Education + Learning : Innovation + Startup News

Northern Kentucky is bringing a Startup Weekend to the region Jan. 13-15 at Northern Kentucky University’s Griffin Hall, organized by a collection of regional entrepreneurial advocates.

Startup Weekend is a global, nonprofit organization that holds 54-hour events around the world for entrepreneurs, business professionals, creative professionals and programmers to meet, exchange ideas and build a company by the end of a weekend.

The goal is for talented people with different skills to come together to make an idea come to life, says Rodney D’Souza, assistant professor in the Department of Management at the Haile/US Bank College of Business, and one of the key organizers of Startup Weekend.

The weekend begins with an open-mic pitch, where individuals describe their business idea and start recruiting members for their team. Attendees vote for the best, most plausible ideas. Through Saturday and Sunday, teams develop business strategies, marketing plans and a simple product (usually Web-based) to present on Sunday night to a panel of respected local judges.  

The development of the NKU College of Informatics was instrumental in bringing Startup Weekend to the region. The college came to life in the fall of 2011 with 1,550 students enrolled in the college’s programs that range from computer information technology to media informatics. The department is housed in NKU’s sleek new Griffin Hall, which boasts a 15-foot by 25-foot micro-tile presentation platform, 47 technology-enhanced meeting spaces and classrooms, a virtualization lab, an advanced audio and video lab and a computer hardware lab.

“Startup Weekend will help advance the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the Greater Cincinnati area by equipping the next generation of entrepreneurs with the necessary skills to transform their untested ideas into viable business ventures,” says D’Souza.

“This will be accomplished by building teams around individual ideas, providing mentorship, encouraging networking and a lot of caffeine.”

CincyTech is sponsoring the event and providing mentoring to attendees along with Candace Klein, founder and CEO of Bad Girl Ventures, Elizabeth Edwards, founder of Metro Innovation and author of Startup: The Complete Handbook for Launching a Company for Less, and Dave Heilmann, chief operating officer of Sparkpeople. Judges for the event are Casey Barach, president of the ezone, and Parag Rathi, an analyst with River Cities Capital Funds. Additional speakers, mentors and judges will be announced in the coming weeks.

The program also is sponsored by Duke Energy, the Haile/US Bank Foundation, and the Kentucky Science and Technology Corp. For more information or how to register, check the Startup Weekend Northern Kentucky website.

By Sarah Blazak

It started out merely as a pursuit for a passing grade and wound up getting the attention of Occupy Wallstreet organizers and web surfers as far away as India and Pakistan.

Two University of Cincinnati students were simply aiming for the approval of their professors at the annual College of Applied Science Senior Design Fair. So when a whirlwind of curiosity surrounded their innovative attempt at a data-gathering prototype, the novice inventors were more than ecstatic to share their story of a blooming success.

Their story begins with a simple, and common, question: "What's happening?" It's the question that Alex Padgett and Billy Clifton worked to answer with their innovative social media tool, "The Tweetographer."

From university students in search of a good place to party to event-trackers trying to get information to the public, the question can be simple and straightforward or layered with complexity. The students' application organizes information gained from Twitter to tell people where and when events are happening across a broad spectrum.

Originally inspired by CityBeat, the two inventors explain that the idea for Tweetographer stemmed from the desire to keep people informed about their surroundings.

"Public conversation can be used to figure out a general consensus," Clifton says.

The fourth-year computer science majors developed the prototype in six months for their senior design demonstration. Originally, it was conceived as a fundamental proof of concept, but skyrocketed from there, Clifton says.

"Once we began to work with the data, we recognized its natural potential to be sorted, organized and analyzed," Clifton says.

Currently, the web application is still raw and basic. With no eye-candy for visual slickness, it's pretty utilitarian: it displays a map and calendar on a bland webpage.  

"We plan on dressing it up and putting some features on it and putting the full project out on the web for free," Clifton says.

Yet the possibilities to make it a full-fledged project are clear, and according to the two students, people are excited about the Tweetographer. After the initial presentation at Tangeman University Center for their senior design fair, they were asked to give a demonstration to the Institute of Electronic Engineers.

From there, a flurry of tweets and blog posts spread word about the visionary web application. Occupy Wallstreet representatives were interested in utilizing the tool for their movement and the information has been shared as far as India and Pakistan.

