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Narator: The hall is packed. Karlene Hoo: Good afternoon--
Narator: There are industry representatives in the audience and potentially commerical opportunities as well.
Karlene Hoo: --and welcome to the first ever Technology Showcase. I am Karlene Hoo.
Narator: The AIR showcase begins... A portable system for diagnosing diseases; an
antimicrobial coating to reduce hospital acquired illnesses; innovations and oil dispersant
technology; and much more--ten NSF grantees present their technologies that they believe are
ready for commercialization. That's the goal of NSF's Accelerating Innovation Research, or
AIR, program--to encourage NSF funded investigators to commercialize their discoveries.
Orlin Velev: We really believe we can make difference in terms of cost and scalability when it comes to nanofibers.
Brij Moudgil: So our technology is safe, easy to use, and can kill all microbes, so we hope that it will have a significant commercial potential.
Tuomos Sandholm: Well obviously I'm an entrepeneur so I'll always keep looking out for opportunites to commercialize our inventions.
Karlene Hoo: The NSF is trying to enable more public-private partnerships so that there is
greater collaberation between what the scientists understand from their science and
technology, to what businesses and industries need in order to be competitive in this global economy that we live in.
Narrator: Under the AIR program, researchers themselves may develop a plan to transition
their technology from the lab to commercial use, or they can work with partners.
Karlene Hoo: The idea of AIR is that there is a synergistic relationship that allows them to move
these things forward in a way that they could not be by themselves in a rapid amount of time.
Entrepeneur: Okay, so at this point of the demonstration, I have created a new campaign of $150,000--
Narator: It's a way to strap in the innovation ecosystem and help spur economic growth.
Karlene Hoo: New businesses, new industries, new jobs, and of course a better educated
technological workforce. In a short term, what NSF is trying to do is to promote a culture that
goes from research to innovation.