TechWeek 21-Nov-08 November 28, 2008 Realism with a Touch of Optimism is Critical Says CIOhio 2008 Keynote ...

In these times of economic uncertainty, it’s important to strike the right balance between reality and optimism according to Ram Charan, global business advisor and co-author of The Game Changer. Charan delivered the keynote address to a record-breaking attendance of more than 275 IT and business leaders at last week’s 2008 TechColumbus CIOhio conference. He says that even though CIOs will face shrinking budgets and likely staff cuts, it’s important not to be “all gloom and doom.” He advises ...

Industry thought leader, Don Tapscott, contends that the current economic downturn might just give companies the opportunity they need to help them be significantly stronger in the future. Writing in Business Week, Tapscott says managers now have the chance to lower the age of the workforce by hiring the best young people they can find which puts them in the position, once the recession is over, to survive the ensuing war for talent. Tapscott writes this war will not be won using ...

The National Academy of Sciences recently launched a program designed to provide the entertainment industry with links to the nation’s leading scientists and engineers in order to bring cutting edge science to the storylines of popular entertainment. Known as the Science & Entertainment Exchange, the service will help television and movie makers better integrate scientific concepts and policies into their work. The Exchange will offer access to leaders in fields as wide ranging as insects, ...

The Central Oho Java Users Group (COJUG) recently featured 3X Systems team members in a podcast posted on the group’s Web site. During the interview, Eric Floehr, chief technology officer, and Dan Shinton, vice president of application development, provide an insightful overview of what it’s like to work within a startup company being launched in Central Ohio. The two compare and contrast the differences between working for a large company versus a small company. Although the demands of a ...

TechColumbus publishes a monthly newsletter the fourth Friday of every month in Business First. The November newsletter announces Entrepreneurial Edge, a web portal that grew out of a partnership between TechColumbus and other Central Ohio organizations. The Web site is up-and-running and ready to help business owners with every aspect of making their business ideas successful. Operated by TechColumbus, the site includes numerous links, helpful information and interactive capabilities, ...

TechWeek 21-Nov-08 November 21, 2008 IT Trends: Impact of Outsourcing Grossly Overstated While IT Labor Shortage ...

Results of a recent survey by the Society of Information Management strongly indicate a shortage of qualified IT professionals to fill available jobs within the U.S.  Further, the report seems to refute prevailing notions that corporations are cutting budgets by laying off IT professionals and outsourcing their jobs overseas.  Whereas the study shows that managers plan to increase offshore outsourcing in 2009 by two percent, this still only represents 5.2 percent of the total ...

TechColumbus and the Columbus Chamber of Commerce played hosts last week to a slate of national tech writers and editors who came to town to learn more about why the region was recently recognized by Forbes as the #1 Up and Coming Tech City.  Great stories, such as the one posted by David Strom, a regular contributor to E-Week, Info World and the NY Times, are beginning to emerge as a result.   Strom posted a story on his Web Informant site that focuses on the City of Dublin ...

OCLC, along with the information schools of Syracuse University and the University of Washington, have joined together in an international effort to create a more credible Web search engine based on the input of librarians around the globe.  Funded through a $100,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the program is known as Reference Extract.  When used to search for a key word or phrase, Reference Extract returns results that are weighted towards those ...

Doctors in the United Kingdom have successfully transplanted a windpipe grown from the recipient’s own stem cells. The procedure was opted for instead of the removal of the 30-year old woman’s left lung.  This is one of only a few trachea transplants that have ever been completed and the procedure could become a new standard of treatment.  This is just one of many medical advances that continue to emerge as a result of stem cell research and advancements.   The ...

Service Supports Central Ohio IT Startups BizSpark, a recently announced program for startups, was launched by Microsoft to offer everything a new venture needs to build an integrated Web service.  The program was established to compete with open source alternatives such as MySQL and others.  TechColumbus’ Kevin Gadd, director of IT Commercialization, recently enrolled TechColumbus as a Network Partner of BizSpark.  To qualify for the service, a startup has to be ...

Battelle has announced the appointment of Ron Townsend, Ph.D., as executive vice president of Global Laboratory Operations.  Townsend, currently president of Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, will assume his new position in mid January.  He will succeed Dr. Jeffrey Wadsworth who becomes president and CEO of Battelle following the retirement of Carl Kohrt January 1, 2009.   Townsend is ...

This week the FDA opened the first of three stations it plans to set up in China, the purpose of which is to validate inspections of food, drugs, medical devices and other products bound for the U.S.  The move is in response to the growing role of China as an exporter of food and drug products to the U.S., combined with several recent food and medicine safety scares. “The global market has clearly changed the nature of our challenge in keeping products safe," said Mike Leavitt, secretary ...

TechWeek 14-Nov-08 November 14, 2008 Security Expert Urges Transition Team to Make Use of Web 2.0 Tools  ...

Social networking and collaborative technologies are re-shaping not only Presidential campaigning and the way American politics are conducted, but some experts believe they should be harnessed to aid in a smoother and faster transition of power from one administration to another.  In a story posted on Science Progress a day before the election, Mark Drapeau, an associate research fellow and director of the Social Software for Security Project in Washington DC, called for the transition ...

Ohio’s Third Frontier Project has released details and an RFP for its next round of funding through the Ohio Research Commercialization Grant Program (ORCGP).  Letters of Intent are due December 18, 2008 with final proposals due January 22, 2009.  TechColumbus will host a bidder’s conference December 4 at 10 a.m. at the TechColumbus center, 1275 Kinnear Road.  The ORCGP was created to support the commercialization of new products and services derived from Small Business ...

The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) at OSU recently brought together auto makers (including all three major American manufacturers), electric utilities, power electronics manufacturers, researchers and the Ohio Department of Development for the inaugural meeting of the SMART@CAR project.  The SMART@CAR project is aimed at developing an economically viable plug-in electric hybrid vehicle (PHEV), along with all the support systems, life-cycle plans, infrastructure and public policies ...

Oxford Catalysts Group PLC has agreed to acquire all outstanding common stock of Plain City’s Velocys, Inc.  The two companies have been collaborating since May of 2007 on processes for improving the production of synthetic fuels.  With their joining, the directors believe that time to market will be dramatically accelerated, creating the critical mass necessary for the combined new company to become a world-leader in the production of clean fuels.   Velocys was formed in ...

Fascinated by trends in online search queries, software engineers at Google set out to determine if searches could go beyond simple trends and actually accurately model real-world phenomena using patterns in search queries.  To test their theory they decided to focus on outbreaks of infectious diseases –  specifically influenza which annually claims 500,000 lives worldwide.  Aggregating search queries that seem to be very common during flu season each year and comparing these to ...