Remember my post last month about one of my inventor clients, Mick Gordon?  He is back in the news again, and I couldn’t be more pleased! Mick is a very prolific innovator–he is passionate about his inventions.

We’ve been helping him in the development of KlenzPod™ which recently won the inaugural Innovation Award at the annual World of Wipes (WOW 2008) Conference. Mick was honored for his innovative approach and elegant solution to the lack of efficient wet wipe disposal facilities on the market.

The KlenzPod system was developed for offices and public buildings to provide employees and customers easy access to single wet wipes. Mick’s invention was inspired by his experience with his dying father in a British hospital where he saw poor hygiene being practiced, and realized that medical staff really needed some easily-available wipes to keep their hands clean.

It has taken years of development. Mick refined the invention based on feedback from other experts and corporations, but numerous innovations have now come together to provide a really useful, economical, and aesthetically-pleasing solution that can be used almost anywhere.

Way to go, Mick!

Nintendo is releasing what might be the first big-budget console game that can pull in that ever elusive segment: mothers. I blogged about the Wii craze last year, pointing to the ALPHA MOM as the key audience Nintendo looked to in creating video games that would spur their children to get off the couch. For an industry that’s often been blamed for helping cause obesity and inactivity, Wii Fit is a chance to turn back the criticism by offering a game that targets health issues in a way that’s fun.

Wii Fit is a health and exercise program that I believe will boost the momentum of the Nintendo Wii, which has sold more than 9 million consoles since it was released in November 2006. The Wii has created a huge shift in the gaming world, inviting millions of casual and nongamers, many of them women, to pick up the motion-sensing Wii remote controller and play games using gestures and waves.

Officially, Nintendo said Wii Fit is designed for an “expanded audience.” But the game has the potential to attract what some marketers have called the chief household officer, ALPHA MOMS, a large but mostly unreached population of potential gamers. Some think that the new Wii game will skew female, much like the “Richard Simmons Sweatin’ to the Oldies. ” videos of the Eighties.

For about $90 players can chart their weight and body mass index over time and work to improve them by engaging in about 40 activities including yoga, aerobic step routines, strength and training exercises, and balance games. The balance board can track the progress of up to eight players, so users can encourage each other toward their respective goals. (Nintendo’s Wii Fit mini-site has video demonstrations of each training mode. For those who are well aware of the Wii Fit and have been patiently awaiting its release, you may have a tough time finding it in stores!)

The increase in new female gamers on the Wii has been noticeable, but Wii Fit can take it a step further by enticing moms to spring for the Wii for themselves, not just for their kids.

Here’s a fantastic article on one of my clients! Innovationedge has been working with an inventors Gene Gordon and his son Peter Gordon of Germgard Lighting, LLC. They’ve invented a product called Glovegard, a medical exam glove sterilization device that efficiently kills bacteria. It works by exposing a gloved hand to Ultraviolet C light to kill pathogens on the glove. In only three seconds, the gloves are sterilized with safety and speed.

The idea came about in the fall of 2005 after Gene reflected back on an infection he had contracted during a hospital stay for a back operation. His ultimate goal was to prevent others from going through the ordeal he experienced, and I’m excited that he is achieving that dream.

Check out the video here.

Scientists in the U.K. are taking the first steps in a project to create the first real-life Transformers - those toys that can change shape from, say a car, into a robot. The project has echoes of last year’s Transformers film about alien robots that disguise themselves as cars, motorbikes and lorries to wage war on each other.

It’s actually called the Symbrion project, a multi-million dollar experiment funded by the EU. Scientists will attempt to build swarms of tiny robots, each the size of a sugar cube, that move around on their own and connect together to form larger, intelligent machines.

Researchers say the first swarm of autonomous, intelligent, shape-changing robots could be in use within five years.

The scientists are very excited about the possibilities about saving lives. Here’s a quote:

“They could be used in medicine, in space exploration and in search and rescue missions,” said a spokesman for scientists at the University of the West of England in Bristol and the University of York. “You can imagine dropping hundreds of these small robots into a crevice after a building has collapsed. They would find each other and maybe connect together to form a snake-shaped object that could wriggle through the wreckage.”Then they could re-form into a spider to climb over a wall - or a robot with an arm that could lift rubble away. The possibilities are endless.”

Here’s the link to the University of York’s media alert, but you also might find this link about the SYMBRION project helpful as well.
Each robot would have wheels or tentacles, allowing it to move around independently. It would contain a small computer brain, making it as intelligent as an iPod or iPhone, and use infra-red to find other cubes. It sounds like it’s straight from children’s comic book or adventure movie!

I promised to update you on Innovationedge’s collaboration with Russia’s International Science and Technology Center (ISTC). As you know, we announced our partnership with InnovationPoint to work on a multi-year contract to help some of the most innovative minds in Russia –many of whom are former U.S.S.R. weapons scientists and engineers—to redirect their talents and bring new science and technology capabilities to the United States.

These scientists are highly skilled in biotechnology, agriculture, biomass, health care, nanotechnology and bioengineering. We formally launched our partnership with ISTC in Moscow last November, and have since had several opportunities to advance our mission. To date we have identified and set up meetings with key U.S. partners who could leverage the knowledge and capabilities of our Russian innovators. We’ve also developed marketing materials such as ISTC partnership brochures.

Last month, Innovationedge’s Jeff Lindsay, Director of Solution Development, traveled to Moscow for its Drug Design and Development Conference. The two-day international conference included reps from the World Health Organization, CDC, pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology businesses from Europe, the U.S. and Canada who shared their vision of novel therapeutics to combat emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and cancer.

The symposium was an opportunity for us to get an overview of the biotech work of many Russian scientists. From the perspective of commercializing technologies, most of the technologies shown represented early stage exploratory work. When a biotech company has parallel interests and sees a fit with a particular chemistry being studied, it is a chance for licensing. Some of the capabilities, such as modeling of drug properties for improved activity, may have potential to find a variety of interested partners.

We are exploring specific projects and existing technologies in these areas so that we can make our efforts to find commercial partners. Some of these projects may already have enough data developed to create interest in drug companies that may wish to further explore and develop these exciting opportunities.

I’m very excited to tell you about a new product that Innovationedge helped launch this week for one of our clients. It’s called the Aviafit™ pulsating leg band, and you can read about it and even order it (they come in pairs) through the in-flight magazine, SkyMall.

Aviafit is an intermittent compression device that mimics the pumping action of your leg muscles and enhances circulation throughout your legs, offering comfort wherever you are. It’s safe and very helpful for those who sit for long periods of time. I’d definitely recommend these for people who are on the road or in the air and are sedentary for more than an hour.

We’ve been working with the inventors at Israel-based FlowMedic for the past several months, and they’ve really inspired me with their passion for developing life-changing products that will improve the health and well-being of people of all ages.

They are so committed to this mission that they spent an enormous amount of time gathering and analyzing clinical data required for these types of products. Check out the FlowMedic Web site to see how this product is recognized as an effective way to reduce the risks and complications associated with poor circulation in the legs such as pain, swelling and potentially-fatal Deep Venous Thrombosis (DVT), a dangerous blood clot that can form in the leg veins.

Aviafit is the first in a pipeline of products we’ll be bringing to market in the months ahead, and I am looking forward to telling you about these innovative new gadgets that are truly disruptive!