Columbus : Innovation + Job News

Jacqueline Williams is taking her years of private and public sector experience to the helm of the Ohio Development Services Agency’s Minority Business Division.
 
Williams will leave the position of Executive Director at the Ohio Liquor Control Commission and begin her new role with hopes of reaching out and connecting with various departments that can offer different insights on how to best do her job.
 
“As I look in Ohio, the diversity and range of people who live in the state are clearly a strong asset,” says Williams. “I think we start with more of a foundation than many other places, and I think the goal here is that we can capitalize on all the value our differences bring to the table.” Williams believes utilizing our differences will be a strong force in the continued growth of Ohio’s economic vitality.
 
Williams’ previous work at the Ohio Tuition Trust and the New America Foundation dealt largely in financial preparation and affordability for college. “I worked on issues of college savings to make it more accessible for low-income families,” she explains. Now, she’s looking forward to this new opportunity to serve the public.
 
“I think what I like about working in the public sector is that there is the opportunity to get involved in things that have the ability to be transformative in nature,” says Williams. “If done right and if the proper stake holders put together their collective energy and wisdom, then you have an ability to make a real impact.”
 
 
Source: Jacqueline Williams
Writer: Joe Baur

Ten Ohio State University faculty members got their speed-dating chops on earlier this spring, but not the sort that should worry their significant others.

First came the warm-up: each gave three-minute presentations on their start-up ideas to more than 60 Columbus-area CEOs and entrepreneurs from a range of fields. The occasion was the first Startup Snapshot event, sponsored by the university’s Technology Commercialization and Knowledge Transfer Office (TCO).
 
“The purpose of the event was to showcase our potential startups to CEOs and entrepreneurs, with the intention of procuring business leads and CEOs for them,” explains Brian Cummings, TCO vice president. In addition to the faculty members, one senior economics student also pitched his idea.
 
“We selected a diverse set of technologies at various stages of development to convey the extensive breadth of research, innovation and technology we have,” Cummings says. “Many people are surprised to find that we’re doing work in a specific area. This enabled them to really get a feel for all of the exciting things we have happening right now.”
 
Ten-minute round-robin “speed dating” sessions followed the lightning-fast pitches.
 
“Presenting at Startup Snapshot forced me to distill my idea down into its basic elements, yet allowed for in-depth conversation, too,” says faculty member Jane Wright, curriculum manager for Ohio State Extension. “It was the whole elevator approach but with the added luxury of immediate follow up.” Wright pitched her idea for Total Animal, a technology platform and interactive learning system that teaches and tests users on knowledge of livestock and companion animals in a fun and engaging software application.
 
According to Cummings, the event was a great success. “The engagement from our researchers and the community was more than we could have hoped for,” he notes. “The event resulted in the scheduling of 25 follow-up meetings, 15 new mentors agreed to become a part of TCO’s expanding mentor network and multiple companies are projected to launch.”
 
Another Startup Snapshot event is slated for this fall.
 
 
Source:  Brian Cummings, OSU
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

Acceptd has developed a new strategic partnership with the Miami, Florida-based National YoungArts Foundation to better streamline the nationally renowned arts organization’s application process.
 
“YoungArts Foundation is a great organization,” says Don Hunter, co-founder of the Dublin-based company that assists students around the world with applications to performing arts schools. Representatives from the two organizations met last year at a National Dance Education Organization conference in Los Angeles. Hunter says YoungArts was already familiar with their work and eager to find ways to collaborate.
 
Discussing YoungArts’ HBO2-televised MasterClass program where applicants have the opportunity to work with experts in their respective field for scholarship opportunities, Hunter says getting Acceptd involved was the proverbial no-brainer. “They get about 10,000 applicants,” he says. “So it seemed like a natural fit to work with them on the application process.”
 
Ultimately, it’s about creating new opportunities for students. “If we can create opportunities for young artists to pursue their passion and get opportunities they might not otherwise had, I think we’ve fulfilled our mission,” Hunter explains. “If we can create a better market and awareness for these guys, all the better.”
 
To date, YoungArts has awarded 17,000 artists with more than $6 million in monetary awards. Moving forward, Acceptd will play a key role in evaluating the digital applications and portfolios for YoungArts. And Hunter says he’ll be sure to look out for his home crowd.
 
