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Solutions to Energy Problems Loom Large When Nobel Laureates Gather

Dallas, TX | Posted on May 03, 2006

Leading scientists now believe the world’s energy problems can be solved through the growing field of nanotechnology. Indeed, the father of modern day nanotechnology science, the late Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Smalley, had been the biggest proponent of nanotechnology solutions before his death last fall. Dr. Wade Adams of Rice University is carrying on that work and making the Smalley presentation at nanoTX’06, a world-scale nanotechnology conference and trade expo held at the Dallas Convention Center during International Nanotechnology Week in late September, (www.nanotx.biz). The premier feature of this event is the Nobel Laureates Legends Reception where six Nobel Prize winners in various related fields will openly discuss their work and the future of nanotechnology. Dr. Alan MacDiarmid of the University of Texas, Dallas [2000 winner, Chemistry] who has written famously on the subject of energy solutions, will host an Energy Summit at the event. The Legends Reception is dedicated to the memory of the late Richard Smalley and Jack Kilby. The other Nobel Laureates will be Dr. Robert Curl of Rice University (Buckyball fame, and colleague of Dr. Smalley); Dr. Russell Hulse, UT Dallas (Physics, 1993); BioMed is also strongly represented with Dr. Michael Brown, UTSW Medical Center (winner 1985, Medicine); Dr. Alfred Gilman, UTSW Medical Center, (Medicine, 1994); Dr. Ferid Murad, UT Medical School, Houston (Medicine, 1998).

H. Ross Perot of Dallas, internationally renowned business leader and two time Presidential candidate, will deliver the opening remarks at nanoTX'06 September 27. Chosen in 2004 as one of history's 10 greatest entrepreneurs, Mr. Perot is known to have followed advances in nanotechnology since 1999. Today Mr. Perot is heavily invested in nanotechnology firms with undervalued intellectual property rights, including trademarks, trade secrets, patents and copyrightable material. His opening message on the business of nanotechnology will be riveting, bringing new insights in his most quotable style.

Mr. Perot has a history of betting on promising technology and made the bulk of his $3.7 billion fortune by starting the data-processing company Electronic Data Systems (EDS).

Over the years Mr. Perot has received numerous awards for his business success and community service, including the Eisenhower Award for support of the nation's Armed Forces, the Winston Churchill Award, the Horatio Alger Award, the National Business Hall of Fame Award, the Smithsonian Computerworld Award (first recipient; given for contributions to the computer industry), the Sarnoff Award (for contributions to the electronics industry), Medal for Distinguished Public Service (highest civilian award presented by the Department of Defense; given for his efforts supporting U.S. prisoners of war), the Raoul Wallenberg Award (first recipient; given for lifetime service reminiscent of the Swedish diplomat), the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the Patrick Henry Award (first recipient; given to a U.S. citizen for outstanding service to his country). As a noted author, his several books include Preparing Our Country for the 21st Century.

A top rated video film crew has been granted permission to produce a documentary at nanoTX'06 on the latest advances in nanotechnology. Event organizers were contacted by the Dallas Film Commission on behalf of key members of the Dallas Producers Association wanting to cover nanotechnology for later airing on PBS. “One hundred and fifty top minds of science and business from 30 different countries will be under one roof,” said producer Terri Howard-Hughes. “Also, the Business Hall will be loaded with exhibits by the most advanced nanotechnology firms of our time. This is a nanotech documentary producers dream.”

In the evening of the 27th sponsors, exhibitors, and chosen guests will gather in the atrium of the Business Hall for the Exhibitor’s Cocktail Reception where the Foresight Institute’s Feynman Award winners will be announced. The following day two winners will present their work as the conference continues. “We are so pleased that the Foresight Nanotech Institute chose our world-class city and nanoTX'06 for this prestigious and important international event," said Dallas mayor Laura Miller when she was notified. "The Awards are the premier prizes in nanotechnology, so prestigious that hundreds of important researchers vie for them every year.”

The Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes of $10,000 are given in two categories, one for experimental and the other for theory advances in nanotechnology. The prize is named after Dr. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, whose original goal for nanotechnology — systems of molecular machines building with atomic precision, is the guiding vision of long-term nanotechnology.

"This further demonstrates that nanoTX'06 is not merely a Texas event, but is sure to be one of the finest international nanotechnology events ever," said Kelly Kordzik, President of the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative. “We are very pleased that Foresight approached us to announce their award winners. The Feynman Awards are highly respected in our industry, and it is our honor that nanoTX'06 will be the site for their granting.”

Established in 1993, the Foresight Feynman Prizes in nanotechnology are given to researchers whose recent work have most advanced the achievement of Feynman's goal for nanotechnology: the construction of atomically-precise products through the use of molecular machine systems.

Presented by the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative, the event carries the theme: The Promise of Tomorrow—The Business of Nanotechnology. Sponsors include Lockheed Martin, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments, the Japanese Consulate, major Dallas law firms of McKool Smith and Winstead, Zyvex, BioForce Nanosciences, Raymor Industries of Quebec, among other big firms and organizations in nanotechnology.

Also expected at nanoTX'06 are Madam Congressman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-30th Dist.) on the House Science Committee and Madam Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) who, as chairman of the Department of Defense Appropriations Committee, included $15 million in new funding for Research in Nanotechnology (SPRING). The program is a consortium comprised of the University of Texas (UT) at Arlington, UT-Austin, UT-Brownsville, UT-Dallas, UT-Pan American, Rice University and University of Houston, that are participating in nanoTX'06, September 27-28, 2006. Also part of the event is Texas State Technical College.

This funding will build on that effort and continue the consortium's work to establish a collaborative network of well-equipped research centers to rapidly develop and promote nanotechnology.

