University Technology Park at IIT

Media Contact: Evan Venie | Phone: 312.567.3202 | Fax: 312.567.3243 | E-mail: venie@iit.edu

Headlines

February 7, 2012—NY TIMES
Lockheed Martin and Cleversafe Form Big Data Alliance for Secure, Distributed Storage

Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] and Cleversafe, Inc. have formed a new technology alliance that will facilitate collaboration between the two companies to support a new level of storage capacity beyond traditional capabilities. These Secure, Distributed Storage Cloud offerings will enhance the performance of Active Archive, Data Security, Still Imagery, Full Motion Video (FMV), SharePoint Storage Enhancement, and Distributed Computing.
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January, 2012—ISTC Catalyst
Research and Technology Parks
By David Baker

This edition of ISTC Catalyst highlights research and technology parks in Illinois.  Read on as guest columnist David Baker, Executive Director of the University Technology Park at the Illinois Institute of Technology, describes the contribution of these parks to advancing our economy.
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November 3, 2011—CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Women in this group certainly know their Chicago
By Melissa Harris

They've been just about everywhere. They've eaten beef stew with prisoners at the Cook County jail. They've sailed over the electrified carp barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. And, using their connections to the developer's family, they've toured the new Radisson hotel inside the Aqua Tower while boxes were still being unpacked. It's hard to tell the 50 organizers of Know Your Chicago – which curates field trips for educated (and often affluent) women – about a place they haven't heard of. But I was curious whether the group's latest tour, focused on Chicago's entrepreneurial scene, would unearth any new information.
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October 31, 2011—SmartGrid Network News
MIDWEST ENERGY LEADERSHIP AWARDS ANNOUNCED
By itryba

The Midwest Energy Leadership Awards (MELA) were presented at the Great Lakes Symposium on October 19, 2011. The awards program recognizes individuals whose efforts to promote a smarter grid are helping to foster economic opportunity; create a more efficient, reliable and secure grid; and improve stewardship of natural resources and our environment. [Note: The MELA award for Entrepreneurship was presented to Bruce Hamilton of Adica, LLC (www.adica.com) for his work in commercializing power system analysis software developed at Argonne National Laboratory and, with ISGRIC support, establishing the world's first smart grid social network at SmartGrid.com. Adica, LLC is one of several smart grid tenants located within the University Technology Park at IIT.]
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October 5, 2011—FOX Chicago News
Gov. Pat Quinn Unveils "Advantage Illinois" Plan to Help Small Businesses
By Joanie Lum

 Gov. Pat Quinn knows the state is in trouble when it comes to jobs, so Wednesday the governor announced a new program aimed at turning around the state's growing unemployment rate. Quinn calls it the Advantage Illinois program. It's supposed to help small businesses expand by giving them access to credit or capital. Quinn made the announcement at a small, 2-year-old company on the Southwest Side that is ready to expand. All Cell Technologies is a green company started by a former Illinois Institute of Technology professor that makes lithium batteries to power bikes and machines. All Cell has 10 employees and wants to add five more. They're also trying to expand in the international market.
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September 26, 2011—PC World
Intuit Shows Off New Mobile Tools for Business
By Michelle Mastin

 Intuit dominates small-business accounting with its Quickbooks software, but the company is also working on tools to help managers of small and medium-size businesses do more from smartphones and tablets when they are away from the office.
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September 6, 2011—Chicago Tribune
South Bend aims to keep Notre Dame innovations in town with new technology park
By Wailin Wong

 On the southwest end of this city, demolition crews are knocking down the last buildings of what was once a humming collection of manufacturing facilities owned by Studebaker Corp.
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August 8, 2011—Chicago Tribune
Companies doing more with less labor, not changing anytime soon
By Kristin Samuelson

 We're all well-aware of the "Debbie Downer" news: Our unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent; the stock market has seen better days; gas and food prices are on the rise; consumers are barely spending.
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July 19, 2011—Crain's Chicago Business
Launching an App? Think Beyond the 99-cent Download
By Steve Hendershot

 It's hard to compete with free. Yet that's something companies must do if their primary line of business is based on a mobile app.
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June 15, 2011—Crain's Chicago Business
Campus Incubators Helping Startups Grow from Seedlings to Standalone Businesses
By Kevin McKeough