"We did a few demonstrations and it caught fire and everyone loved it," Clifton says. "So people asked us to keep working on it and that's what we're going to do."

Their journey to a solid prototype wasn't an easy ride. There were a few problems connecting with the Twitter network immediately, and other issues arose, Padgett says.

With the typical glitches and spam issues, Padgett and Clifton simply focused their attention on one issue at a time.

"We haven't come across any glitches that we haven't been able to resolve," Padgett says.

Because Padgett graduates after the current academic quarter and begins a full-time job, Clifton has dedicated his efforts to perfecting the prototype. He hopes to go public with a working application by the first of January.

"Alex and I hadn't been in touch for months after the completion of our senior design project, so I continued to work on data mining techniques," Clifton says. "I've spent many nights and weekends designing a more complex engine that can grab information about any topic that I tell it to."

The engine is incredibly sophisticated and can be used to power many different applications, including the Tweetographer, Clifton says. He uses this analogy: he's constructing an engine that can be put under the hood of any car. He hopes to incorporate other social media networks into his application, including Facebook and LinkedIn. The updated prototype should also allow users to find happenings on a smaller scale — even as small as the community of the University of Cincinnati.

"There's no reason it can't be scaled down to the size of a campus like UC," says Clifton. "This would be a great way to inform students about welcome week events or even campus safety alerts."

The safety applications alone could prove invaluable. "If someone tweets that they just got robbed on Jefferson Avenue, the Tweetographer would pick that up and inform others about it instantly," he says.

With big ideas and bigger potential, Clifton insists that the project's foundation won't change. Designed as a community service, the Tweetographer will remain just that. "If there is a non-intrusive way to make a revenue off of it, then great. I'll never make people pay to use the service, though," Clifton says.

A self-proclaimed social media enthusiast, Clifton finds the diversity and original content of social media sites to be a beautiful thing. No one has to be a Webmaster to contribute to the authenticity and real opinions of the internet, Clifton says. "As long as there is social media fuel, this engine will thrive and the options will be endless."

By Kara Driscoll

Kara Driscoll is a freshman journalism major at the University of Cincinnati. An earlier version of this story appeared in the University of Cincinnati's student newspaper, The News Record.

In Northern Kentucky, a community college that overlooks Cincinnati gives students hands-on experience in conserving energy.

Gateway Community and Technical College in Covington now offers an Energy Audtior class, which gives students the training they need to prepare for the Building Analyst Certification Exam trough the Building Performance Institute.

Gateway pairs the course with its Air Conditioning Technology area of study. The energy auditing class is open to students and businesses that want to get employees certified in the process.

The first class runs from Jan. 30 through Feb. 3. In eight hours per day, students and professionals can get a quick boost to their skill sets, and salaries. Employers that send employees to the class may be eligible for state funding to offset costs as part of an effort to boost enrollment.
 
Energy Auditors can work for energy companies, building contractors or air conditioning companies to help homeowners reduce their consumption of energy. By having mock houses on campus, the staff at Gateway gives students specific training that mimics what they will be doing once in the field. They use tools like thermal imagers to locate areas of heat loss and duct blasters to find leaks and bad seals. After an energy auditor inspects a home, they will be able to advise homeowners on how to lower utility bills.

“Our facility really gives people an opportunity to try what they are going to be doing,” says Ric Bowen, associate professor at Gateway. “We have all the equipment right here.

In the future, Gateway hopes to expand its Energy Auditor program to provide commercial energy auditor training and attract even more enrollment.

By Evan Wallis

Small groups of teens huddled together, talking about companies they admire. Apple, Google, Facebook top the lists. They spend the rest of the evening listing what makes good companies great, and what makes non-profits successful. The 60 youth come from high schools throughout the region. Together, they represent the latest class of UCREW: Cincinnati.

Formed as a school-year based student advisory board, UCREW is an outgrowth of the non-profit UGIVE.org, which gives students and young people opportunities to learn and grow through volunteering. Now in its fourth year, UCREW will create an awareness building event called AMPLIFY and, for the first time ever, launch a social business.

