South Carolina Startups Get New Innovista Center For Product Realization

by Kyle in Accelerator, Everywhere Else, South Carolina, Startups
Comments Off on South Carolina Startups Get New Innovista Center For Product Realization 0 Like 1,438

South Carolina startups now have another new exciting resource to tap into. The University of South Carolina has announced it’s plans to open the Innovista Center for Product Realization or ICPR. The main funding for the new center is coming from a $645,000 five year federal grant. The main purpose is to help startups with product development.

The center will be available to students, alumni and residents who are working on a startup based in South Carolina.

One of the major constraints facing firms outside of regions like Silicon Valley is access to sufficient capital and talent to achieve critical mass and scalability for their product offerings,” said Don Herriott, director of Innovista. “ICPR will provide the infrastructure, resources and collaborative relationships that capital-starved startups require to take their idea or technology to the next level.” reports the SC-Israel collaboration.

Startups that utilize the center and it’s resources will be able to tap into the expertise of  USC faculty at the College of Engineering and Computing, the Darla Moore School of Business and the university’s Office of Technology Commercialization.

“The product realization center is yet another example of the university’s commitment to cultivating innovation, entrepreneurship and technology commercialization,” Herriott said. “It furthers Innovista’s mission of attracting and growing new high-tech businesses to our community and across the state.”

We’ve recently reported on two exciting startup ideas brewing in and around the University of South Carolina. The first was a report on two engineers working on developing a t-shirt material that could charge phones directly from the shirt itself. The other 52 apps, is an innovative app development startup that will release 52 apps a year by vote (we reported on them 4 weeks before mainstream media).

Individuals and startups looking for more information on ICPR should reach out to Lauren Edwards at (803)777-9796 or by email at laurene@mailbox.sc.edu

Linkage:

Source: SC-Israeli collobaration

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South Carolina Engineers Creating Cotton T-Shirts For Charging Electronics

by Kyle in Everywhere Else, South Carolina, Startups, Tech
3 Comments 0 Like 2,135

Anyone who knows me knows that I am all about maximizing efficiency by wearing whatever I can to hold and charge my devices with minimal weight. My wearable accessories at the moment include a wide range of PowerBag’s by RFA Brands in Michigan and my new found gadget holder the TechSlinger. While the Powerbag has an intricate, modular charging system within the bags I have the TechSlinger puts everything close to my body and is extremely light weight. On days when I’m only using the TechSlinger I use a 16,000mah battery stored in the lower pocket for my iPhone, iPad and whatever Android device I have on me at the moment.

Well, according to our friends over at Boy Genius Report there are some innovative engineers at the University of South Carolina. A team of two engineers being led by Xiadong Li, a professor of mechanical engineering at the university, are working on storing a charge right in the fabric itself.

Li and his team took a brand new store bought plain white t-shirt and soaked it in a flouride solution. They then baked the t-shirt at a high temperature in an oxygen free oven. When the t-shirt was done baking the fibers in the shirt were converted from cellulose to activated carbon, capable of holding an electrical charge.

“We will soon see roll-up cell phones and laptop computers on the market,” Li said, according to Innovation News Daily. “But a flexible energy storage device is needed to make this possible.” The engineer notes that the activated carbon textile acts like a supercapacitor, because they can have “particularly high energy storage densities.”

The engineers also coated the shirt with a nanometer layer of manganese oxide which enhanced the shirts charge-ability.

The future is pointing to roll up cell phones, keyboards, and computers as well as flexible display devices. People are going to grow more and more tired of having to charge everything at home on a 110 outlet and stored batteries may soon one day fall to the wayside.

When it does, things like this t-shirt they are working on and even the possibility of furniture that just charges things in close proximity, will be the norm. We may not be too far off.

Source: Boy Genius Report