by Laura M. Massie

The city of Cleveland's chief development officer will be the featured speaker at the second annual combinedDavid B. Deioma Lectureship at Case Western Reserve University on Monday, June 23, at 5:30 p.m. at Reinberger Chamber Hall, Severance Hall, 11001 Euclid Ave.

Tim Mueller will speak on "Tales of Entrepreneurship from a Cleveland Entrepreneur Turned City Official." Following his talk, Mueller will announce the winners of the second annual combined $100,000 CASE Business Launch Competition.

The Deioma lecture and CASE Business Launch Competition are sponsored by CWRU's Institute for the Integration of Management and Engineering (TIIME) and the Case School of Engineering. The competition is designed to further advance entrepreneurial activity in both the technology and biotechnology sectors.

Winners will be selected from two tracks of the competition, with combined awards of up to $100,000 to launch a technology-based or biotechnology-enabled company. Contest finalists will present to a panel of judges on June 23. Finalists are offered mentoring from successful venture capitalists and entrepreneurs and introductions to key people in the entrepreneurial community and receive feedback on the winning business concepts.

NDI Medical Systems, last year's competition winner, is proof that seed money for a startup is crucial to eventual success, according to Robert Harris, TIIME's director of entrepreneurial programs. NDI Medical, which won $35,000 in 2002, will receive $3.5 million from the state of Ohio and the Biomedical Research and Technology Transfer Fund, part of Gov. Bob Taft's $1.6 billion Third Frontier Project, for its role in the newly formed Ohio Neurostimulation and Neuromodulation Partnership.

The partnership was awarded $7.9 million total to conduct and commercialize research that will improve health and create jobs for Ohioans. Patients who may benefit from the results of their research include people with neurological disorders, diseases and injuries such as urinary incontinence, pain, obstructive sleep apnea, Alzheimer's disease and paralysis.

NDI Medical is partnering with CWRU's Functional Electronic Stimulation Center and the Case School of Engineering, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals of Cleveland, Louis Stokes Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and MetroHealth Medical Center in the project.

The goal of the Deioma Lectureship is to educate the community in various aspects of technology-based new venture creation and entrepreneurship. This includes such issues as the role of intellectual property, characteristics of the entrepreneur, financing new ventures and many other aspects of starting a high growth company.

The lectureship is made possible by a gift to the Case School of Engineering from David B. Deioma, a 1962 alumnus of the former Case Institute of Technology. The Joseph P. and Nancy F. Keithley Foundation, Keithley Instruments Inc., the Generation Foundation, COSE, Ulmer and Berne LLP, the National Science Foundation, BioEnterprise Development Inc. and CAMP also are sponsors of the CASE Business Launch Competition.

TIIME is a partnership between CWRU's Case School of Engineering and the Weatherhead School of Management. Its mission is to foster the integration of management and engineering through three broad categories of activities: academic programs, technology transfer and scholarly research.

 

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