Nanotechnology Now - Press Release: Texas Governor Proclaims Nanotechnology Week in Texas

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Texas Governor Proclaims Nanotechnology Week in Texas

Dallas, TX | October 14, 2005

NanoTX’06 has learned that Texas governor Rick Perry has proclaimed the week of September 24 through September 30, 2006, as Nanotechnology Week in Texas. This is the same week nanoTX’06 world conference and trade expo is being observed in Dallas during International Nanotechnology Week (TM). Dallas mayor Laura Miller is said to be preparing a similar proclamation of her own. Fort Worth mayor Mike Moncreif is expected to do the same shortly since Dallas and Fort Worth are now promoting both cities as a single destination. Top minds in nanotechnology from around the world are meeting at the Dallas Convention Center Sept. 26-28, 2006 in observance of International Nanotechnology Week (TM), sponsored by Lockheed Martin, Applied Materials, Zyvex, among other big firms and organizations in nanotechnology.

The governor’s proclamation can be seen at www.nanotx.biz, and reads in part: "…to promote awareness about nanotechnology…a campaign will be conducted during the month of September (2006). I encourage all Texans to recognize the significant role that evolving technology can play in fostering economic and technological strength."

This comes on the heels of an announcement last week by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), that the 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations bill has been approved by her committee and includes $15 million in new funding for Strategic Partnership 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 also participating in nanoTX’06, a world scale nanotechnology conference and expo held at the Dallas Convention Center September 27-28, 2006.

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.

And it is true, the $200M 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.

Presented by the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative, the event carries the theme: The Promise of Tomorrow—The Business of 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. "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 Science Place & Planetarium, 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. Hans Stork, CTO at Texas Instruments; Sue Billat, 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.

One of the highlights of nanoTX’06 will be the Nobel Laureate Legends reception, dedicated to the memory of the late Jack Kilby, where Nobel prize winners in various related fields will openly discuss their work and the future of nanotechnology, organized by Katharine Green, Director of Corporate Communications at Zyvex. Among the Nobel laureates to be honored will be Dr. Robert Curl of Rice University (Buckyball fame), and Dr. Alan MacDiarmid of the University of Texas, Dallas (2000 winner, Synthetic Metals).

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 of Sematech, Richard P. Wallace of KLA-Tencor Corporation. Dr. Harold Garner at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, to mention only a small number expected to include 150 heavyweights in nanotechnology.

Invited too are luminaries such as Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison; Congressman Joe Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committees; W. J. "Billy" Tauzin, PhRMA; Malcolm O'Neil, VP and CTO of Lockheed Martin.

Also such names as Carl Johnson, President of INFRASTRUCTURE; Dr. Zvi Yaniv, CEO at Applied Nanotech; Howard Berke, CEO at Konarka Technologies; and 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 deserves to host a world class nanotechnology event and the Convention Center is big enough to hold it on the dates that are needed."

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

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

Copyright © Texas Nanotechnology Initiative

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