Gene Wall, left, a newly appointed member of the Pitt County Economic Development Commission, listens as Tim Murphy, an engineer with the Telemedicine Center at East Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine. (Chris Cummins/The Daily Reflector)

Firm focuses on new technology

Ask Ideations LLC owner Matt Carbone what his company does, and he'll say it's "pre-inventing the future."

Understanding how Ideations' team will accomplish the task takes a little time.

Ideations is an industrial design firm specializing in information technology in the areas of technological applications and multifarious communication platforms ÷ which is tech-talk for finding practical applications for technological theory.

"Yes, we are a different breed of IT firm," said Keri Klockowski, Ideations' business manager.

Ideations LLC and its sister company, MindTel LLC, opened shop in Pitt County's Technology Enterprise Center on Greene Street this winter. They have a Department of Defense contract and plan to partner with researchers at the Telemedicine Center at East Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine.

Ideations is a for-profit spinoff of the nonprofit organization Center for Really Neat Research founded by Dr. Dave Warner and Edward Lipson in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1996.

Drawing from Syracuse University's talent pool, the center's work focused on creating interfacing and communications technology for people with disabilities.

Technology already exists to help the disabled. Small sensors can be attached to a user's muscles ÷ whether it's a foot, finger or eyebrow ÷ to control the actions of a computer or other equipment.

However, the equipment required specialized programming and a lengthy training period for the user.

"One of the drawbacks of early research was once the doctors left, the technology stopped working," Carbone said.

The center created an interface device that didn't need specialized programming and could be built inexpensively using electronics equipment found in stores like Radio Shack. The researchers called it Totally Neat Gadget, and it costs less than $100 to make.

"Not everyone is a Stephen Hawking or a high-end Marine official who can afford big bucks," said Rahul Panesar, a medical student with the State University of New York, Stony Brook, undertaking a month of independent study with the group. "We want to make it universal," he said.

Totally Neat Gadget called TNG works with a software program the center developed called NeatTools and is available for free over the Internet. Carbone and company said NeatTools simplifies training because a user doesn't have to be a computer programmer to use it.

The Center for Really Neat Research was supported through grants. When the funding dried up last year, Carbone and other team members weren't ready to end their collaboration.

They saw that TNG, now in its third and fourth generations, had applications in a number of areas ranging from medicine to business to defense.

Carbone said the Syracuse community wasn't interested in the business risks involved in their research, so the group knew it would have to move. Carbone, who holds an industrial design degree from Syracuse University, was ready for the risk.

"I wanted a company name that represented a group that could solve advanced problems, from innovation to integration," he said. "Thus Ideations. A group capable of forming new ideas to solve advanced problems."

The center's staff had worked with the Telemedicine Center at East Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine. Carbone and Telemedicine Center director David C. Balch saw how TNG could work in the telemedicine field. Tim Murphy, an ECU student who worked with Carbone in Syracuse, already was researching telemedicine technology at Brody.

"We found the community to be very receptive, very willing to work with us," Klockowski said.

The company's move to Greenville has created a buzz among individuals involved in economic development. The Small Business and Technology Development Center and ECU's Small Business Institute are helping them develop business plans and offering management counseling. The development commission office recently arranged a meeting between the company and officials with the North Carolina Electronics and Information Technology Association to discuss making contacts in the state's technology industry.

"The arrival of Ideations signals newfound stature for East Carolina University in terms of its research and development activity," said John Chaffee, director of the Pitt County Economic Development Commission. "Each additional (technology firm) is just a cause for more excitement about high-tech research and development in the region."

The community's investment in Ideations demonstrates its desire to grow a technology-based industry in the area, Balch said.

"The nice thing about Greenville is there is a strong kind of community willing to see good things happen," Balch said. "We think the seed has been planted through the Pitt County incubator and development commission to grow this into something that has commercial success."

It's a natural fit, the men said. The university brings in the scientists to do research. Some scientists then start private businesses to create a commercial product and the development commission supports growth of the businesses.

Bringing the Ideations team to Greenville will help the Telemedicine Center take its research and turn it into a commercial product, Balch said.

"Private business can move faster, have less bureaucracy to deal with things. They are light on their feet," he said.

Last year, Congress approved $20 billion to fund research in bio-terrorism surveillance and epidemiology tracking. The university has 40 proposals for bio-terrorism detection research.

"It's a little hard for me to say right now what we'll be doing with them a year from now, but it will be interesting," Balch said. "What we've done is position ourselves with the appropriate partners to respond once we get some of these proposals."

Balch said he has no ownership or financial interest in the business.

The science developed through this research reaches far beyond bio-terrorism, Carbone said.

There already exists a generation of wearable medical monitoring equipment that records vital signs like heart rate and blood glucose levels while patients go about their daily activities. The drawback is the collected information must be returned to the doctor's office for interpretation.

The Ideations' team envisions using wireless technology to feed a patient's vital signs to a doctor's office. A cardiologist using this technology could spot irregular heart rhythms and direct a patient to seek assistance before a heart attack occurs.

Similar wireless technology could feed data about toxins entering a building's ventilation system or a city's water supply, Carbone said.

Profit is not the primary motive of Carbone and the Ideations team. They want their work in Greenville to involve more than research.

Carbone said he wants the team to pick up its work with disabled children later this year.

While at Syracuse, the Center for Really Neat Research sponsored science camps to introduce children to information technology. Carbone wants a similar program here.

"It can break through that stigma of technology," Klockowski said.

Carbone and Klockowski talk about TNG3 closing the technology gap facing rural eastern North Carolina schools. TNG3 could be the centerpiece for an inexpensive science education kit for schools that cannot afford to equip science laboratories.

"What a better playground to play in than where people need help," Klockowski said.

Ginger Livingston can be contacted at glivingston@coxnews.com

 

Reposted with permission (Daily Reflector)