 Universities often are the places where the technologies behind new businesses are discovered. Increasingly, universities also are providing the spaces where high-tech businesses can grow.
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June 9, 2011—Tecan Journal
The Cutting Edge of Assay Development

 Tecan has partnered with Sword Diagnostics, a leader in detection chemistries, to optimize the sensitivity of immunoassays using the patented Sword™ Detection System on the flexible Infinite® M200 and Infinite M1000 microplate readers.
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April 1, 2011—Inc. Magazine
What the Students Say: Entrepreneurial Selling
By Leigh Buchanan

 Entrepreneur Phillip Leslie found himself sweating bullets in Craig Wortmann's popular class. "I was sweating bullets." Phillip Leslie is founder and CEO of ProOnGo, a Chicago company that makes expense-reporting software for smartphones. He took Craig Wortmann's Entrepreneurial Selling class at the University of Chicago in 2008.
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March 9, 2011—farmindustrynews.com
Mini-Chromosome Technology
By Mark Moore

Farm Industry News noted Chromatin’s mini-chromosome technology one of “20 technologies changing agriculture”. Their technology was listed alongside personal computing, 4G, and herbicide tolerance, to name a few. The head of Crop Genetics Research at a multinational Agricultural firm stated, “By the end of the decade, I see mini-chromosome technology as the primary trait transfer technology used in corn”.
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February 1, 2011—EDA.gov
Highlight: EDA Funding Supports the Innovation Economy in Illinois
By EDA’s Chicago Regional Office

Role of University Technology Park at IIT. The success of the U.S. innovation economy is rooted in the drive of entrepreneurial individuals to create products that serve human needs, and provide themselves with financial rewards and the satisfaction of developing successful enterprises in the process. Since the 1980’s, the U.S. has attempted to accelerate the innovation process by supporting technology transfer from university research laboratories to support innovation in the market place. However, in the Chicagoland area, one missing element for technology development was the availability of affordable, flexible laboratory space for the incubation of nascent technologies.

On September 14, 2009, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) was awarded a $4.5 million ARRA grant by the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to refurbish a building from the 1940’s that will be used as a technology incubator. It was one of the largest grants ever given by the EDA for a technology incubator. This funding, combined with a $2 million matching grant from the State of Illinois, will enable the University Technology Park at IIT (UTP) to complete 28,000 square feet of Incubator space that will house up to 30 start-up companies in the biotechnology, clean/green technology, IT, food technology, diagnostics, and other high-tech industries. The design of the technology Incubator space accommodates 15 wet-labs, 9 dry-labs and 6 offices plus a shared equipment room with autoclave, glass washer, freezer, refrigerator, ice maker and centrifuge. UTP began construction in September of 2011 with a projected completion date of May, 2011.
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May 24, 2010—Chicago Tribune
University mind fields
By Ann Meyer

Phillip Leslie’s ProOnGo mobile software business is a testament to the power of the student.
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May 14, 2010
IIT gets $5MM grant for “smart grid” technology training.

> Full Article (ABC)
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> Coverage on NBC (wmv)
> Coverage on ABC (wmv)

May 5, 2010—Reuters.com
Chicago institute offers iPad app class
By Deborah L Cohen

Phillip Leslie needed software coders to develop mobile applications for his fledgling startup, ProOnGo LLC, which offers a solution to keep track of business receipts on a smartphone, using the device’s built-in camera. The cash-strapped Chicago entrepreneur put out a job listing at the Illinois Institute of Technology; within a few days he was flooded with more than 100 applications.
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April 21, 2010—Chicago Tribune
40 biotech jobs headed to Chicago
By Bruce Japsen, Tribune reporter

Health care reform is helping to bring 40 jobs to the South Side at a new drug-making plant, where lower-priced versions of prescription biotech medicines will be made.
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March 12, 2010—NY Times
Support Network Seeks to Grow Biotech Companies
By Jon Van

Dr. Boris Pasche had worked for years with a battery-operated device to treat insomnia, but as he followed his research, he discovered that electromagnetic radiation from the apparatus might slow or stop tumor growth in some cancer patients, and he thought he could perhaps build a business around the idea.
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April 6, 2009
All Cell Partners with MATRA to Develop Lithium Ion Batteries for Light Electric Vehicles

> Coverage on ABC (wmv)
> Coverage on NBC (wmv)

