LJWorld.com / A pipeline for innovators

Archive for Friday, September 8, 2006

New KTEC program to help bring ideas to market

September 8, 2006

Three entrepreneurs from Lawrence are among 10 innovators chosen to take part in a new training program designed to help turn their ideas into solid business ventures.

Clint Batman, Lisa Friis and George Laurence were introduced Thursday in Wichita as part of the inaugural class of KTEC Pipeline Innovators.

The 10 will spend the next year receiving education, skills-building and networking opportunities, plus assistance from mentors through the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp., a private-public partnership established by the state to promote tech-based economic development. They also will conduct self-assessments, compile individual growth plans and take trips to see how their visions might become market realities.

Each class member will get a $36,000 stipend to spend while exploring their opportunities for a technology startup and access to venture capitalists.

“The KTEC Pipeline has drawn the best of the best,” said Joni Cobb, president of the entrepreneurial program. “It is clear that Kansas has the most critical component to creating a successful technology-based economy: the right people. Now we are going to put our all into surrounding these innovators with the resources, training, mentors and networks necessary to give them the best chance for success.”

The participants from Lawrence:

l Batman is co-founder and president of ThinkGeo LLC, a Lawrence-based software company that provides mapping software, consulting and software development and training services.

l Friis, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Kansas University, is a partner in Sunflower Biotechnology Group LLC, a startup committed to taking new biotech products from university research to market. She also teaches a product development course at KU.

l Laurence is founder of Monocle Technologies Inc., an Indiana-based tech startup that developed partnerships with Eli Lilly and Co., Ruse-Hulman Institute of Technology and others.

Another class member has Lawrence ties. Debra Ellies is president and founder of OsteoGeneX, a biotech startup affiliated with the Higuchi Biosciences Center at Kansas University.