The University of Michigan School of Information is seeking organizations to host student projects in the 2020-2021 school year. Organizations from all industries – corporate, non-profit, governmental, health, and research institutions – that seek impact and access to high-caliber students are invited to propose a project.
Universities everywhere are trying to trim budgets and plan for virtual instruction in case of a second wave in the Fall 2020 semester, but where does that slack come from? In the case of schools where staff is at essential levels already or there are unavoidable cutbacks or furloughs, can software help remaining faculty and staff do more with less?
TusStar is an affiliated network of tech startup incubators and early stage venture accelerators located in over 130 cities around the world. It is led by professors at Tsinghua University in China, a major research university in Beijing, and there is a TusStar Incubator in emerging tech hub Ann Arbor, where a number of academic faculty at the University of Michigan start new companies to make use of inventions found during their research careers. Frank Ni is the head of TusStar Ann Arbor, founded as the premier TusStar location in the U.S. in late 2017 on the north side of Ann Arbor which is famous for its engineering, science research, robotics and autonomous vehicle research campuses. “Innovation can go beyond borders,” Ni tells Cronicle of the philosophy of starting an international incubator in Southeast Michigan.
How honest can we expect workers to be about symptoms of COVID-19 as they return to work they need for economic security and healthcare? Are employers or the government assuring worker job security when workers fall ill so that they can afford to miss work? These are some of the questions we’ve been mulling as Michigan Governor Whitmer announced her 6-phase plan for safely reopening the Michigan economy. States around the U.S. are reopening despite not reaching recommended milestones, and tensions are running high between people concerned about health versus disastrous employment numbers, including 48% of Detroiters losing their job in recent months.
Braden Shugarman is part of the latest cohort of startups supported by the Desai Venture Accelerator in Ann Arbor. He and his grandfather, Florida ophthalmologist Dr. Richard Shugarman, created Shugarman Surgical Innovations to market an improved eyelid speculum called SpecLite for certain ophthalmologic procedures. The original idea came back in September of 2014, when the elder Shugarman was working as a retinal specialist performing 30-50 intravitreal injections per day for people with certain eye disorders. He realized that for people receiving injections to retain and improve their eyesight with conditions such as macular degeneration and ocular edema, the current speculums available for the last 2 decades were functional but hadn’t improved much. To increase patient comfort and decrease complications and infections, Dr. Shugarman began to design a new speculum.
A microfluidic device invented at the University of Michigan and developed by U of M startup Optofluidic Bioassay may offer a cheaper, faster, and much more reliable antibody test than those currently being rushed to market to trace the spread of COVID-19. A microfluidic device is described by the company as a “lab on a chip,” meaning that it shrinks multiple lab testing functions onto a single chip just millimeters or centimeters in size. The technology enables faster results for coronavirus antibody testing with smaller sample sizes.
What is happening with the newest cohort of tech and life science startups spun out of intellectual property invented at the University of Michigan? We’ve heard in recent times that the university has poured resources into programs for students interested in turning inventions and software into startups rather than taking a traditional job after graduation, but it seems spotty which majors and areas of the university are involved beyond computer science. We recently were introduced to several new startups navigating the entrepreneurial process straight out of college, and wanted to bring you the story of one small company and how it navigated through the maze of startup development from within the academic environment. It’s just one path to entrepreneurship in a growing tech and startup scene in Michigan, but one that is often hidden behind closed doors.
The third annual University of Michigan Data for Public Good Symposium, which runs 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Feb. 25, 2020 in Ann Arbor, will feature presentations on ways in which students, faculty, staff and community members have worked together to analyze and assess data to benefit others. The event includes a presentation by industry partner Data Driven Detroit, which provides accessible high-quality information and analysis to nonprofit organizations, foundations, universities, and businesses to support data-driven decision-making in the city.
Happy Valentine’s Day! If you’d like to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a little tech twist, this year you can send an augmented reality valentine to a child at Mott’s Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor using Spellbound AR’s new AR valentines.
This last week, we made it out to Professor Yarger’s student video game showcase in Ann Arbor, which highlights games from University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan students. Games ranged from multi-player space pirates Space Subterfuge to a game call I’m a Chopstick, where two chopsticks attempt to get dinner to the table. (“We are not responsible for any relationship troubles that arise due to gameplay!” the creators warn in their trailer.) If you couldn’t make it out to the expo, you can still check out the trailers from games including Light’s Out, Apotheosis, I’m a Chopstick, and others below. There were well over a dozen games on hand, many of them extremely cute or fun to play.
