GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida today unveiled the state’s most powerful supercomputer, a machine that will help researchers find life-saving drugs, make decades-long weather forecasts and improve armor for troops.

The HiPerGator supercomputer and recent tenfold increase in the size of the university’s data pipeline make UF one of the nation’s leading public universities in research computing.

“If we expect our researchers to be at the forefront of their fields, we need to make sure they have the most powerful tools available to science, and HiPerGator is one of those tools,” UF President Bernie Machen said. “The computer removes the physical limitations on what scientists and engineers can discover. It frees them to follow their imaginations wherever they lead.”

For UF immunologist David Ostrov, HiPerGator will slash a months-long test to identify safe drugs to a single eight-hour work day.

“HiPerGator can help get drugs get from the computer to the clinic more quickly. We want to discover and deliver safe, effective therapies that protect or restore people’s health as soon as we can,” Ostrov said. “UF’s supercomputer will allow me to spend my time on research instead of computing.”

The Dell machine has a peak speed of 150 trillion calculations per second. Put another way, if each calculation were a word in a book, HiPerGator could read the millions of volumes in UF libraries several hundred times per second.

UF worked with Dell, Terascala, Mellanox and AMD to build a machine that makes supercomputing power available to all UF faculty and their collaborators and spreads HiPerGator’s computing power over multiple simultaneous jobs instead of focused on a single task at warp speed. HiPerGator features the latest in high-performance computing technology from Dell and AMD with 16,384 processing cores; a Dell|Terascala HPC Storage Solution (DT-HSS 4.5) with the industry’s fastest open-source parallel file system; and Mellanox’s FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand interconnects that provide the highest bandwidth and lowest latency. Together these features provide UF researchers unprecedented computation and faster access to data to quickly further their research.

UF unveiled HiPerGator on Tuesday as part of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 25,000-square-foot UF Data Center built to house it. HiPerGator was purchased and assembled for $3.4 million, and the Data Center was built for $15 million.

Also today, the university announced that it is the first in the nation to fully implement the Internet2 Innovation Platform, a combination of new technologies and services that will further speed research computing.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida is the first university to fully connect to the Internet2 Innovation Platform’s three components, an achievement that will transform research at UF and provide a national model for research computing.

The move will allow UF researchers to easily share enormous amounts of data at ultrahigh speeds in collaborations with scientists worldwide.

“Universities across the country are following closely our progress and leadership in this area” said UF Vice President and Chief Information Officer Elias Eldayrie. “They are looking to our experience to learn from it, and we are glad to share it.”

About 30 other universities are working to fulfill the requirements to use the Internet2 Innovation Platform, which provides the advanced networking opportunities necessary for big data research, such as genome sequencing and climate studies.

“It’s exciting that the University of Florida is the first campus to complete the three components of the Internet2 Innovation Platform. Re-architecting the University of Florida network to support software-defined networking, 100G abundant bandwidth and unique support for data-intensive science positions Florida for a new cycle of growth and scientific research,” said Rob Vietzke, Internet2 vice president of network services.

“As other universities also follow Florida’s lead to provide researchers advanced networks with their collaborators and the increased capacity of this unique 100 gigabit per second nationwide network, we can expect new scientific, educational, and economic breakthroughs,” Vietzke said. “The whole academy of higher education can look forward to seeing how Florida innovators and researchers will use this Internet2 Innovation Platform to develop new applications and services never previously possible.”

The Internet2 Innovation Platform provides a high-speed, friction-free computing environment and requires universities that participate to commit to three changes in research computing architecture.

UF is the first to achieve all three: a 100 Gbps connection to Internet2, a Science DMZ, and use of software-defined networking, or SDN.

UF activated its ultra-high-speed 100 Gbps connection in January, a 10-fold expansion of the research standard, 10 Gbps. Only three other institutions are connected to Internet2 at that speed.

UF is a pioneer in the Science DMZ arena, and at a recent Internet2 Innovation Platform meeting was bombarded with questions from other universities about how to make it work, Eldayrie said.

“The University of Florida has led in the DMZ area since 2004 and can provide an example for research that requires this technology,” Eldayrie said.

The Science DMZ separates university administrative computing – transcripts and payrolls, for instance – from research computing, which requires a free flow of information without cumbersome firewalls and switches. UF has had a Science DMZ since 2004, but recently upgraded it from 20 Gbps to 200 Gbps.

