Speaker/Attendee Support at the Entrepreneurship in Polymers and Technology Symposium, September 10-14, 2006, San Francisco, CA

Clemson University, Clemson SC

Investigators

Abstract

SUMMARY. Funds are requested from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for attendee / speaker support for the title symposium. The ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry has established a unique and diverse team of organizers from industry, academia, and government focused on the important topic of entrepreneurship in polymer science and technology. Polymer science and technology is an important component of materials research which overlaps with many current NSF initiatives. The global competitive demands on polymer chemists today require that they be well trained in science and that they behave more like entrepreneurs to feed an insatiable technologically innovative economy. An entrepreneur transforms creative ideas into successes and many of the entrepreneurial success are directly related to NSF programs. This symposium will focus on breakthrough inventions enabled by experimentation on novel, emerging, and pioneering technologies oriented toward materials research. Closer collaboration between industry, academia and government should increase the number, speed and impact of success stories and place prominent emphasis on the necessity of entrepreneurship. The symposium will cover basic research leading to new technology development and commercialization. Entrepreneurial activities ranging from identifying a need, to basic research, to developing novel and useful technology, to protecting the invention, to obtaining funding, to becoming a self-sustaining business will be reviewed. Our objective is to provide current, practical information that is based on scientific breakthroughs leading to real world experiences. The symposium will begin with a tutorial on entrepreneurship. Discussions will focus on fundamental polymer and related science, challenges and opportunities for scientists and engineers in the market to facilitate an understanding of entrepreneurship. Scientists, engineers and technologists interested in the latest developments and advances in this diverse and growing area are invited to contribute oral and poster presentations.