Deadline for Nano Commercialization Showcase extended

Benedict Bahner
ASME News

If you have a business concept or a project you're working on involving nanotechnology and you want to pitch your idea to a group of nano business leaders and investment experts, you now have an extra month to sign up for the Nanotechnology Commercialization Showcase, at ASME's Fourth Integrated Nanosytsems conference in September.

The deadline to participate in September's Commercialization Showcase has been extended by a month. The deadline for registration is now Aug. 15.

For the $125 entry fee to the Showcase, engineers, start-up companies, or others, will have the opportunity to enter the showcase's "New Ventures" competition and present their business concepts to a panel of leading nanotechnology experts, including intellectual property lawyers, licensing experts, and investment bankers who arrange initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions.

The top five entries will win cash prizes and an award from the ASME Nanotechnology Institute Advisory Board, along with a written critique of the submission by the judging panel of attorneys, scientists and venture capitalists.

The ASME conference will be held Sept. 14–16 at the University of California, Berkeley. Integrated Nanosystems, co-produced by the MIT/Stanford/Berkeley Nanotechnology Forum, will focus on state-of-the-art devices, systems, nanoscale phenomena and nanomanufacturing.

The Nanotechnology Commercialization Showcase was designed to welcome businesses and venture capitalists to nanotechnology and get them interacting with people who are established in the nano field, said Raj Manchanda, director of ASME's Nanotechnology Institute.

"The next step for nanotechnology is critical," Manchanda said. "Government is saying they will not fund nanotechnology R&D forever. We put together the Nano Showcase to get venture capitalists and other business people involved in nanotechnology in order to keep it growing. This is of vital importance if we're to take nano to the next level."

All "New Ventures" contestants must register for the Nanotechnology Commercialization Showcase, as well as for the Integrated Nanosystems conference, by the deadline of Aug. 15.

Submissions for the showcase can be made using the same ASME Web tool that's used for submitting abstracts. For more information, visit http://asmeconferences.org/Nano05/Showcase.cfm.

For additional information on the Integrated Nanosystems Conference, or to register, visit http://asmeconferences.org/Nano05.

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