May 18, 2010 Presentation to the Sala Convegni di Confindustria L'Aquila

I attended the meeting of the Information Computer Technology Association of L'Aquila and the Abruzzo Region of Italy. This was a group of small and large IT companies operating in the region. They called a regional meeting to discuss a strategy to establish an "Innovation Cluster" for ICT companies and to get government and university involvement. I was introduced by the Chairman, Giorgio De Marzi, President of TechnoLabs, a midsized innovative software / hardware company that spun out of Siemens. The topic for my presentation was "Successful Enterprise - University Cooporation Examples in the USA. I started the presentation with an overview of the LSU Research Park and the LBTC. I then told of successful collaborations between the university and industry and discussed the focused technologies targeted for the LSU South Research Park. We discussed success stories of companies such as Mezzo, St. James Technologies, Floating Island Environmental, HydroFlame, and Smith Research. They had many questions on how the partnerships worked and how the university has worked with businesses on IP and sharing of ideas. We discussed the advantages for the university and businesses to collaborate and how students, faculty and businesses all profit from the collaboration as well as how it drives the economy of the area. They had many questions about the recovery after Katrina and other hurricanes and I sensed the frustration on the precieved lack of speed in the recovery from the earthquake. I met with a number of engineering students after the presentation to discuss their questions on career options and their role in recovery. Dean Pier Ugo Foscolo and Lelio Iapadre, professor of Internation Economics attended for the Universita L'Aquila.
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