“It’s a great opportunity for artistic students in Ohio,” says Hunter. “We have great relationships with faculty around the state, so we’ll be sure to market this opportunity to them.” Acceptd participated in OSU's 10Xelerator program in 2011 and has since recieved grants from TechColumbus and NCT Ventures.

The YoungArts application will open on Acceptd this week.
 
 
Source: Don Hunter
Writer: Joe Baur

Nearly 1,300 Ohio science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students grades 5 through 12 received awards totaling $4.5 million at the 65th annual State Science Day, an event likened to a state championship game in athletics for education.
 
Launched in 1949, the Ohio State University-based State Science Day offers students across the Buckeye state the opportunity to showcase their talents to a panel of 1,000 judges for a variety of awards. This year’s largest donor was Ohio Wesleyan University, offering scholarships between $15,000 and $20,000.
 
Describing the event as a “blur,” Dr. Lynn Elfner, CEO at the Ohio Academy of Science, paints a picture of intense student interaction with judges. “You don’t have time to breathe,” says Elfner. “It goes really fast.”
 
Elfner touts the event’s diversity. “There were 1,300 students from 71 different counties,” he says. “It’s one of those equal opportunities for students all over the state. If they do good work, they have the opportunity regardless of their economic background to attend State Science Day.”
 
Perhaps more exciting for students is the opportunity to join an elite alumni class. Discussing some standouts of previous State Science Days, Elfner notes the inventor of the Fuzzbuster, Dale Smith, attended the annual event “many, many years ago.”
 
“The one who is most prominent is Dave Roberts,” says Elfner. “Dave had a project about 25 years ago concerning the design of ship hulls.” Today, Commanding Officer Roberts is teaching cadets how to drive submarines at the Naval Submarine School.
 
 
Source: Dr. Lynn E. Elfner
Writer: Joe Baur

Dublin-based IC3D Printers has launched a crowd funding campaign through Indiegogo to manufacture 3D printing material locally in Ohio.
 
The campaign is set to run for 30 days with a goal of raising $20,000 to compliment existing capital. Michael Cao, Owner and Founder of IC3D, says he was persuaded by a friend to use crowd funding to avoid getting banks and interest rates involved. Funds will go toward equipment, leasing factory space, buying materials in bulk, and hiring an operator.
 
Cao’s goal is to address today’s costly supply chain model of manufacturing 3D printing components. Currently, outside manufacturers supply the plastic filament needed for Cao's 3D printers. Even worse, that filament is designed for use in the plastic welding industry. This sometimes results in an inferior product that may be contaminated.
 
“The problem is [the plastic welding industry] has very different requirements,” explains Cao, noting that 3D printing is still a young industry. “It has lower quality of requirements, such as cleanliness” and filament diameter. Cao's solution is to manufacture his own 3D printing material in Ohio exclusively for the 3D printing market, allowing him to take some links out of the current supply chain model.

Cao came up with the idea after working as a designer and builder of desktop 3D printers. Customers began asking Cao for filament printing material. At first, he gave it away for free. As this became costly, he began purchasing in bulk, but noticed some quality issues. “It was a frustrating experience,” says Cao, recalling customer complaints. He decided to take his experience in plastics and as an automotive engineer to produce the necessary material himself. Ohio and IC3D’s customers all stand to benefit.
 
“By obtaining the raw materials and packing the materials ourselves, we’re cutting out those layers from the current supply chain,” explains Cao. “That cost savings will be passed down to the customers.”
 
 
Source: Michael Cao
Writer: Joe Baur

Despite the popularity of the Internet, Shaul Weisband is a big believer that the retail store gift-giving experience is alive and well. “People still enjoy walking through local stores and going to the mall,” says the founder of Jifiti, a new gifting app. 
 
“But there are still those two basic anxieties when it comes to gift giving – what to give and how to find the time to get it to the recipient.” According to Weisband, Jifiti eliminates both concerns.
 
“Jifiti lets retail shoppers select an item, scan and purchase it, and instantly send it as a digital gift card to a friend’s phone for them to redeem at any of that store’s locations in the U.S.,” he explains. “The recipient has the flexibility to select the right size, color and style. Or, if they see something else at the store they prefer, they can use the gift card for that item instead.”
 
Jifiti is currently available at 30 national retailers, including Barnes & Noble, Old Navy, Crate & Barrel, Toys R Us and Brookstone.
 