A the second group session of the six-month program, UCREW teens brainstormed about business ideas and causes they would love to support. From healthy living to employment training, their wide-ranging social concerns give a hint as to their awareness of the needs around them. Business ventures ranged from online services to a series of fitness classes for teens that could raise funds to support similar classes for inner-city youth.

"I'd never heard of social entrepreneurship before," says Grace Kennedy, 17, a senior at Lakota East High School. "(UCREW) really made me interested in business, which I have never been before."

In addition to planning a social business, UCREW teens take part in volunteer efforts as a group. They participate in planning and mentoring sessions, all geared to prepare them to become long-term philanthropists as well as well-rounded citizens. An added benefit? Since teens come from a wide range of high schools, UCREW offers like-minded peers opportunities to build not only a business, but also cross-town friendships.

By Elissa Yancey
Follow Elissa on Twitter.
Photo of Grace Kennedy, Joe Hansbauer and Mimi Shiba by Elissa Yancey

An international arts festival that calls Barcelona home makes its first tour stop in Cincinnati this week.

OFFF Cincinnati takes place at the Contemporary Arts Center this weekend. It brings together some of the most innovative and groundbreaking artists from around the world to illustrate the bond between art, creative thought and digital technology. Artists who work in film, motion design, illustration and other media will engage the local audience as they explore ideas about future of art and the creative process.

It took a year of planning, but even before OFFF was officially announced, local design firms jumped at the chance to offer support. HyperQuake created the website, branding and a mobile app for the event. The app is the first presentation at OFFF.

In the weeks leading up to the event, app users were given tasks, including taking photographs representative of Blue, Look Up, Horizontal Lines and Your Shoes. Combined, the images will form larger art installations created by HyperQuake and Lightborne. Any user who completes all the tasks before the event will receive a screen-printed poster.

The app also connects its users via Twitter and encourages the sharing of pictures and conversation leading up to the event. The goal is ambitious: to not only bring together the best and most innovative artists in the world, but also to bring together all those who love art and wish to be inspired by it.

While the event is sold out at around 300 attendees, Soapbox’s Evan Wallis will be attending and bringing readers a feature on the festival, including why Cincinnati was chosen and a look in to the founder, Hector Ayuso’s vision.

By Evan Wallis

After arriving on the University of Cincinnati’s campus fewer than two years ago, two instructors are creating a new certificate program for students to help them see and think differently.

A two-day symposium put together by the assistant professors culminates nine months of planning, as well as the launch of the new cross-collegiate certificate program. Look Better, hosted Oct. 13 and 14 in and around the main Clifton campus, will focus on interdisciplinary visual research, practice and pedagogy. “UC is an up and coming university,” says Stephanie Sadre-Orafai, assistant professor of anthropology. “But there is no program of visual culture studies.”

The new certificate program blends courses from the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning and the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences. The goal is to teach students “how to effectively combine critical theory and social analysis with art, media and design practice.” The symposium will feature speakers from across the university, country and “innovative scholars” from as far away as Germany, Sadre-Orafai says.

The lengthy list of presenters includes “mostly young but up-and-coming scholars and artists,” Sadre-Orafai says. About 100 people have registered for the event so far, and Sadre-Orafai, along with her co-organizer Jordan Tate, an assistant professor of fine art, anticipate a regional response by inviting students and faculty from every university within two hours of Cincinnati.

“The goal of both the symposium and certificate is to generate a broad, campus-wide discussion on what is at stake in how we see and provide a platform to think about how we might develop new artistic, media and design forms and practices to intervene in dominant visions,” according to the Look Better blog.

Sadre-Orafai and Tate met during a faculty orientation in fall 2010 and realized that they were both interested in studying the same topics. It wasn’t until some of their students – who were taking both anthropology with Sadre-Orafai and photography with Tate, said they were learning about some of the same things in each class that the momentum for Look Better started.
“It organically came about," Sadre-Orafai says. “We asked, ‘How can we do more stuff together?' ”

The entire event is free and open to the public, but Sadre-Orafai says registration is encouraged because of potential space constraints.

By Taylor Dungjen

Entrepreneurs, mark your calendars. A two-day intensive workshop, sponsored by CincyTechUSA, is scheduled for Oct. 26-27 at the Ft. Mitchell Country Club. It will cover all aspects of preparing a competitive SBIR/STTR proposal from strategic planning to proposal writing, submission and post-submission follow-up.

