To continue this blog series on innovation, today’s post focuses on the Lemelson program at MIT. It is best known for administering prizes that honor innovators:
- The Lemelson-MIT Prize, where a mid-career innovator is awarded $500,000, in recognition for “improving our world through technological invention and innovation”. Such an innovator must have “developed a patented product or process of significant value to society, which has been adopted for practical use, or has a high probability of being adopted”.
- The Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, where a MIT senior or graduate student "who has created or improved a product or process, applied a technology in a new way, redesigned a system, or in other ways displayed a portfolio of inventiveness" receives $30,000 in addition to significant exposure in the national media, which allows him/her to connect with other inventors. The Lemelson foundation also gives prizes to student innovators at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Caltech and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The 2011 winner is Dr John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who “attributes his entrepreneurial success to appreciation for both science and the creative arts” (his parents are a physicist and a poet). He has over 80 patents to his name and is involved in 4 start-ups. Current interests include biointegrated electronics, with applications in cardiology and neurology, and high-performance semiconductors of relevance for sustainable energy.
He is also very active in mentoring and “manages student-driven programs that span every aspect of science, technology, engineering and math education, from summer day camps to research experiences for undergraduates.” His honors include “the MacArthur Fellowship, election to the National Academy of Engineering, and selection as one of the Top 100 Young Innovators for the 21st Century by MIT’s Technology Review.”
The 2011 MIT winner is Alice Chen, a biomedical engineer and graduate student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology (HST), "for her innovative applications of microtechnology to study human health and disease", including "a humanized mouse with a tissue-engineered human liver, [which] is intended to bridge a gap in the drug development pipeline between laboratory animal studies and clinical trials". She has also co-founded a biotech company called Sienna Labs (pioneering a new generation of medical pigments) with fellow MIT graduate Todd Harris.
The other 2011 student winners are:
at Caltech, Guoan Zheng for "an on-chip, inexpensive microscopy imaging technology", the applications of which include "many potential applications, including improved diagnostics for malaria and other blood-borne diseases in the developing world and rapid screening of new drugs",
at RPI, Benjamin Clough, for "a new technique that employs sound waves to boost the distance from which researchers can use terahertz spectroscopy to remotely detect hidden explosives, chemicals, and other dangerous materials",
at UIUC, Scott Daigle for "a system that utilizes automatic gear shifting to reduce the efforts exerted by wheelchair operators" (more information on the company he founded, IntelliWheels, Inc). It is worth pointing out that UIUC has wheelchair athletics teams in men's basketball, women's basketball and track, showing a positive example to youngsters with motor disabilities.
- The Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability/Global Innovation, which awards $100,000 to "individuals whose technological innovations improve the lives of impoverished people in the developing world."
The 2011 winner is Elizabeth Hausler, who won for her work in developing "sustainable, safe housing solutions in [disaster-prone areas of] developing countries." She is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to India as well as "a 2009 Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow and a 2008 Tech Awards Laureate."
- The Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams, which "are teams of high school students, teachers, and mentors that receive grants up to $10,000 each to invent technological solutions to real-world problems." This initiative is designed to "excite high school students about invention, empower students to problem solve and encourage an inventive culture in schools and communities". Current InvenTeams are working on an ergonomic bariatric rescue system, a desalination drip irrigation system, an off-shore rip current alert system and a portable medical support system, among other projects.
The Lemelson-MIT program is named after inventor Jerome Lemelson (1923-1997), funded by the Lemelson Foundation and administered by MIT's School of Engineering. The Lemelson Foundation, which was created in 1993, funds many innovation-related programs and centers throughout the world. To date it has spent $110 million in support of its mission. The application deadline for the 2012 awards has passed. Check out the program webpage in the spring to learn about the winners.
Comments