Erik Deumens, director of research computing, said the Science DMZ functions as a dedicated network for research on campus, providing a kind of “HOV (high-occupancy-vehicle) lane for research.”

The third requirement was software-defined networking, which allows a researcher to program a network so a colleague anywhere on that network can view, share and manipulate data. SDN solves the problem of getting a variety of machines used by different scientists to talk to each other and ends the days of scientists filling portable hard drives with data and shipping them to collaborators.

Deumens said one of the requirements of participation in the Innovation Platform is to test the limits of SDN, which UF will do this summer in collaboration with Fermilab, a high-energy particle physics laboratory near Chicago.

“We will do a high-bandwidth data transfer with Fermilab, test the technology, and see what lessons we learn,” Deumens said.

On the commodity Internet, Deumens said, information travels in small packets that sometimes take odd detours and a long time to reach a destination, making huge datasets a problem. SDN allows a researcher to tell a switch at a routing station, “I’m going to send a packet, and a billion more will follow, and I want you to treat them all the same way, let them all through, quickly,” Deumens said.

UF is already a key collaborator on several big data projects and one of the top five institutions in contributing computing power to verifying the massive datasets associated with the Higgs-Boson particle discovery. In just one month last year, UF contributed 1,419,000 hours of computing to that project.

“Our researchers now have tools at their disposal that no one else in the country has. They can lead the big data conversation, and this computing infrastructure will give them a competitive advantage in securing funding,” Eldayrie said. “We can recruit the best minds in the world.”

Added Deumens: “Our researchers can think up things they couldn’t imagine without this infrastructure.”

The expansion of research computing on the Internet2 Innovation Platform could have a mind-boggling economic benefit. The original investment in the commodity internet was $400 million over several years. Today, the Internet accounts for more than a trillion dollars a year in economic activity, Vietzke said.

“Mobiquity’s decision to expand in Florida and create 260 jobs is great news for our families,” said Florida Gov. Rick Scott. “Today’s announcement shows that Florida’s STEM workforce continues to rapidly grow. Strong support for STEM fields is enhanced by Florida’s top-notch higher education institutions like the University of Florida. Florida is the perfect place for businesses to succeed and grow, and for Florida families to be able to live their version of the American Dream.”

The Council for Economic Outreach worked with local and state partners including representatives from the University of Florida, Santa Fe College, Innovation Square, FloridaWorks, the City of Gainesville, Alachua County, and Enterprise Florida Inc. to show Mobiquity that Gainesville is truly a leading hub for innovation and technology.

“The unique combination of highly educated students, graduates and professionals, and an ideal location, brought us to Gainesville,” said Bill Seibel, founder and CEO of Mobiquity. “The University of Florida provides a rich pool of engineers that will allow us to meet the demand of our clients to create quality, enterprise-class mobile solutions, while generating more jobs right here in the U.S. It is a win/win.”

“The addition of Mobiquity to the Gainesville area is testimony to the outstanding effort of the Council for Economic Outreach in working with so many stakeholders to showcase the talents and potential of Gainesville,” said Gainesville Mayor-Elect Ed Braddy. “The number of jobs created and the economic boon to the city is a further step toward a prosperous community that we want for all of our citizens.”

The Council for Economic Outreach, the designated economic entity for Alachua County, has been working to recruit Mobiquity since December 2012 when the company first decided to expand from its Boston headquarters. Mobiquity joins others like SumTotal Systems, Silver Airways, Mindtree Ltd., and Sears Holdings as companies that have either relocated or expanded to Gainesville in recent years, further establishing Gainesville as a hub for innovation and technology.

“The dedication to fostering innovation in our thriving community is quickly becoming known throughout the nation and the world,” said John Carlson, chairman of the Council for Economic Outreach. “Keeping our world-class talent produced by our educational institutions has been a main focus in developing our innovation economy, and the recruitment of growing, innovative companies like Mobiquity and the 260 jobs that it plans on creating exemplifies that focus.”

Mobiquity expects the office to be located in Innovation Square, the live/work/play research community being developed on Southwest Second Avenue between the UF campus and downtown Gainesville.

Cammy Abernathy, dean of UF’s College of Engineering, welcomed the announcement.

“In order to compete in today’s global economy, employers like Mobiquity must be able to recruit employees that are not only technically proficient but also those who can also innovate and communicate. Gator engineering graduates not only have a longstanding legacy of professional excellence, they are also trained to think and act as leaders and creative problem solvers,” she said. “We are very proud that the excellence of our students and faculty served as a key ingredient in recruiting Mobiquity to Gainesville. Together with the rest of the community, we extend our warmest welcome.”

