturing.
“Boeing sets so many of the testing specifications for the aerospace industry that this is a milestone that can open up many opportunities with Boeing subcontractors,” Sandhu says.
SSI holds several patents on their technology and is in the process of filing several more to strengthen further their intellectual property.
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Entrepreneur Briefcase Lite: Effective Writing for Entreprenuers
By Michael Eastwood and Millie Rey
The Center for Effective Writing, Chicago
Entrepreneurs who have invented a ground-breaking technology or a startling innovative product know that clearly expressing what the company does is critical to raising capital and signing up customers. Yet they are often unable to express what they know so that a non-expert will really grasp their value.
Just like with any other craft, there are basic techniques and repeatable processes to business writing that can help entrepreneurial teams express a clear and consistent message tuned to the ears of the company’s multiple audiences.
Good text grows from sweat and interaction, not isolation.
Creating a text comes from writing multiple drafts and gaining lots of feedback. Writing a text on your own without feedback is less efficient and will probably not meet the needs of your audience.
Believe it or not, the back and forth of writing and talking or talking and writing is the most efficient way to produce an effective text. However, when time and unfamiliarity are concerns, trained writing coaches can get you through the process more quickly.
They are trained to listen well, keep the needs of the reader in mind and they know how to structure a text. Writing consultants pair those skills with their status as outsiders-who-skillfully-question-the-ordinary to help entrepreneurs see their message objectively.
It doesn’t matter whether you are writing a business plan, an investor relations package, a PowerPoint™ presentation, a biography, or translating poetry, the secret is to imagine what each reader would need to understand from what you are writing about. Then write accordingly.
Read more about to how to effectively express the benefits of the products and services of your company in the most recent Entrepreneur Briefcase article.
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UPONUS Technologies Receives Notice of Allowance from US Patent Office for Encryption Patent Application
The US Patent and Trademark Office has issued UPONUS Technologies, LLC, a Chicago-area technology company, a Notice of Allowance for its encryption patent application. The patent covers technology and algorithms that are the key components of UPONUS’ SASE™ encryption engine. SASE™ (pronounced “sassy”) stands for Safe and Secure Encryption. UPONUS expects that this patent will be issued by the end of second quarter.
SASE™ can operate on a stand-alone basis to protect files, archives, and communications. It can also operate with UPONUS’ proprietary compression engine called WAKit™ for on-the-fly encryption and/or compression of streaming data with no perceptible latency.
“As one of the ITDA’s initial Commercialization Award recipients, UPONUS did everything they said they were going to do,” says ITDA President John Noel. “They hit every milestone and demonstrated a product that is ready for the next step of commercialization. This patent is another strong indication that UPONUS is well on their way proving the power and uniqueness of their SASE™ encryption technology.”
UPONUS markets its applications where its encryption and lossless compression technologies can meet needs unmet by existing technologies. These include communication applications for the Department of Defense (DoD), such as the encryption and/or compression of data, or images that are collected by a variety of devices including sensors, computers, satellites, aircraft, or video surveillance, and two-way communications of all types including voice communication.
UPONUS builds technologies that are versatile and highly adaptable to both the type of data that is to be transmitted as well and the application requirements of an end-user. For example, both SASE™ and WAKit™ can be run as a software or hardware application. Depending on the speed needed for an application both solutions are built to allow serial, parallel, or multi-processing.
The SASE™ and WAKit™ engines are small and not resource-intensive. Either or both may be embedded in a mobile phone or a PDA, such as a BlackBerry, to allow the secure transmission of any data or data stream, including voice, video surveillance, and image data, as well as the compressed transmission of previously uncompressed data of any kind.
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45 Minutes With: Strategies for Implementing International Business
Although it may sound a bit counter-intuitive, the first step for entrepreneurs who are considering taking their business overseas is to be certain they understand what their company does at home.
“It is an absolute requirement to reflect on what your business is about,” says Fabrice Bonvoisin, president of FB International LLC, a Chicago-based consulting firm specializing in international business development and marketing services throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. “What do you sell? How do you sell it, and who do you sell it to?”
Bonvoisin, a hands-on multilingual executive with strong experience in management, international business development, and import/export, led the March session of the ITDA’s popular 45 Minutes With … series.
“Before a company expands abroad,” Bonvoisin says, “it is important to reach a level of sales that validates your product in the markets that you serve at home. In general, the vision of expanding overseas is realistic; it is the timing that has to be worked out.”
Entrepreneurs who participated in the 45 Minutes With … event represented businesses that were at various stages of growth; all recognized a strong opportunity in expanding internationally.
“The participants had a genuine interest in doing business overseas,” Bonvoisin says. “Their questions were in line with the status of their company’s organization which ranged from a firm that is already doing business beyond the US and had questions about patents to a company that had a product but had not done enough in the US market yet to prove themselves to potential buyers from overseas.”
Applied Thin Films, Inc. (ATFI) in Evanston, IL, an advanced materials company developing thin film technologies to serve defense, energy, aerospace, and other industrial needs, is already doing business internationally. The company’s flagship chemical, Cerablack™, which can coat metal, ceramic, glass, or tile, is targeted for multiple uses in multiple applications.
“We already are international with active clients in Europe with customer opportunities across broad industrial sectors,” says Sankar Sambasivn, ATFI president and client of ITDA. “We came to the session to get feedback on how and when to make commercial agreements, particularly licensing; how to figure out alliances to outsource chemical production in Europe, and how to pursue intellectual property overseas.”
HexiSTOR Data Protection Services, LLC of Chicago, IL, another ITDA client is at the threshold of expanding overseas. The company provides automated backups, offsite storage, data recovery, and long-term data archiving to the real estate, hospitality, and financial services industries.
“I came to talk about rolling out our back-up services overseas, specifically to Ireland and other English-speaking countries,” says Dick Mulvihill, co-founder of HexiSTOR. The company recognizes the importance of in-country contacts and expertise and already partners with companies that have a major global presence.
“Many of our clients are local Chicago-based companies,” Mulvihill says. “We deliver our services through the Internet which gives us a global presence based on our clients’ customer base. One of our major clients is a global, premier luxury hotel and resort operator. Through our Internet-based solutions, we already provide them back-up and recovery services throughout the world.”
HexiSTOR has Spanish-speaking employees who are advancing the company’s services to the Caribbean, South American, and other Spanish speaking countries. Additionally the company has been in discussions with potential service partners from Ireland for about a year.
Because of the company’s innovative application of technology, HexiSTOR’s cost for delivering data to their secure site data centers is the same whether that date moves from another location in Illinois, or from Paris, Mexico City, or Cork. One idea that Mulvihill took from the 45 Minutes With … session was using the influential Chamber of Commerce-like organizations in France to reach local markets there.
“Right now the economics of the exchange rate of the dollar to Euro makes it a compelling argument to roll out our service to partners in France and Ireland,” Mulvihill says. “We are utilizing the exchange rate as the way to maintain our profit margins plus give our partners in the EU substantial reoccurring revenue from the unique capabilities HexiSTOR offers. Economic and technology issues are converging to make an entrée into the EU credible for small businesses like ours.”
Bonvoisin says that for example HexiSTOR and ATFI are viable candidates for international expansion. “Because HexiSTOR delivers its services over the Internet, they benefit from a weak US dollar by offering substantial savings to European customers while still maintaining margins in a growing but very competitive market,” he says. “Applied Thin Film has a big potential because it has developed a platform technology enhancing products in many global and established industries.”
The next 45 Minutes With … one-on-one consulting session will be Wednesday, April 9. Mike Biersma, president of Biersma Creative will offer insight on designing a web site as an effective tool for marketing and information.
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