The first public meeting to present the plans for “Advancing Ohio’s Innovative Economy” was held Aug. 22 at the University of Toledo.

Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Jim Petro came to Toledo for the first presentation on the findings of the Ohio Higher Ed Technology Transfer and Commercialization Task Force.

“We need to advance higher education in Ohio, get more people to earn degrees to help build the economy and our future. Commercialization must be part of the agenda to bring jobs to Ohio and create jobs here,” said Petro.

Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Jim Petro spoke Aug. 22 at the University of Toledo about the findings of the Ohio Higher Ed Technology Transfer and Commercialization Task Force.

The Ohio Board of Regents’ Fifth Report on Higher Education makes recommendations on the steps Ohio needs to take to build and sustain a world-class commercialization infrastructure capable of competing on a global scale.

“Implementation of the recommendations will be a daunting task, and Ohio is the first state to undertake it,” Petro said.

UT President Lloyd Jacobs, a member of the task force, delivered the opening remarks at Doermann Theater in University Hall with approximately 100 faculty, students, business and civic leaders in attendance.

“This is a time for change in our state. We need leaders like Dr. Jacobs to help make it happen,” said Vinny Gupta, a regent and chairman of the Commercialization Task Force of 34 members from around the state.

“The number of people present shows the support we’re looking to get, not just quantity but quality people here,” Gupta said.

“We’re here to celebrate the convergence of universities with corporate America,” Jacobs said.

He pointed out that UT strives to provide an environment for innovation and cited Rocket Ventures, a partnership between UT and the Regional Growth Partnership. Rocket Ventures helps to fund and support start-up companies that are bringing innovative technology to the marketplace.

“Toledo is a university town. The role of the university will continue to broaden in the 21st century. The report is about sustainability. A sustainable world requires innovation,” Jacobs said.

One of the goals of the task force is to define economic opportunities for the university system in Ohio, which Gupta acclaimed as the largest in the country, through improvement and acceleration of commercialization and technology transfer. Another goal is to identify barriers to accelerating commercialization.

A third goal is to develop strategies for improving collaboration among higher education, industry and policy makers. The fourth goal is to identify systemic strategies for creating and sustaining a comprehensive commercialization ecosystem in Ohio.

Gupta said the task force looks to determine how it can serve the interests of higher education and the interests of industry.

“How can we provide incentives to help us get the commercialization system moving in the right direction to achieve those goals,” Gupta asked on behalf of the task force.

The primary charge of the task force is to guide the regents in identification and analysis of issues and data needed to successfully achieve the goals. Gupta said that the regents have asked the task force to remain intact and meet every three months.

The first step in the implementation process is to continue the dialogue with Ohio stakeholders by communicating clearly what’s in the task force’s recommendations.

More details on the task force’s recommendations for implementation of its plans will be compiled by Sept. 30, following additional presentations of the report around the state, according to Gupta.

Toledo City Councilman D. Michael Collins reminded the regents that it’s going to take funding from the State of Ohio to implement the plan and achieve the goals of the task force.

“We need to capitalize on ideas now without state funds,” Petro said.

“The state doesn’t have the money so we need to find more creative ways to fund commercialization,” Gupta said.

Ford Cauffiel, an 82-year-old native of Toledo, said college professors should come out and see what entrepreneurs of Toledo have accomplished. Cauffiel is an entrepreneur, inventor and industrialist who founded and operated Cauffiel Technologies Corp. in Toledo.

“Many venture capitalists told me that professors and entrepreneurs are different animals and think differently, so I think it is important to have a program to help create more entrepreneurial  faculty researchers,” said Xunming Deng, former president and CEO of Xunlight, a company he founded based on photovoltaic research he conducted at UT. He has returned to teach full time at the university.

Technology Transfer Office helps get ideas from classroom to marketplace

UT’s Technology Transfer Office is committed to developing and fostering relationships with industry to transfer UT discoveries and innovations to the marketplace.

The tech transfer staff works with faculty, staff and students when they develop a platform technology that can serve as the basis for a university spin-off business.

UT has initiated a “lab-to-launch” system to encourage and enable faculty start-up businesses, which can contribute to regional economic development.

The Tech Transfer team had one of its best years in fiscal 2011, according to its annual report for last year. It continues to be nationally ranked in key performance criteria, stated the report.

Last year, UT collected $1.2 million in licensing revenues and now has more than $5.5 million in equity. UT currently has 167 issued patents, 450 pending patents and entered into 16 new license agreements.

UT’s 13 start-up businesses have shared in excess of $85 million in venture funding and have created more than 100 new positions. It licensed intellectual properties to two new start-up businesses in 2011.

AccuGenomics LLC provides gene expression tests that can accurately diagnose, monitor and direct cancer treatment.

Excellent Energy Solutions is developing a proprietary flywheel energy storage system that may be used for distributed or centralized energy management for sources including NASA.

Stephen Snider, former associate and general counsel and director of technology licensing, was named assistant vice president of Tech Transfer at UT.