Jifiti was established in Israel last year, and the company moved its headquarters to Columbus a few months ago. “The Midwest in general and Columbus in particular are big retail hubs, and that’s who we work with,” Weisband explains. “Jifiti requires a lot of leg work in terms of meeting with retailers and creating strategic partnerships.”
 
Weisband appreciates the quality of life in Columbus. Looking to contribute to that quality of life, he recently introduced Jifiti to The Ronald McDonald House of Central Ohio to start a new charitable program for the organization. The information is posted on the Jifiti website. “Their supporters are always looking for new and easy ways to help out,” Weisband says. “Now they can see on our website what the organization needs and donate those items within minutes.”
 
Jifiti was recently named a finalist among 500 companies in the 2013 SXSW Interactive Awards in the mobile apps category. “It’s a tremendous vote of confidence from the industry,” he notes.
 
 
Source:  Shaul Weisband, Jifiti
Writer:  Lynne Meyer
 

This week, Detroit-based Digerati launched its Intern in Ohio program to the public, which is sponsored by the University of Toledo. Like eHarmony, the program uses an advanced matching algorithm to match students with internship opportunities.
 
Intern in Ohio is free to both students who are looking for internships and businesses who want to post internships. To register, students and employers visit Intern in Ohio’s website to sign up and create a profile or post internship opportunities. Students fill out a short questionnaire about their preferences, and employers share information about the position. The system then identifies the top seven matches for each student, as well as for each position. When the match is made, both the student and employer are notified, and they must show interest before any contact information is shared.
 
“We encourage diverse companies—large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, government and corporate,” says Wendy Pittman, director of Digerati’s Classroom to Career. “It’s a great chance for employers to broadcast their company and internship program across the state and reach a larger pool of applicants.”
 
Only companies in Ohio can post opportunities to the Intern in Ohio website, but all types of internships are welcome. There are posts for marketing, engineering and social media, among others, says Pittman.
 
The program is open to all students who live in Ohio, whether they’re in-state or out-of-state students. Research shows that not only do internships often lead employment offers after graduation, but that students are more likely to remain in an area where they held and internship.
 
“This is the first replication of the Classroom to Career technology from Michigan to Ohio,” says Pittman. “Experiential learning is a game-changer; and we’re looking forward to working with smaller communities to make a difference.”
 
In 2011, Digerati launched its Intern in Michigan program, which has resulted in more than 127,000 matches and introductions between students and employers. Over 1,000 Michigan businesses have posted 4,824 internship opportunities, and 1,049 colleges and universities in the state use the site.
 
Full disclosure: hiVelocity's parent company, IMG, supplies content to Intern in Ohio on a contractual basis.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
Follow Caitlin on Twitter

Personalized stem cell therapy is in the forefront of medical advances. Using cultured clones of a patient’s own cells, medical scientists can develop personalized stem cell treatments, produce antibodies for vaccines and grow skin replacement patches and other types of human tissue for medical implants.
 
Two leading Central Ohio bioscience companies – Nanofiber Solutions and Celartia – have teamed up to develop a new cell culturing system – PetakaG3 NanoMatrix.  The system accelerates personalized stem cell therapies by enhancing stem cell expansion rates.
 
A petaka is a cell culture device with all the air space inside the chamber eliminated, which enables cells to grow on all internal surfaces. Nanofiber Solutions and Celartia added nanofibers to this closed, sterile environment to create PetakaG3 NanoMatrix.
 
“With regenerative medicine, the big issues are cell expansion rates and cell extraction rates – how quickly you can grow them and how many you can harvest,” explains Ross Kayuha, ceo of Nanofiber Solutions. “The PetakaG3 NanoMatrix is a significant first step in making personalized stem cell treatments possible in days versus weeks, as is the case now.”
 
He notes that there’s a growing trend in medicine and life science research to use three-dimensional cell culturing products to grow and study cells. “The body provides a 3-D environment for cells, but so much basic research in labs is performed on flat 2-D surfaces, which is a very unrealistic environment,” Kayuha says. “The PetakaG3 NanoMatrix is a tool at the intersection of personalized medicine and regenerative medicine that clinicians can use to perform cell-based analyses and develop stem-cell treatments.”
 
According to Emilio Barbera-Guillem, M.D., Ph.D., ceo of Celartia, “This PetakaG3-plus- nanofibers technology is important for direct applications for regenerative medicine and also new pharmaceutical discoveries and production.” Research centers, regenerative medicine centers and pharmaceutical companies will be primary purchasers of the new product, he notes.
 