Mobiquity plans to replicate its successful model as it already has implemented in Boston, leveraging proven agile processes to keep efficiency and quality high, and costs competitive.

“We are thrilled to welcome an innovator like Mobiquity and support their growth with the amazing talent being produced by the University of Florida,” said Ed Poppell, a representative for UF’s Innovation Square. “We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership as they grow and establish themselves here in the Gainesville community.”

A community celebration welcoming Mobiquity to Gainesville has been scheduled for 10 a.m. May 8 at Ayers Plaza in Gainesville.

About Mobiquity

Mobiquity is a leading professional services firm working with the Global 2000 to create engaging enterprise-class mobile solutions and apps that drive business value. Because mobile is in our DNA, clients benefit from how we expertly and effectively blend the three key disciplines that unleash the power and innovation of mobile computing: strategy, user-centered design and core technology. Since inception in 2011, we have worked with more than 140 companies, including CVS, Fidelity Investments, MetLife, the New York Post, Putnam Investments, The Boston Globe and Weight Watchers International. SAP also selected Mobiquity as a partner to help customers develop and implement mobile strategies and applications that optimize investments in SAP enterprise solutions. To learn more, visit www.mobiquityinc.com.

About the Council for Economic Outreach

The Council for Economic Outreach (CEO) is the designated economic development entity for all of Alachua County. CEO’s charge is to assist existing businesses through expansion, to help grow new companies in our community and to attract new opportunities to Alachua County. CEO was the first economic development organization in the state of Florida to earn recognition as an Accredited Economic Development Organization by the American Economic Development Council. Learn more at www.gceo.com.

“It’s always special when the University of Florida can say one of its programs is the best in the world,” said David Day, director of the incubator and UF’s Office of Technology Licensing. “Today, we’re the best incubator in the world.”

Statistics back up the award. Incubator companies have attracted more than $1 billion in funding, and successes include the acquisition of incubated companies for $113 million, $98 million and $34 million. Since it opened in 1995, the incubator has had 28 companies graduate out of the facility or be acquired by other companies.

The UF incubator won one of two Dinah Adkins Incubator of the Year awards for incubators with a technology focus, then went on to win the highest award, the Randall M. Whaley Incubator of the Year for overall excellence. In the process, it topped incubators more than twice its size, such as the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corp.

Patti Breedlove, associate director of the UF incubator, said the award caps “a cascade of really good news over the last eight months. We’ve had our best year ever.”

The incubator is a 40,000-square-foot facility located in Progress Corporate Park in Alachua, Fla., and is currently home to nine resident companies and 14 affiliated clients. It produces an average annual economic impact of $100 million for Alachua County.

One graduate, Nanotherapeutics, just landed a Department of Defense contract that could amount to $360 million over 10 years to build a drug development and manufacturing facility in Alachua. Recent successes include the acquisitions of Pasteuria for $113 million, Celunol Inc. for $98 million and EraGen Biosciences for $34 million. Playing a role in building an economic engine like that is rewarding, according to Breedlove and Day.

“The companies succeed, and we measure our success by their success,” Breedlove said.

Randy Morris, member services director for the NBIA, said the awards panel looks at an incubator’s record of success and whether it has the financial footing for future success. The panel also looks at whether the incubator uses best practices established by the NBIA, which serves more than 1,900 members in more than 60 nations.

Breedlove said the UF incubator owes its success in part to “a remarkably effective commercialization process at the University of Florida,” and to pioneers who saw the economic potential in UF expertise.

“We wouldn’t be here without the visionary thinkers at the University of Florida in the mid-1990s who created this program when really there was no role model for biotechnology incubation,” Breedlove said. “They gave us everything we needed to be a successful program.”

Day said the research generated by UF — the 12th largest public research university accounting for one-third of the academic research in Florida — fuels the incubator.

“We have a big extended team to work with scientists to build successful companies,” Day said.

The NBIA announced the two awards at its 27th International Conference on Business Incubation in Boston this week.

The event at the Hilton University of Florida Conference Center will also feature updates from university officials and a panel discussion on UF startups that were bought for more than $100 million. Another new feature this year, a poster session during the Inventors Reception, will feature 14 more technologies well-positioned for entrepreneurs interested in starting companies.