Tags: AccuGenomics LLC, D. Michael Collins, Excellent Energy Solutions, Ford Cauffiel, Jim Petro, Lloyd Jacobs, Ohio Board of Regents, Ohio Higher Ed Technology Transfer and Commercialization Task Force, Regional Growth Partnership, Rocket Ventures, Stephen Snider, Technology Transfer Office, University of Toledo, Vinny Gupta, Xunming Deng

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 25th, 2012 at 3:40 am and is filed under Toledo Business Link.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Local businessman Ford Cauffiel has helped more than 15,000 elementary school students in Northwest Ohio school districts improve their academics through a peer tutoring program, Students for Other Students (SOS).

Cauffiel said he has invested more than $1 million in the SOS after-school program. He established a nonprofit corporation, Students for Other Students, to fund the program he began more than 20 years ago.

Cauffiel reported that the SOS program has received funds from the Rotary Clubs in Northwest Ohio and numerous other local companies and organizations.

“I want to raise some big money for this program,” Cauffiel said.

He plans to approach educational foundations and philanthropic organizations for grants and donations with the goal of raising $1 million per year for the SOS program.

Since its inception, Cauffiel reported the peer tutoring has been applied in urban, suburban and rural school districts in four Ohio counties, and districts in Illinois, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Rhode Island.

Ford Cauffiel

Cauffiel said the program pays older, academically bright students to tutor younger, struggling students in need of assistance in their studies. Paying students up to $8 per hour to tutor their peers has proven to be a win-win for both tutors and students, he said.

Struggling students learn new effective study habits from their contemporaries, while tutors serve as role models who communicate to students in their language as opposed to the more formal style of adults.

By being paid, tutors experience responsibility and the satisfaction of earning money using their mental skills, Cauffiel said.

“It has changed the lives of thousands of children who for various reasons found learning difficult in the public school environment. Many of those students were at risk of falling through the cracks of society,” he said.

He first introduced the program to Perrysburg Schools in 1989 when the district became the original adopter. It has used the tutoring program annually, according to Kadee Anstadt, director of teaching and learning for the district.

Anstadt reported the district is helping about 135 middle and high school students with the SOS program funded by Cauffiel and additional students at the elementary level with a similar program funded by the Perrysburg Rotary Club.

Seventy-eight students participated in the SOS program in Springfield Local Schools during the 2009-2010 school year.

With the help of 42 high school student tutors, the third through fifth graders earned an average gain of 13 percent in test scores.

The Springfield district used title funds to assist with the program as the total number of students needing the tutoring service was larger than normal, according to a report filed by Todd Cramer, director of instruction and technology for the district.

Cauffiel was honored by the Springfield Schools at its May 25 meeting for funding the SOS program in the district for 21 years, said board president Kenneth Musch. They presented Cauffiel with three posters signed by 78 students expressing their appreciation for the program.

Evergreen Local Schools used the SOS program to provide tutoring to 33 elementary students during the 2009-2010 school year.

Preliminary results from the Ohio Achievement Assessment confirmed the strides students at Evergreen Elementary School in Metamora are making with the SOS tutoring program, according to Principal Scott Lockwood.

“We just finished another after-school program for this school year with 58 students enrolled. We’re very grateful to Mr. Cauffiel for his support,” Lockwood said.

The SOS program helped to provide student tutors from Evergreen High School for one-to-one tutoring in 30-minute study periods.

Bedford Public Schools in Monroe County has used the SOS program every year since 2004 to tutor approximately 10-15 students in grades K-5 for one hour five days a week at Jackman Road Elementary School. The program began in November and ran through the end of the school year.

“It has been a powerful program for us and we have seen a substantial increase in reading assessment scores with better attitudes toward their studies and classroom performance,” said Janice Gibson, reading specialist at Jackman Road Elementary.

Cauffiel said Toledo Public Schools used the SOS program in the past at Burroughs, Glendale-Fielbach, Nathan Hale, and Whittier schools with tutors from Libbey, Start and Waite high schools. He said that only some TPS Schools continued the program due to a lack of funds for the after-school program that requires a teacher to coordinate it.

Burroughs Elementary School in Toledo Public Schools provided 3,487 hours of tutoring to students in grades three through six during the 25-week program in 2009-2010, according to a report filed by the school.

Whittier Elementary had fifth graders tutoring second and third graders with the SOS program, eliminating the need for high school students to travel to that school. The tutored students who had previously failed the Ohio Proficiency Test raised their average score in five months to the accelerated or above-average proficient range, according to Cauffiel.

The inspiration for SOS came when Cauffiel was a freshman at Libbey High School in danger of failing algebra. A math teacher introduced him to an older student who tutored him in algebra and helped him become a math and engineering whiz, Cauffiel said.

Cauffiel is founder and CEO of Cauffiel Technologies in Toledo, which serves the steel processing industry around the world. He has established five subsidiaries and holds 25 patents.

“Like most businesspeople, I still have a burning desire to continue to prosper. But why make more money unless you have a noble objective? With the SOS program, I’ve tried to create a legacy from which children all across the country can benefit,” he said.

For more information, call (419) 843-5798 or email sos@cauffiel.com.

Tags: Duane Ramsey, Education, Ford Cauffiel, Students for Other Students

This entry was posted on Friday, June 17th, 2011 at 6:01 am and is filed under Community, Education.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.