PetakaG3 NanoMatrix was publicly introduced in December 2012 at the American Society for Cell Biology and will soon be available for worldwide distribution.
 
 
Sources:  Ross Kayuha, Nanofiber Solutions
               Dr. Emilio Barbera-Guillem, Celartia
Writer:     Lynne Meyer

Columbus-based entrepreneur Carol Clark is giving back to Ohio entrepreneurs with X Squared Angels, an angel group that provides capital to startups with a woman typically in a founder/CEO position.
 
Clark’s entrepreneurial roots date back to 1981 when she and Fran Papalios co-founded MindLeaders, an online software training company that was sold in 2007. Now she’s looking to give back by supporting startups with a woman in a leadership position.
 
“My personal experience has always been on mixed management teams,” says Clark, explaining the reasoning behind X Squared Angels’ investment strategy. “I just think we make better decisions!” She adds that she has studied data proving the economic impact is more substantial when a mixture of men and women lead the company.
 
Clark began her angel work by getting involved with the Ohio TechAngels following the sale of MindLeaders. She then attended the Angel Capital Association’s international meeting of angel organizations in Austin, Texas, where she met a group called Golden Seeds. “They shared their investment strategy and I went to a couple of their meetings in New York City,” Clark explains. “They focus on diverse management teams. You have to have at least one woman in a leadership position with equity in the company.” Clark ultimately joined the organization that would go on to inspire her work with X Squared Angels.
 
Still in their infancy, Clark and X Squared Angels have already begun negotiations for a possible investment with a female-led California-based company. Though Clark maintains there are other criteria that need to be discussed to determine if the young company is viable enough to make an investment. “It’s not a non-profit, it’s an investment fitting our investment strategy,” as Clark puts it.
 
Moving forward, Clark and her team of 15 investors are focusing on bringing in an additional 35 accredited investors to the group by the end of the year in order to start a fund. “If we have 50 investors, we can have a fund, and have more of an impact on the business,” she says. “The more investors we get and the more our name gets out there, the more applicants we’ll receive. And that can only help our economy.”
 
 
Source: Carol Clark
Writer: Joe Baur

In addition to a home office and coffee shops, Columbus entrepreneurs now have an option to work at The Salt Mines.
 
That’s the name Andy Soell and his wife, January, gave their new entrepreneur work space in a Clintonville store front just north of OSU. The name comes from an old saying about Siberian prisoners hauling salt up from deep mines. The term “back to the salt mines” refers to getting back to work, he explains.
 
Providing entrepreneurs, telecommuters and freelancers a comfortable place in which to work is what The Salt Mines is all about, Soell says. “It’s for people who would traditionally work in their home office or a coffee shop, but who are looking for something a little more dedicated and professional. The work space is built for simplicity and affordability, where individuals or small teams of people can focus on getting things done. It fills that need and also provides a sense of community,” he notes.
 
The Salt Mines provides high-speed wireless Internet, electricity, desks, fresh coffee and a small kitchen, and can accommodate a dozen people.
 
There’s also a device lab. “We wanted to provide a centralized place where designers and developers can test out their web sites and mobile applications to make sure they look their best on as wide a range of Internet-connected devices as possible,” he explains. The lab currently has an array of Apple devices, several Android phones and an Amazon Kindle tablet.
 
“The simplest way to use The Salt Mines is with a daily visitor pass,” Soell states. “Floating week passes entitle people to five days, spread out over any time frame they wish. For those interested in a more permanent daily option, we have permanent desks available for a monthly fee.”
 
The Salt Mines is self-funded. There are no contracts involved, as the Soells say they want to make the space as simple as possible for entrepreneurs to try out without being locked into a long-term commitment.
 
 
Source:  Andy Soell, The Salt Mines
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

Columbus is winning big on two fronts with the recent opening of IBM’s new Client Center for Advanced Analytics in the city.
 
The company is investing $3.2 million in the new center, where it expects to add 500 jobs over the next three years, according to Ron Lovell, vice president of the facility.

In addition, while IBM operates more than 200 other client centers around the globe, the new Columbus facility is the company’s first dedicated advanced analytics center.
 