March 12, 2009–IIT Today
Ali Emadi Named as Chicago Matters Global Visionary

Harris Perlstein Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Electric Power and Power Electronics Center Ali Emadi has been selected as one of fifteen Chicago Matters Global Visionaries who “are leading our region into the next century and putting our city on the global map.”
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December 23, 2008–Autopia from Wired
Plug In That School Bus
By Ben Mack

There are 450,000 school buses in America, and they're all as eco-friendly as a Hummer full of clubbed baby seals. Plug-in hybrid buses offer huge reductions in emissions and fuel consumption, but they're budget-busters at $170,000 or more apiece.
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September 9, 2008–Crain’s Chicago Business
Hot pockets
By Emily Stone

Today’s Crain’s Chicago Business article, “Hot pockets,” is about All Cell Technologies, LLC, a company founded at IIT by Research Professor Said Al-Hallaj that has developed custom-designed material that keeps lithium-ion batteries cool and safe. Chicago Fleet Management Commissioner Howard Henneman, who is working with Al-Hallaj on converting hybrid city vehicles into plug-ins using All Cell-cooled lithium-ion batteries, is quoted in the article explaining that “Mr. Al-Hallaj and his colleagues are so enthused about the product and the project that it’s contagious.”
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September 9, 2008–Crain’s Chicago Business
Seeking a breakthrough
By Emily Stone

A Crain’s Chicago Business article today, “Seeking a breakthrough,” discusses technology start-up companies forming at universities and makes reference to University Technology Park at IIT, explaining, “U of I and Illinois Institute of Technology have started science parks with incubator lab space and offices for new companies.”
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June 22, 2008–Chicago Sun-Times
New company hopes to turn non-food plants into ethanol
By Sandra Guy

A startup company that is renting space at the Illinois Institute of Technology is looking past corn to find biofuels, especially as ethanol production gets much of the blame for skyrocketing grocery prices.
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May 20, 2008–Illinois Venture Capital Association Newsletter
MVS Presenter Updates: LiquidTalk CEO David Peak

Excerpt: When LiquidTalk began to take off and we needed a brick-and-mortar address, the IIT’s University Technology Park made a lot of sense. Our experience has been tremendously positive. We pay low rent, have access to student engineering talent and we are situated on a campus setting in the dynamically changing South Loop area of Chicago. I would especially recommend this to new start-ups that initially need a small amount of space and want a one-stop shop in terms of resources.
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April 22, 2008–Business Week
A Better Gambit for Illinois: Bio-Crops
By Stuart Luman

Excerpt: One of his local bets is Chromatin, a startup based in a 5,000-square-foot lab on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus, with a separate research facility in Champaign. The venture has pioneered a way to insert batches of genes into plant cells, increasing the success rate of bioengineered seeds for drought- and pest-resistance or other desired traits.
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April 2, 2008–Chicago Sun-Times
State gains tech jobs
By Sandra Guy

Excerpt: University Technology Park at the Illinois Institute of Technology on Chicago’s South Side is an example of the high-tech job growth. More than 100 of its 350 employees have been hired since the park opened in 2006.
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March 12, 2008–InfoStor.com
Cleversafe commercializes open source storage
By Kevin Komiega

Excerpt: The Cleversafe project was launched on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) as an open-source storage initiative with one goal: creating a “storage Internet.” Fast forward two years and the technology has grown from an idea into a reality with the news that Cleversafe will soon make its open-source technology available as commercial products that will allow end users to build and manage their own Dispersed Storage Networks (dsNets).
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March 9, 2008–Chicago Sun-Times
Technology Park draws U. of C. startups, targets companies from NU
By Sandra Guy

Excerpt: IIT has already attracted the Technology Park growth companies that originated at the University of Chicago, and it intends to lure companies created through sponsored research from Northwestern University’s medical center, too. “This is not just a real estate play,” said David Baker, executive director of the University Technology Park at IIT. “This is all about moving innovation forward and attracting high-quality faculty who need a home to commercialize their intellectual property.”
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March 3, 2008–Chicago Sun-Times
Cleversafe goes for the green
By Brad Spirrison

Excerpt: Cleversafe, which is headquartered at the University Technology Park at the Illinois Institute of Technology, will market and distribute its storage products via as many as 20 reseller partners. The company’s novel approach to data storage involves dispersing bits of information via a network of 11 hosting providers around the world. While information stored in any one node is illegible, Cleversafe software can access data from only a fraction of the hosting providers and reconstitute it back to its original form. The company has long sponsored the Cleversafe.org open source software community to foster and access innovation in dispersed storage technologies.
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March 2, 2008–Reuters.com
Start-ups go back to school to get to work

