By ; Steve Arnold
Source : http://www.thespec.com
Category : Small Business Grant
A new federal grant to McMaster University will give science and engineering students with big ideas for their own businesses a chance to make the jump from lab bench to shop floor.
The government has given the university $787,500 to help finance up to 75 graduates and graduate students launch or expand up to 30 business ventures.
The money comes from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario and is targeted at students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Andrew Forde and Mahmoud Hashim, both students in Mac’s Master of Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation program, will both cash in that support: Hashim to perfect a new way of administering classroom tests and Forde to put a computer tablet beside every hospital bed in the world as a way of making it easier for doctors to treat their patients.
Hashim’s company, Akindi, is perfecting a way of replacing the bubble sheets used to administer multiple choice tests to students. The preprinted forms cost about 20 cents each but Hashim says they can be replaced with regular paper and a new software package that will mark these tests and analyze the results.
“The technology that’s being used now is old and hasn’t been updated in 20 years because the company that owns it has a monopoly on the market,” he said in an interview.
Using the federal grant, he hopes to have a pilot test of the program during the summer and be ready to hit the market in September of this year or January next year.
Forde’s idea, Sommerfeld Solutions Inc., grew from growing up in a family of nurses who sometimes longed for the old days when they made notes on charts at the foot of a patient’s bed while information was still fresh in their minds. (That custom was killed by patient privacy concerns that forced patient charts into a central location.)
By putting a tablet, such as an iPad or RIM PlayBook, by each bed, doctors and medical staff can make their notes immediately in a secure form. The tablet can also link directly to the pharmacy, allowing drugs to be dispensed faster with fewer chances for error.
He expects to use the grant money to prove out the concept in a small trial at Hamilton Health Sciences or another hospital before presenting it to the world.
The grant was announced by David Sweet, MP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, in a brief ceremony at the university Friday.
Sweet praised the program as a critical link in helping new businesses get started.
“This will help to close the gap between the research lab and the shop floor,” he said. “Canada needs to innovate, and our universities and colleges are hotbeds of innovation and new ideas.
“Fresh new ideas like these and a highly skilled workforce are the building blocks for a strong future,” he added.
“This support will be critical to stimulating the new companies students are starting,” said David Wilkinson, the university’s dean of engineering. “It will give them a fighting chance to succeed.”
FedDev Ontario was created in 2009 to support job creation efforts in southern Ontario.
Source : http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/676860--mac-students-big-business-ideas-boosted-with-grant
Source : http://www.thespec.com
Category : Small Business Grant
A new federal grant to McMaster University will give science and engineering students with big ideas for their own businesses a chance to make the jump from lab bench to shop floor.
The government has given the university $787,500 to help finance up to 75 graduates and graduate students launch or expand up to 30 business ventures.
The money comes from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario and is targeted at students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Andrew Forde and Mahmoud Hashim, both students in Mac’s Master of Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation program, will both cash in that support: Hashim to perfect a new way of administering classroom tests and Forde to put a computer tablet beside every hospital bed in the world as a way of making it easier for doctors to treat their patients.
Hashim’s company, Akindi, is perfecting a way of replacing the bubble sheets used to administer multiple choice tests to students. The preprinted forms cost about 20 cents each but Hashim says they can be replaced with regular paper and a new software package that will mark these tests and analyze the results.
“The technology that’s being used now is old and hasn’t been updated in 20 years because the company that owns it has a monopoly on the market,” he said in an interview.
Using the federal grant, he hopes to have a pilot test of the program during the summer and be ready to hit the market in September of this year or January next year.
Forde’s idea, Sommerfeld Solutions Inc., grew from growing up in a family of nurses who sometimes longed for the old days when they made notes on charts at the foot of a patient’s bed while information was still fresh in their minds. (That custom was killed by patient privacy concerns that forced patient charts into a central location.)
By putting a tablet, such as an iPad or RIM PlayBook, by each bed, doctors and medical staff can make their notes immediately in a secure form. The tablet can also link directly to the pharmacy, allowing drugs to be dispensed faster with fewer chances for error.
He expects to use the grant money to prove out the concept in a small trial at Hamilton Health Sciences or another hospital before presenting it to the world.
The grant was announced by David Sweet, MP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, in a brief ceremony at the university Friday.
Sweet praised the program as a critical link in helping new businesses get started.
“This will help to close the gap between the research lab and the shop floor,” he said. “Canada needs to innovate, and our universities and colleges are hotbeds of innovation and new ideas.
“Fresh new ideas like these and a highly skilled workforce are the building blocks for a strong future,” he added.
“This support will be critical to stimulating the new companies students are starting,” said David Wilkinson, the university’s dean of engineering. “It will give them a fighting chance to succeed.”
FedDev Ontario was created in 2009 to support job creation efforts in southern Ontario.
Source : http://www.thespec.com/news/business/article/676860--mac-students-big-business-ideas-boosted-with-grant