Lovell explains that IBM selected Columbus because of the strong and positive public-private partnership within the city, the friendly business climate and the large concentration of college graduates within a 200-mile radius. The endeavor is part of a collaboration with The Ohio State University, Jobs Ohio, Columbus 2020 and locally based businesses, such as the Information Control Corp.
 
According to Lovell, "The new anaytics center will tap into local business and academic experts, as well as IBM professionals from across our research, software and services divisions, to create capabilities that will strengthen decision making and help companies react more swiftly to important trends. The principal mission of the new center,” he notes, “is to advance skills through the design, development and support of advanced analytics in new data market areas.”
 
Data comes from everywhere, Lovell points out, noting that sources include everything from sensors used to gather climate information, posts to social media sites and digital pictures and videos to purchase transaction records and cellphone GPS signals. “This data is ‘big data’,” he explains. “Big data is more than simply a matter of size. It’s an opportunity to find insights into new and emerging types of data and content, to make business more agile and to answer questions previously considered beyond our reach.”
 
Lovell calls “big data” a “powerful natural resource that, if used wisely, can drive U.S. economic competitiveness and lead toward careers in the future dedicated to improving society.“
 
He adds that the new Columbus advanced analytics center will have “significant positive implications for both the residents of Columbus and IBM clients.”  
 
 
Source:  Ron Lovell, IBM Client Center for Advanced Analytics
Writer:  Lynne Meyer
 

A frantic search for a unique photo gift for his sister lead Jared Gibbons and two friends to create a company that provides them.

“My friends and I had printed Instagram photos, but it was a difficult,” he recalls. “Plus, square images were hard to come by. With the standard photo print size of four by six inches, two inches had to be cut off. I wanted to send some four-inch-by-four-inch  family photos to my sister as a special gift for her next do-it-yourself project. After much googling, however, I couldn’t find a simple printing option that offered quality square prints that size.”
 
Seizing an opportunity, Gibbons and his friends, who live in Columbus, established Snapstagram. The company specializes in quality square prints. “We currently offer two products – classic prints and our Printbox,” he explains. “Our four-by-four classic prints come in rolls of 12 and are printed on luster-finish, archival-quality photo paper. Our Printbox is a museum-quality eight-by-eight canvas print of a photo placed inside a wooden box frame.”
 
Snapstagram partners with a local Columbus printing lab that has decades of experience, he says. “They still use many of the old-school printing techniques that make our photos stand out from the rest.”

The company only prints photos from Instagram. In the first nine months of its existence, Snapstagram sent more than 60,000 prints all over the world. Gibbons personally packages and ships all orders.

A few months ago, the company launched a funding campaign through Kickstarter to raise $3,000. After 30 days, they had raised well over $14,000 with nearly 1,000 backers. According to Gibbons, they were riding the wave of Instagram’s popularity. “Instagram was approaching its second year in existance, and the popularity of the app was increasing exponentially,” he explains. “We were offering Instagram users a simple way to get quality prints of their photos.”
 
The company consists of Gibbons, his two founding partners and one employee. “We have some competitors, but they mostly focus on fun things like calendars, books and iPhone cases,” he notes. He adds that the company is looking at other platforms from which to print and has some “signficant new things” coming in 2013.
 
 
Source:  Jarod Gibbons, Snapstagram
Writer:    Lynne Meyer
 
 
 
 
 

How do you start a startup for people starting startups?
 
If you’re Christian Deuber, founder of Launch Farm, you pull together a large group of seasoned entrepreneurs, new entrepreneurs, entrepreneur wannabees, entrepreneurial college students, local companies that offer services to entrepreneurs, and angel investors and establish a new organization named Columbus Startups.
 
Think of it as a huge spider web cast over Columbus to integrate all things entrepreneurial.
 
Columbus Startups is based at Launch Farm, Deuber’s marketing, public relations and social media marketing agency. “The mission of Columbus Startups is to create and actively aggregate fresh, ever-changing information and insights focused on empowering the local startup scene,” he explains.

The organization is aimed at entrepreneurs looking to take advantage of the Columbus startup scene; startups looking for fresh talent, potential partners and investors; and investors looking for innovative startups to fund.

“Columbus Startups offers a multimedia complement to other sources of entrepreneurial collaboration in town,” Deuber says. “Our purpose is to elevate the local startup scene to a larger national stage. An initial goal is to increase both the speed and quality of connections in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. We want to benefit multiple target audiences.”
 
