Here’s a look at some of the news from the Southeast Michigan innovation community that you may have missed:
—AutoHarvest, a nonprofit website that aims to connect the auto industry with entrepreneurs and inventors, announced late last month that it will collaborate with Omnia Group to translate its English-language website into Chinese, German, French, and Italian. AutoHarvest seeks to become the go-to place for people involved in automotive or advanced manufacturing IP, and its website offers inventors and those who want to commercialize technology a marketplace to collaborate and buy, sell, or license.
Omnia Group, an Italian-based language service provider, wants to expand its North American presence. Jayson Pankin, president and CEO of AutoHarvest, said that Omnia Group’s pro bono translation work will allow the IP marketplace to expand into many new regions of the world.
—This week, Wayne State University announced that the National Science Foundation has awarded a $1.3 million grant to five Michigan universities for a project that will help minority graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in science, technology, engineering, and math. The project, called the Michigan Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, is led by the University of Michigan in collaboration with Wayne State, Michigan State University, Western Michigan University, and Michigan Technological University.
Joseph Dunbar, associate dean of the Wayne State graduate school, said the goal is to increase the number of minorities and women graduate students completing doctoral degrees, and ultimately guide them to pursue jobs in academia.
—The Okemos, MI-based software company TechSmith announced its popular Camtasia and Snagit products are now integrated with Google Chrome and Google Drive. Users will now be able to take a screenshot of a paper or project they’re working on and view, change, and manage the document collaboratively with co-workers and superiors.
“TechSmith believes in visual conversations,” founder William Hamilton said. “We believe sharing images helps remove confusion and facilitate understanding. Google, with its Chromebooks and Drive platform, is a naturally collaborative environment that we see as a great fit for our solutions now and into the future.”
