A) Inventors Council of
Mid-Michigan and area professional inventors
mentor college student program participants
from all area colleges. http://www.rjriley.com/icmm/
a) College student
participants mentor 7th
through 12th grade
contestants.
2) Sloan Museum inventor exhibit
honoring invention. The exhibit will also include
both student winners of invention contest and area
inventors who have achieved commercial success,
thereby diversifying area economy and creating jobs.
(Funding still required & amount required is
uncertain, estimate $10,000-$25,000.)
A) Student teams of one
each journalism or marketing majors, business
major, and engineering or science majors will
identify, research, interview, produce a
report, and submit their findings for
consideration as recipient of inventor of the
month or quarter award at the Sloan Museum.
a) Teams whose work
is selected will optionally receive
compensation.
b) The selected
inventor will be ask to speak to
interested students, cultural center
staff, and business people with same
covered by local newspapers. This
creates a networking opportunity
between commercially successful
inventor entrepreneurs and academia,
aspiring inventors, and the cultural
center.
B) An annual award with
hors d’oeuvres or dinner to honor one of
the most outstanding inventors of the month.
Invite prominent guest speaker from inventor
community such as National Inventors Hall of
Fame inductee or Nobel laureate. I have
personal relationships or the ability to
easily contact many of these people and can
facilitate engaging them for the talk.
3) E-Teams will seek funding of up
to $20,000 each from the NCIIA established by Jerome
Lemelson but such teams will include journalism or
marketing students in addition to business and
science/engineering majors. E-Team participants will
likely come from college student inventor contest
participants. Please note that each institution may
apply for their own grant. (Funding from NCIIA) http://hamp.hampshire.edu/nciia/rfp9798.html#WhatET
4) Regional Technology Transfer
Center. Most people think inventing is difficult but
marketing the invention is generally twenty times
more effort that producing the invention. I suggest
that we should establish a regional technology
transfer center to service both independent inventors
and academia such as Mott, U of M, Baker, etc. There
are well established guidelines for this type of
enterprise, which may be obtained from the
Association of University Technology Transfer
Managers (AUTM). A technology transfer center would
need outside funding for five to ten years, after
which it’s income from a percentage of licensed
inventions should fund the organization. (Suggested
funding Mott Foundation, inventors, or contributions
from a consortium of the area institutions.) http://nhse.cs.rice.edu/autm/
5) Scholarships: I propose that we
seek scholarship funds for students who show
inventive and entrepreneurial potential. I suggest
that each scholarship carry the name of the donor.
Donors should have the option of offering such
scholarships a year at a time or the option to endow
a scholarship for a longer time frame. The awards of
such scholarships should be staggered throughout the
year to maximize publicity. It may make sense to
announce the award of such scholarships at the
monthly or quarterly Sloan presentations. The
scholarships should be awarded by the Inventors
Council and the Council should retain 20% to cover
operating expenses. I.e. A $1000 scholarship would
require a $1200 donation. (Funding sources inventors
and area business persons)