When it comes to strategic planning, doing your homework in advance makes a major difference. The workshop guides you to learn how to research SBIR/STTR program details and Technological Innovation and Commercial Merit, develop strategies to help your proposal meet agency requirements and do intelligence work before you write your proposal.

In addition, you’ll learn how to craft a fundable proposal, including gathering the right tools, understanding the review process and following step-by-step instructions. You’ll even get a glimpse into common errors and pitfalls so that you can avoid them.

The workshop also features chances to learn about how to submit government grants, from the NIH to the DoE and DoEd.

For more information or to register: Call or email Dorothy H. Air, PhD, 558-7339, or dorothy.air@uc.edu.

By Elissa Yancey

A festival without music may not sound much like a festival, but a new offering focusing on Cincinnati architecture may make you reexamine the way you look at the city.

ArchiNati is a weeklong tour of Cincinnati that includes walking tours and excursions to specific sites and film screenings. But this architecturally focused festival isn’t for architects, it’s geared toward giving all citizens new insights into the buildings around them.

“We tried to find places that would spark an interest in architecture for people,” says Mercedeh Namei, co-director of ArchiNati.

Organized by the Young Architect’s and Intern’s Forum, the young professional committee of the Cincinnati Chapter of the AIA, festival planners hope to form a critical mass of people for the tours.

“We want to increase awareness in the general public,” says John Back, co-director of ArchiNati. “We want people to come and say, ‘Wow, there are incredible places in Cincinnati.’ ”

Modeled after Open House New York, the tour will take visitors from Brazee Street Studio, a sustainable art studio in Oakley, to the High Steel Tour at Union Terminal. Both old and new will be featured with a specific goal of spotlighting spaces the public may not know about. At the end of the week, several offices in the Eight Street Design District will open their doors so visitors can see exactly what architects and designers do.

While many of the ArchiNati tours are free, specific ones like the High Steel Tour do have a fee, but organizers insist the trip is worth the cost. Union Terminal tourists will climb 300 stairs and ladders to the steel trusses which support one of the largest half domes in the world.

The fee isn’t intended to make a profit for the festival; the only goal is to promote Cincinnati. “People leave, but what some leave behind is architecture,” Namei says. “We can save it and teach people about good architecture.”

By Evan Wallis

Some complex chemical work at UC may some day lead to better smells around your house.

The research by Dr. Anna Gudmundsdottir, UC chemistry professor, revolves around radicals, which are atoms, molecules or ions that are trying to change into something else. They have a lifetime of only fractions of seconds, which usually occurs during other chemical reactions.

Gudmundsdottir focuses on triplet nitrenes. They are somewhat more stable than normal radicals, and can be turned into organic magnets that can trap a fragrance and slowly release it over time. While this kind of idea has been applied to heat-released fragrance, think dryer sheets, this may well be the first time light will be used as a trigger to release fragrance.

“When you mop a floor, it only smells clean for a few minutes,” Gudmundsdottir says. “If this research was applied, a cleaning solution could slowly release once contacted by light and release a pleasant fragrance over an extended period of time.”

The fragrance will be kept from full release by photoprotectant, which is created by the nitrenes. They act as a cap that is slowly taken away when contacted by photons. Gudmundsdottir is now working on how to time that release and control how much fragrance is released each time photons make contact.

The research may also play a part in medicine. If a drug is tethered to the nitrenes, then put in a patient’s veins, it can then be targeted with light and released exactly where, and only where, it needs to go.

“Light is one of the few things you can actually control in space,” Gudmundsdottir says. “You can’t control where you have the fragrance or drug molecules, but you can pinpoint where you penetrate with light. That is why it is so useful.”

By Evan Wallis

With two new joint degrees, Northern Kentucky University leads the country in connecting law students with the digital age.

The Chase Law and Informatics Institute at NKU held its first classes in August. “We want to pull together the study of informatics with the legal analysis of the contractual practices which are shaping business and commerce,” says Jon Garon, inaugural director of the Chase Law and Informatics Institute.

