04/11/13

Cleantech Open Northeast Arrives in New York City

By Katja Schroeder, Expedition PR

Cleantech Open Northeast has arrived in New York City with an ambitious plan.

Together with its partner NYC ACRE, New York City’s accelerator for clean technology and renewable energy companies, the Northeast team wants to challenge their counterparts in Silicon Valley. California currently holds the position as the largest clean tech hub.

New York has a vibrant clean tech community

The first annual US Metro Clean Tech Index by research and consulting firm Clean Energy revealed that the country’s top five metro regions for clean tech are all on the West coast, three of them are in California: San Jose (1^st place), San Francisco (2^nd place), and Sacramento (4^th place). Washington, DC, (8^th place) and Boston (9^th place) represented the East coast in the top ten last year. New York City was on 13^th place.

The Clean Energy study was conducted in 2012 and ranked the country’s 50 largest metropolitan regions based on nearly two dozen ‘clean tech’ metrics such as hybrid electric vehicles, certified green buildings, clean-tech venture capital investments, innovation and workforce.

Cleantech runs the world’s largest clean tech accelerator. Its mission is to find, fund, and foster the big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges.

While the clean tech community had to fend off harsh criticism and the word ‘clean tech’ turned into a ‘dirty word’ for some, Arrun Kapoor of SJF Ventures stayed optimistic. He pointed out that the Cleantech community always had its eyes set on a common goal – to solve energy issues. And that’s for the better good.

The not-for-profit organization has worked with more than 700 companies in the United States. Accelerator program participants get training, mentoring, infrastructure, relationships and funding opportunities that help them become world-class clean tech companies. To date, nearly half of these companies have raised over $800 million in external capital.

While New York City was not in the top ten last year, the goal of challenging Silicon Valley is not out of sight. The Northeast region is home to an amazing set of clean tech companies. Some of them presented their innovations during the New York event with a 1-minute pitch. Continue reading →

04/2/13

Products and Prototypes: Exciting Innovations from the “Technology You Can Touch” Event at NYU

By Andrés Uribe, Expedition PR

We are always looking for examples of technologies that will change life as we know it, in a good and sustainable way. Last Tuesday, I had the pleasure of visiting NYU for a demo session called “Technology you can Touch”. Seeing startups boasting products that didn’t require a computer, smartphone, or even an internet connection to take advantage of was a nice change of pace from the many new web based startups we tend to see today. Here are a few of the innovative new products that are working to make an impact on people’s lives.

Jibon Health booth at “Technology You Can Touch”

1. Jibon Health Technologies. Working to fight maternal mortality from Postpartum Hemorrhaging (PPH), Jibon has come out with a product called Tampostat. A Tampostat works by placing pressure on the womb that slows potential excessive bleeding during childbirth and allows for time to make it to a hospital for proper care. It costs less than $10 to make and requires minimal training to use. By making a product that is low-cost and easy to use, Jibon hopes to put a dent in the roughly 150,000 women from developing nations who die every year because they are unable to make it to a hospital in time.

2. Entrupy. Last week hedge fund owner Steven A. Cohen bought a Picasso for $155 million, making it one of the most expensive private art sales transacted. With huge sums of money being tossed around for art, one might think they should try their hand at making their own “Picasso”…well think again. After a few years in the making, Ashlesh, a PhD. candidate at Courant at NYU and his team, have created a device that is built to “fingerprint” works of art. This device is able to map out the texture speckles of a painting in order to create a record that is unique to that specific painting. Once the record is created, not even the most skilled forgery will go unnoticed by this machine.

3. AdhereTech. If you’re someone who has trouble taking their medication in a timely matter, AdhereTech’s smart pill bottles might be your solution. These smart pill bottles are able to hold liquid or solid medications. Once medication is stored in them, the smart pill bottle will automatically keep a real time count of how much medication is left. After programming the bottle, users will be able to receive phone calls or text to remind them to take their medicine on days they might be behind. In trial cases, these reminders have been able to increase adherence by 60% to 90%.

Overall the event featured ten startups with new and tangible products. For a complete list and brief description of the products featured, please visit nyctechconnect.com.

12/9/12

The New World 2050: How Today’s Global PR Pros Can Help Solve Tomorrow’s Problems

This article was originally published by The Blue Book, Newsletter of the Center of Global Public Relations, UNC Charlotte

By Katja Schroeder

Three years ago, the United Nations revealed that the world’s population will increase to 9 billion by 2050. When the UN revealed this staggering number, governments, think tanks, NGOs and corporations started addressing the challenges related to managing a rapidly growing population. We have about 38 years to prepare for the societal, environmental and economic transformation brought to us by a world of 9 billion people.

Or, not quite that long, as for some global issues solutions need to be found rather sooner than later.
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09/28/12

The Art of Communicating Sustainability – dOCUMENTA (13)

By Katja Schroeder

After 100 days dOCUMENTA (13) just closed its doors in Kassel, Germany. Held every five years, the dOCUMENTA is one of the world’s largest contemporary art exhibitions. This year’s festival drew a record number of 860,000 visitors. Art works were showcased at a variety of venues across the entire city.
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07/31/12

What does it take for NYC’s biotech sector to sizzle?

By Rhea Galsim

New York’s vibrant neighborhood Tribeca is home to one of the city’s most dynamic incubators, NYU-Polytech Varick. Last week NYU-Polytech Varick hosted a Meetup event on New York’s biotech sector. A panel of speakers including Dr. Liam Ratcliffe of New Leaf Ventures, Michael Lamprecht of Cellanyx Diagnostics, Andrew Koopman of NYU’s New Venture Development Investment, and Alex Fair, the founder of Faircaremd.com and MedStartr, shared their take on what the opportunities and challenges for New York’s biotech sector are.
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