PIEDMONT TRIAD - The Piedmont Triad Partnership (PTP), along with the Industrial Extension Service of North Carolina State University, is presenting an Inventors’ Workshop on Tuesday, March 24, 2009.  The training session was developed by Eureka! Ranch International Ltd. (http://www.eurekaranch.com) , an innovation research and development firm that uses scientific methods to help business leaders find, filter and fast track innovations that are meaningful and unique.  The U.S. Dept of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology - Manufacturing Extension Program is providing funding for this workshop. 

The half-day training session will focus on idea-to-market acceleration, teaching inventors methods of connecting to R&D, manufacturing, and distribution partners. The instructor for this session is Dr. Ken Bloemer, Executive Director of Planet Eureka! – The Next Evolution in Technology Transfer.  The instructor for this unique workshop will also assist each inventor in determining an invention’s successful commercialization score, which measures the probability of a concept’s marketplace viability.

“It is vital for inventors to be able to communicate invention technology in a way that will facilitate taking the invention to market,“  shares Theresa Reynolds, PTP Senior Vice President and WIRED project manager.   “This workshop supports innovation by providing a quantitative evaluation of invention readiness, proprietary protection and sales potential,” adds Reynolds.

This event is open to all inventors who have full or partial ownership of their innovation.  For more information, contact Bob Hall at Bob_Hall@ncsu.edu.  Due to the limited seating and the nature of this event, attendance registration/confirmation is required by Friday, March 20.

The Piedmont Triad Partnership (PTP), one of seven regional economic development partnerships in North Carolina, is the economic development organization representing the 12-county Piedmont Triad region. The PTP is the lead organization for the U.S. Department of Labor-funded Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) initiative, which supports the development of an integrated regional economic development and workforce development strategy for the Piedmont Triad. The Piedmont Triad, the nation's 37th-largest metro region with more than 1.5 million residents, includes the counties of Alamance, Caswell, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Montgomery, Randolph, Rockingham, Stokes, Surry, and Yadkin.