While Columbus Startups has its own monthly meetings, participants are active in a host of other activities and groups within the local entrepreneurial scene. The organization’s website has become a significant source of information on startup happenings, with real-time reporting and updates from these local events. It also features information about tools to help startups, including apps, blogs and books, as well as a list of local business services, ranging from marketing and web design to legal services and funding sources, geared to the needs of startups.
 
Deuber is also beta testing what he calls Startup Genome on the website. “Startup Genome is a web-based tool that enables local startup communities to collect, aggregate and display their city’s data any way they want,” he explains.
 
There’s currently no fee to be involved in Columbus Startups, and, according to Deuber, more than 100 people are participating in the new organization.

Source:  Christian Deuber, Columbus Startups
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

yet2, an open innovation services provider, has opened a new office in Columbus. The Needham, Massachusetts-founded company specializes in generating strategic technology partnerships with companies worldwide.
 
Bruce Heinrich, Director of Account Management in Columbus, says Ohio’s businesses are prime for open innovation, a process of matching two companies with different needs and capabilities to create a new product efficiently and affordably. He adds that yet2 selected the city of Columbus because of its central location. “I can easily be in my car and travel to Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo and Cleveland in one to two hours.” They’re also next door to their partners at the statehouse, Ohio Third Frontier and Ohio Department of Development.
 
Heinrich says since the Ohio Third Frontier chose yet2 to deliver open innovation services they are assisting with marketing yet2’s offerings to Ohio-based companies. “The state chose a third party company to market and set up six forums around the state to educate mid market companies about the benefits and practice of open innovation,” he explains, noting that yet2 will be invited to attend these forums.
 
Since opening in December, yet2 has several companies that are utilizing their search services and expects to add many more in due course. “One of the companies that we’re working with right now is looking to create a new product category and had a need for a technology they could not develop internally,” Heinrich explains. “This product represents a huge market opportunity that would fuel growth in Ohio operations.”
 
It’s a mutually beneficial relationship that has the potential of connecting Ohio companies with international businesses to speed their time to market at a cheaper cost than working internally. Heinrich provides a hypothetical, saying “If it takes nine months or a year for the open innovation process rather than two to four years to do the [research and development], do all the testing themselves and launch the product, then it will save them money and make the product more profitable in the long run.”
 
In the end, it’s all about creating jobs and growth in Ohio as yet2 continues to hit the ground running. “You can expect to see a lot more of us out there as we begin to build relationships across the state, proactively seeking customers,” Heinrich notes. “And hopefully hear some success stories and case stories of what’s happening.”
 
 
Source: Bruce Heinrich
Writer: Joe Baur

Butterfly wings are beautiful and delicate. They’re also very slippery.
 
That characteristic has fascinated researchers at The Ohio State University and inspired them to study the properties of butterfly wing surfaces for insights into developing new high-tech coatings.
 
“Butterflies’ wings must remain clean in their natural habitat in order for them to maintain flight control and structural coloration,” explains Bharat Bhushan, Ohio Eminent Scholar. “They aren’t able to clean their wings like other insects, so they must rely entirely on the self-cleaning properties of their wings. Such properties are a result of superhydrophobility – the ability of a surface to repel water -- and low adhesion, which are desirable for low drag.”
 
According to Howard Winbigler, professor of mechanical engineering at OSU, “Reduced drag is desirable for industry, whether you’re trying to move a few drops of blood through a nano-channel or millions of gallons of crude oil through a pipeline. And self-cleaning surfaces would be useful for medical equipment – such as catheters, or anything that might harbor bacteria.”

The researchers have zeroed in on one butterfly in particular – the South American Blue Morpho Didius – due to its relatively large size, which will enable them to develop larger-scale replica samples.

“Our goal is to create the butterfly wing effect onto flexible adhesive-backed sheets that could be applied to a variety of flat and curved surfaces,” Bhushan explains. “The sheets would require the addition of nanoparticles or a low-surface energy chemical layer.” He anticipates successful development of prototype sheets this spring. 
 
The applications for high-tech coatings developed through this technique include medical, marine and industrial products that could save lives, energy and money, Bhushan notes.
 
The researchers’ work is being funded by the National Science Foundation.

Source:  Bharat Bhushan, The Ohio State University
                Howard D. Winbigler, The Ohio State University
Writer:     Lynne Meyer