The institute offers two joint degrees; a Juris Doctor/Masters of Business Informatics and a Juris Doctor/ Masters of Health Informatics. No other law school in the country has these kinds of degrees. “There are a few schools that have law and technology programs,” Garon says. “With the convergence of the law school and the College of Informatics, we are really at a unique position. Our students will be fully immersed in the both the informatics world and the world of law ”

This means studying the rapidly changing field of law in the age of enormous amounts of data and ever-changing technology, including disruptive technologies. “A disruptive technology is something that is changing the way businesses interact with their customers,” Garon says. “For example, digital photography came around and completely reshaped the industry.”

With analog photography, ownership was simple. But, with digital files and the Internet, there are more questions about ownership and fair use than ever before. The technology fundamentally rewrote the social contract between the parties, so there has to be new law to govern that.

Garon is a perfect candidate to run the new institute because of his background in law and teaching. “Each step in my career has been a hands-on approach to how data and media and how they are reshaping the way we think, as well as the way we do business,” Garon says. He worked with companies as the Internet grew and worked with companies to hel them deal with the security of online health information.

As technology continues to evolve, there is an increasing need for companies, even at the small, family-owned level, to understand what they need to protect and how to do that. Garon hopes that the NKU institute will produce lawyers who understand how the worlds of law and information work together.

“We are developing a much more strategic lawyer. One who understands not only the technical aspects of a contract, but also is able to advise a company on their internal practices and their approach to legal issues,”  Garon says. “Our graduates will be the most flexible and most ready to develop processes to deal with the new world we live in.”  

By Evan Wallis

Silicon Valley. Boston. Austin. When it comes to technology jobs, those familiar locations top the list.

Unless you consider a report issued in February by Dice.com, a career site with more than 8,000 customers who advertise or post their tech jobs nationwide. Based on the number of job postings that month, three Ohio cities -- Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus -- ranked second, third and fourth, respectively, in the percentage increase in job opportunities over the previous year.

Silicon Valley ranked 10th.

While those Ohio cities dropped out of the Dice.com top 10 this summer, similar reports by those like Monster.com and BusinessWeek indicate that one or all are consistently in the mix for new IT job opportunities. And with average salaries ranging from $66,000 in Cleveland to $74,000 in Columbus -- at least among employers posting on Dice.com -- those opportunities are significant, say those who follow Ohio's economy.

Alice Hill, Dice.com's managing director, says part of the surge is related to a recovery that has not yet come to many other economic sectors.

"A lot of jobs were on hold due to the recession," she says. "Hiring managers are now more confident. We saw that start in California, spread to New York and then we started to see the recovery happening in technology segments in smaller cities."

The Northeast Ohio Software Association (NEOSA) notes in its 2010 IT report that both 2008 and 2009 were difficult for tech firms in the region because of the economy. That turned around last year, when nearly 60 percent of firms surveyed said they planned to increase staff. And NEOSA's report for the second quarter of 2011 found that 66 percent of IT firms surveyed plan to hire in the next 12 months.

"The fact that we're seeing growth in IT jobs is really not surprising at all because there's this pent-up demand for the new equipment, new software," says Bill LaFayette, a former economic analyst for the Columbus Chamber who recently launched his own economic consultancy, Regionomics, LLC. "But in terms of why Ohio, the important thing to understand is that IT jobs are not simply in IT companies, they are pervasive. "

By Gene Monteith

“Free and public” is not a term typically associated with digital downloads. But the long-standing motto of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County holds true for any e-book or e-audiobook download that the library offers today. 

A “Digital Bookmobile” recently rolled into two branches – Loveland and Grosbeck – to educate Hamilton County residents about the libraries' growing collection of downloadable material. Filled with a gadget gallery of mobile devices, visitors learned download basics from Overdrive, a downloadable materials vendor sponsoring the new-age bookmobile. 

With a library card and an iPod, Android, NOOK, Sony Reader, Blackberry, WindowsPhone or other digital device, customers can freely access the library’s entire downloadable collection. Through the Ohio eBook Project, libraries around the state, including Cincinnati’s, have collectively purchased downloadable materials. So, when one participating library adds titles to its collection, customers from all OEP member libraries can borrow them.   

E-books are usually offered for two weeks at a time, but music, part of the Sony Entertainment Catalog and the library’s newest digital service, can be downloaded for life.  

