WSU's first Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR), Kevin Petersen, is working on microwave technology with professor and scientist Dr. Juming Tang.  Additional EIR, Jerry Schwartz, formerly with Microsoft, working with WSU professor and scientist Diane Cook is focused on the smart homes and sensor technologies .  Keith Jones, WSU Director of the Washington State University Research Foundation (WSURF) a non-profit organization which recruits and manages the WSU EIR program, was recently quoted, "the microwave technology has progressed quickly, with an industry consortium formed and a start-up company crafted."

Kevin Jones, along with Travis on Keith’s staff and the recently recruited Rob Wilson, formerly of Ferrite CEO from Kansas City, presented Food Chain Safety Corporation at the most recent Innovation Showcase January 25, 2010.  The Showcase is an emerging 3-4 times a year event partnered with the Technology Alliance, UW, Battelle and others  in the Seattle angel and venture investment community received the presentation with great interest.  

 

Kevin Petersen Dr. Jumin Jang		To realize the commercial potential of the Microwave Sterilization Technology developed by Dr. Tang’s research group, Kevin Petersen, with the assistance of the WSU Research Foundation has formed a new start-up company, Food Chain Safety, L.L.C. (FCS) Last week, Mr. Petersen gave a presentation to the Inventor’s Alliance Showcase (IA) committee. The IA filters a pool of potential investment opportunities before presenting the best candidates for investment to a large group of venture capital firms and angel investors. WSU’s Microwave Sterilization was one of five selected from a pool of nearly two hundred technologies shown to the IA committee. On Jan. 25th, Mr. Petersen and representatives from WSURF will meet with the investment group to generate interest in funding FCS and bringing this technology to market. WSURF will license the Microwave Sterilization technology to FCS once funding is available with the ultimate goal of generating a revenue stream back to WSU for continued research by Dr. Tang’s group. In addition, the major food manufacturers involved during the past 10+ years of research in the technology have reaffirmed their commitment to continue to fund and collaborate with Dr. Tang’s group as they seek additional F.D.A. certifications for the sterilization of complex food products. These industry leaders have committed to help Dr. Tang and WSU bring this technology to market. Quotes from industry members:  “This is a tipping point technology …. You cannot compare food processed through microwave sterilization to any other approach … the difference is phenomenal”        Evan Turke – Sr. Fellow – Kraft “Microwave Sterilization is no longer a dream … It is very real and it is groundbreaking.”  Phillip Minerich– VP Product Development – Hormel
Jerry Schwartz Dr. Dianne Cook		Diane Cook has developed a set of algorithms enabling the identification of activities and daily patterns from non-invasive (e.g. heat,  light and motion) sensor data. The key technical advancement is the ability to perform activity identification in environments with multiple people performing parallel or interleaved activities. This technology provides a key to the deployment of the “smart environment”. To date, commercial activity in this space has focused on device to device communications. Diane’s technology provides the means for the next steps in the evolution of the smart environment. This technology has received significant funding from the NSF and LSDF and is relatively mature. However, given the broad nature of applicability and undefined initial market applications translation into the private sector has proven challenging.                Jerry Schwartz, introduced to OIPA via Joyce Robertson seems a perfect fit for this opportunity. Most recently Jerry served as Director of Microsoft's Office of International Affairs.  In that capacity, Jerry led international strategy and engagement with governments, NGOs and Microsoft commercial partners around the world on key domains of security, privacy, internet safety and the environment, as well as Microsoft's new initiatives in Critical Infrastructure Protection, Cloud Computing, Hosted Online Services, Telecommunications and Mega Data Centers.  Jerry’s experience and personal interest in AI-assisted software platforms stems from work as founding VP Marketing and Sales for intelligent publishing platform vendor Design Intelligence, and work with Stanford University's AI venture Vite Corporation, focused on AI decision support for projecting risks in large projects. Just formalized as one of WSU’s EIR’s, Schwartz is beginning the work to develop necessary partnerships and an initial go-to market strategy for Dr. Cook’s technology.