Excerpt: At many of the nation’s top technology universities, school is not just for the students. That’s the case at the Illinois Institute of Technology, known for its culturally-diverse population, modern architecture by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and proximity to downtown Chicago. There, more than 20 start-ups in industries ranging from software to biotech have set up shop at the university’s technology park.
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February 13, 2008–Chicago Sun-Times
Sox Park area: new ballgame?
By David Roeder

Excerpt: The ballpark environs aren’t as isolated as they once were. Even office space might not be a stretch. Just across the expressway is the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, currently buzzing as a home for high-tech startups.

The Sun-Times’ Sandra Guy said the campus’ University Technology Park houses about 25 firms and would add 30 more once a second phase is complete. The school also provides space for 10 to 15 growth companies or nonprofit research centers.
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April 3, 2006–Chicago Tribune
Hybrid enhancement
Voice of the People

Excerpt:Jim Mateja missed the point in his March 31 article on hybrid vehicles by not providing the whole story (“Hybrids burn up more energy in the making,” Business, March 31). Mr. Mateja correctly points out that the reason more electricity is required to manufacture hybrid vehicles is because “it takes a lot of energy to produce the electric systems for hybrids as well as exotic lightweight glass, aluminum and steel that goes into them.”
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March 5, 2006—Chicago Sun-Times
Technology Park to Spiff Up IIT campus
By Sandra Guy
Business Reporter

Excerpt: The once-fledgling technology park on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology is brimming with new tenants and sprouting a landscape makeover. University Technology Park at IIT, to be built in three phases over 10 years, is the largest commercial investment on Chicago’s South Side since the construction of the new Sox stadium in the early 1990s.
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> Sidebar: Startups Flock to Tech Incubator

October 28, 2005—Chicago Sun-Times
IIT tech park promising investment for South Side: 15 acres being developed

Excerpt: The largest commercial investment on Chicago’s South Side since U.S. Cellular Field’s construction will result in a new technology park at the Illinois Institute of Technology. University Technology Park at IIT, to be built in three phases in the next 10 years, will cover 15 acres and ultimately stretch from Wabash on the east to Federal on the west, and from 34th Street to 35th Street .

October 24, 2005—Chicago Tribune
Incubators give companies a start: New firms find space, bargain rents to begin increasing production
By Ann Meyer, Special to the Tribune

Excerpt: …Illinois Institute of Technology on Chicago’s South Side is actively leasing 6,000 square feet of space. The Incubator at University Technology Park at IIT plans to expand to 30,000 square feet by 2007, said David Baker, vice president of External Affairs. The university also is working to create space for established companies, including those that graduate from the Incubator, Baker said.

August 13, 2005—Chicago Tribune
IIT helps fill gap in technology lab space
By Jon Van

The IIT Incubator facility of 6,000 square feet will provide space for three or four small companies initially, and plans are to expand it over the years to 30,000 square feet, said David Baker, the school’s vice president for External Affairs…The first tenant of IIT’s tech park will be All Cell Technologies, LLC. and Sun Phocus Technologies, LLC, two start-ups with ties to Said Al-Hallaj, an IIT professor.

August 2005—Near West Gazette
IIT To Build Tech Park
By Michael Comstock

Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) over the next ten years will complete the 1.5 million square foot University Technology Park AT (UTP), an industrial park serving companies with expertise and product development capabilities in new and emerging technologies such as life sciences, engineering, and chemistry. The UTP will help small companies and startups in the incubator stage—typically companies taken from the concept stage into an initial production stage with two to five employees—access resource they may not be able to afford otherwise.

December 28, 2005—Chicago Sun-Times
A thundering herd that needs direction
By Dave Newbart, staff reporter

Cleversafe founder Chris Gladwin talks about finding quality employees.
Excerpts: Generation Y descends on America’s workplaces, a harsh reality sets in. Jobs, until recently, have been hard to come by, and average salaries in real dollars are lower than those their parents earned at the same age.

Generation Y Grows Up

At his two previous tech start-up companies, Chris Gladwin followed the “standard model” for finding...
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