“People often ask the question, ‘Are e-books going to put the library out of business?’” says Amy Banister, the library’s marketing and programming director. “But we haven’t found that at all.” 

In fact, circulation and usage is up dramatically this year, and last year’s total of 16.4 million items loaned or downloaded was the highest number the library has ever seen. “We’re seeing increased circulation in borrowing, an increase in visitors and searching on-line, and an increase in program attendance.” 

Cincinnati’s public library draws people with its ever-enlarging downloadable collection and then keeps them there to attend a program, visit an exhibit or even sit down with one of those old-fashioned hardcover books for a quiet read.

By Becky Johnson

A sensor chip developed by researchers at The University of Cincinnati is small enough to be covered by a matchbook. But this little device offers huge potential for making medical care faster, easier and less painful.

UC researchers Erin Haynes, DrPH, and Ian Papautsky, PhD, are in the early stages of testing a sensor that can measure the level of manganese, a potentially toxic metal, in a blood sample. Excessive manganese exposure can cause a range of symptoms, including behavioral changes, balance problems and nervous system damage. Haynes, an environmental medicine researcher, initially began studying manganese exposure after she was contacted by residents of Marietta, Ohio, who worried that a manganese processing facility in that city was releasing dangerous amounts of the metal into the air.

Haynes says that current testing practices, which involve periodic blood testing among participants, can take up to six months or more as her team collects a batch of samples, ships them to a lab, and then waits for results.

"Families are anxious," Haynes says. "They want to know the results immediately or in a short amount of time."

Haynes says she approached Papautsky with the idea of developing a so-called lab-on-a-chip: a single-use device that could quickly test a small blood sample for manganese and provide a near-instant result.

Papautsky says this type of point-of-care testing is a hot topic in biomedical engineering. And the subject at hand presented a unique challenge, he says.

"It turns out manganese is very challenging to detect in an electrochemical approach," he says.

The researchers' prototype chip uses an electrical current to pull manganese out of the blood sample, and measures how much energy it takes to do that - the amount of energy required correlates to the amount of manganese in the sample. The electrodes normally used in this kind of device are often made from mercury, but the team found that making the electrodes out of less-toxic bismuth produced a more sensitive sensor, and one that's more environmentally friendly.

Papautsky says the chip is still in the early phases of lab testing - it has shown promise detecting manganese in blood serum, and his team hopes to test it using whole blood in the near future. It could be several years before a consumer-ready version of the chip can be deployed to Marietta, thanks to the long process of verification and testing that goes into ensuring any medical device is ready for use.

But both Papautsky and Haynes are excited about the chip's potential. Its high sensitivity could trickle down into making other tests, such as that for lead exposure, more effective. But patients young and old may better appreciate another fact: the lab-on-a-chip could one day conduct a range of front-line lab tests with only a finger-prick's worth of blood, rather than the vials required today.

"These type of systems are changing the way medicine is practiced and can be delivered," Papautsky says.

By Matt Cunningham

Follow Matt on Twitter @cunningcontent

Students seeking a hands-on way to launch careers in a cutting-edge industry have a new opportunity in Northern Kentucky.

Gateway Technical and Community College in Covington now offers an associate in applied science degree in energy technologies, and energy careers program coordinator Yvonne Meichtry says the new degrees, which focus on high-tech topics such as smart grid technology, renewable energy and efficiency auditing, are responding to market demand.

Meichtry says the college was approached by a number of local utility contractors, such as the Bowlin Group LLC and Duke Energy, with a pressing need: More than half of the utilities trades workforce is expected to hit retirement age over the next five years, and employers need a resource that produces graduates who can hit the ground running in jobs as linemen and technicians.

"They wanted [the students] to have a basic level of skills when they walked in the door," she says. While the companies would have trained new-hires from the ground up in the past, energy technology advances make a higher degree of pre-employment training much more attractive.

Students in the associate in applied science degree can choose to focus on one of six specialty areas: Energy Utility Technician (Lineperson), Outside Plant Technician, Energy Efficiency Electrical Controls Technician, Energy Efficiency and Analysis, Solar/Photovoltaic Technologies, and Wind Systems Technologies. The program also offers students the chance to earn a number of industry certifications.