"Texas is pushing the envelope even further in research and that is certainly the case with nanotechnology," Sen. Hutchison said, who has made elevating the national profile and federal funding for Texas' higher education research a top priority.

To mark these strides in Texas, Governor Rick Perry has proclaimed the week of September 24 through September 30, 2006, as Nanotechnology Week in Texas to coincide with International Nanotechnology Week (TM). Dallas mayor Laura Miller also signed a similar proclamation of her own. Both proclamations can be seen at www.nanotx.biz.

The $200 million Texas Emerging Technology Fund is also a subject of study at nanoTX'06. Technologists and business leaders from around the country have been requesting detailed information on how the Texas governor’s office launched the Emerging Technology Fund. Now the office of Governor Rick Perry, in cooperation with the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative, has agreed to have two people key to the funds’ creation and implementation release a detailed study of the fund at nanoTX'06.

To be released are valuable insights in the creation of the fund, its passage through the Texas legislature, and how it is being implemented, told by three key people. “It was difficult and complicated in organizing technologists and businesses to get behind such an effort in a state as large as Texas,” says Kelly Kordzik, president of the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative in Austin. Kordzik is joining with the governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Phil Wilson, and Mark Ellison, Director of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund at nanoTX'06 in Dallas where they will tell how to push such an effort through a legislature that is heavily focused on other budgetary items. The team will also explain how the fund is being used around the state to commercialize advanced technologies such as nanotechnology.

According to Kordzik, nanoTX'06 will draw the top minds in four vital and interrelated nanotech areas of commerce:
Semiconductor/MEMS/NEMS, Defense/Homeland Security/Aerospace, Biomed/Health Sciences, and Energy/Chemical/Environment, plus an intense study of Trends/Finance/Investing by leading experts of industry in addition to H. Ross Perot. “An event of this quality and magnitude is drawing world-wide attention to Texas,” says Kordzik. “There are 40 countries with state sponsored nanotechnology programs, including Japan, UK, Korea, Canada, Australia, France, the list keeps growing.”

Cosponsoring organizations include the Nanotechnology Foundation of Texas, the Texas Healthcare & Bioscience Institute, the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, the Science Place & Planetarium, the Metroplex Technology Business Council, Texas State Technical College and others. Speakers will present the latest research on how their nanotech applications apply to business and commerce, and include such respected names as Dr. Ray H. Baughman, Director of the NanoTech Institute of the University of Texas at Dallas and the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry. Dr. Baughman will speak on New Inventions of UTD’s NanoTech Institute: >From Multifunctional Nanotube Fibers and Sheets to Artificial Muscles, Displays, and Devices for Energy Harvesting, Storage, and Conversion.

Among other top pioneers in nanotech to speak include Dr. Handel Jones, Founder and CEO of International Business Strategies; Dr. Hans Stork, CTO at Texas Instruments; Sue Billat, Principal at Benchmark Strategies; Dr. Mark Pinto, Sr. VP and CTO at Applied Materials; Mark Hakey of IBM Corporation and Jim Von Ehr, founder of Zyvex Corporation, the first molecular nanotechnology company in the world. Zyvex is a highly renowned world-scale player in the nanotechnology community, the most publicized private nanotechnology business in the world, and the most highly regarded company in the field of molecular assemblers.

Never before such a gathering of the top minds in nanotechnology, such as Dr. James S. Murday, Superintendent of Chemistry Division, Naval Research Laboratory; Dr. Kimberly McGrath, Director of Fuel Cell Research at QuantumSphere; Dr. David Bishop, VP of Nanotechnology at Bell Labs/Lucent; Dr. Christopher Rothfuss of the U.S. State Department; Dr. Bob Gower, CEO of Carbon Nanotechnologies; Dr. Michael Polcari, CEO of Sematech; Richard P. Wallace, President & CEO of KLA-Tencor; Dr. Harold Garner at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Dr. Vida Ilderem, VP & Director Embedded Systems &Physical Sciences Research, Motorola Labs at Motorola, Inc., to mention only a small number expected to include 150 heavyweights in nanotechnology.

Also such names as Carl Johnson, President of INFRASTRUCTURE; Dr. Zvi Yaniv, CEO at Applied Nanotech; and Dr. Jonathan Javitt, Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, among others.

Trends/Finance/Investing will feature a panel of venture capitalists led by Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital and the Forbes/Wolfe nanotech Report.

Kordzik says that Dallas was chosen because “Texas is uniquely suited to host a world class nanotechnology event and the Convention Center is big enough to hold it on the dates that are ideal.”

An interview with Kelly Kordzik can be read at the nanoTX'06 web site, www.nanotx.biz/press.html

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About TNI:
Our Mission: The Texas Nanotechnology Initiative is dedicated to establishing Texas as a world leader in the discovery, development, and commercialization of nanotechnology. We have organized a consortium of Texas-based universities, industry leaders, investors, and government officials in order to foster communication, collaboration, and the sharing of resources to accelerate the realization of our goal.

Why Nanotechnology? Why Now?

The history of civilization and industry revolves around man’s ability to understand and manipulate the physical world. As the ability to see and use a smaller and smaller scale of matter has progressed, the number of potential and practical uses of inert and organic material has multiplied. As an example, every product of the electronics industry is a result of the historically recent ability to manufacture at the micron (one millionth of a meter) scale. The techniques which allow reliable, economic production of products and materials at the nanometer (one billionth of a meter) are being developed right now. It is vital to Texas’ future wellbeing that, as a state, we gain and retain the intellectual and industrial resources necessary to maintain leadership and ownership of a broad base of the industry which will shape the 21st century. If we lag or delay, we will wind up working for the leaders, instead of with them.

For more information, please click here.

Contacts:
Kelly Kordzik
Pres. Texas Nanotechnology Initiative
(512)370-2851

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