"Employers really value these," Meichtry says. "We're currently working on having students get qualified for certifications."

The program is supported in part by a three-year, $350,000 Department of Labor grant, and leverages the college's existing electrical trades degree programs, Meichtry says.

"We were able to pull from programs that already exist" for a number of the degree's core classes, she says. The difference, she explains, is in the technology. "[The new program] prepares students for the cutting edge, especially with green engineering."

The move seems to be paying off. Meichtry says the college currently has a 75 percent placement rate of graduates into the industry. And with the new program fully online this fall, she expects that positive trend to continue.

"The hiring seems to be picking up," she says.

By Matt Cunningham
Follow Matt on Twitter @cunningcontent

An area university has brought its technical expertise to the table to help develop a live-saving mobile application for fire departments and first responders.

The Center for Applied Informatics (CAI) at Northern Kentucky University in June joined the advisory board of the PulsePoint Foundation, a non-profit group created to develop and expand the use of a mobile application that helps fire departments spread information and emergency information.

"In today's connected world, the public can stay current on emergency situations via this application directly from the EMS/Fire unit," says Tim Ferguson, executive director and chief information officer of the CAI at NKU. "The technology automates this with integration with the 9-1-1 system. Public service now and in the future will be more focused on providing real-time information from the teams that provide the service."

The mobile technology, known as the Fire Department CPR notification application, was originally developed and tested by the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District in California, in conjunction with CAI, Ferguson says.

"It began several months ago as a research project," Ferguson says. "NKU has provided our mobile application research to the foundation."

The application currently works on the iOS platform found on Apple iPhones, says Josh Rodamer, marketing specialist for CAI.
Approximately 10 students and four faculty members served as graphic designers, testers and web and database developers on the project, which is similar to applications currently in use by school systems and other governmental agencies that need to communicate to the public, Ferguson says.

The partnership with PulsePoint falls in line with NKU's efforts to contribute back to the local community, says James Votruba, president of NKU.

"Collaboration with the PulsePoint Foundation perfectly aligns with Northern Kentucky University's community outreach mission," Votruba says. "This innovative technology has true potential to change and save lives, and we are proud to be part of such an initiative."

Besides normal fire department notifications, the application includes a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) function meant to increase life-saving measures and improve patient care. This helped earn the application multiple technology and innovation awards since its inception, including an American Heart Association Life Saver Heart Partner Award.

"The CPR feature connects someone trained in CPR who is close proximity-wise (within one block) to someone who is in need of CPR," Ferguson says. "This almost immediate response before EMS shows up can save lives."

Approximately 10 fire and EMS departments throughout Northern Kentucky are in partnership talks with the PulsePoint Foundation and NKU regarding the mobile application – including the Erlanger, Ky, Fire/EMS Department.

"We have been working with them to review the Fire Department Application and to hopefully deploy it in the fall," Ferguson says. "They are a good example of a local EMS/Fire that sees the mobile technology as a necessary step in informing the public and in fact public service."

The department was informed of the project by a mutual partner it has with the university, Sprint Wireless.

"Sprint, knowing our desire to be cutting edge, thought our department would be a good local match for NKU," says Steve Castor, an officer with the Erlanger Public Safety Communications Center.

The application benefits not only fire and EMS units, Castor says, but the public as well.

"The more hands out there, the better," Castor says. "It's putting that many more trained people out there (in the area of an incident) that can help someone until that paramedic or ambulance arrives."

Residents that sign up and download the application, once the city of Erlanger institutes it, will be acting under the Good Samaritan laws and not as agents of the city, says Terry Allen, Erlanger fire chief.

Allen says he wishes he had the application one evening while eating at Outback Steakhouse when another diner began choking.

"All of a sudden the EMS showed up and I didn't know about it," Allen says, "but if I had this application I could have helped."

Not only will the application notify citizens of medical emergencies and locations of defibrillators but also of road closures and other information, Allen says.

There is no additional cost to taxpayers if the city institutes the application, Allen says.

"I think it's a tremendous tool for the public and we are 100 percent behind it," he says. "It's worth it if we can help save a life."

A presentation on the mobile application is to be presented at the Erlanger City Council meeting Aug. 2, Allen says.

By James Sprague