”This is one of the premier events of its kind in the country, and a must-see for investors in the Southeast,” said UF Assistant Vice President David Day, director of the Office of Technology Licensing. “We’ve had several exits topping $100 million each over the past few years. At the showcase, we’ll hear how Gainesville is fostering these deals and see the next big startup and technology opportunities generated by more than $644 million in research conducted at UF.”

Experienced entrepreneur Jamie Grooms will moderate the panel, which includes Al Kern of Pasteuria Bioscience, acquired by Syngenta for $113 million in September; Lou Oberndorf, of METI, acquired by CAE Inc. for $130 million in 2011; and Randy Scott, who founded Novamin Technology, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline plc for $135 million in 2010.

For the first time, startup companies competed for the opportunity to present at the showcase. The winners represent the most promising early-stage companies from the many startups that license technology developed at UF and those that have located in UF business incubators.

Biomedical companies include medical-device startups such as EncephaloDynamics, making detection of neurological disorders fast and easy, and OBMedical, developing a state-of-the art maternal-fetal monitoring system. Other biomedical companies include Pulmokine, developing new treatments for pulmonary hypertension, and TrueMotion Spine, developing disc-replacement implants. Technology companies include Constellation Research, developing medical-imaging software; EigenChem, improving recycling and advancing renewable energy; and K&A Wireless, providing high-tech critical information delivery.

A tour of the Innovation Hub the morning of the showcase will introduce out-of-town guests to the unique multi-use business incubator that houses UF OTL along with dozens of tech-based startup companies, and service providers such as attorneys, accountants and venture capitalists.

A Celebration of Innovation, 2013 Technology Showcase, lasts from 12:30 pm to 5 p.m., immediately followed by the Inventors Reception, featuring 14 technologies in a poster session. See the agenda here: http://conferences.dce.ufl.edu/innovationshowcase/default.aspx?page=738

To register: http://conferences.dce.ufl.edu/innovationshowcase/

UF activated its 100 Gbps connection Jan. 30, a move that is expected to unleash scientific discovery and collaboration on a scale not possible at 10 Gbps, the current research standard.

“This is a terrific milestone in our quest to be a top 10 public university. It puts us squarely on an even footing with other leading institutions by giving our researchers a great tool that accelerates their work exponentially,” said UF President Bernie Machen. “It’s good for the university, and it’s good for the state of Florida.”

The new research computing power represents an investment of $2.4 million, with $1.9 million from National Science Foundation grants and $500,000 in institutional funding. UF is one of the pilot sites chosen to connect to the Internet2 Innovation Platform, designed to be the quickest and easiest way to move data from one research laboratory to another, even internationally.

“Having the capacity to move data at 100 Gbps is a watershed moment in UF’s research environment,” said UF Vice President and Chief Information Officer Elias Eldayrie. “This 10-fold increase in capability will enable scientific contributions and the impact to UF has to the national and international research communities.”

The computing power has the potential to transform research at UF. In a world where genomes are sequenced and vast reaches of the globe — and the stars — are mapped in minute detail, scientists find themselves increasingly dealing with floods of data but limited by the computing pipeline to transmit and share that data.

For example, one project alone, related to the High Energy Physics experiment that announced the discovery of the Higgs boson last July, approaches the previous limit of 10 Gbps on a regular basis, said Erik Deumens, director of research computing. UF researchers will no longer labor under those constraints.

“This upgrade gives us the headroom to keep supporting that research at the levels it needs, while taking on support of new research projects like the iDigBio project for digitization of biological data,” Deumens said. “This investment by the University of Florida with partial funding by the National Science Foundation is part of the effort to provide our researchers and their collaborators the infrastructure to do their research that ranks among the top 10 in the nation.”

The need for data storage and computing power will only grow, said Andy Li, associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering.

“Upgrading the UF research network to 100 Gbps will enable us to explore big data sciences, high-performance computing, future Internet and future cloud research, and interdisciplinary collaborations among scientists and engineers,” Li said. “This development further boosts the scientific contribution and impact of UF in Florida, nationally, and internationally. Because we are connecting to a substantially upgraded information highway, UF can serve the needs of terabyte data throughput around the world for researchers and their collaborators.”

Florida LambdaRail’s (FLR) 1,540-mile Research & Education Network, owned and operated by 12 partner universities, including UF, connects the university to the regional, national and international research and education community.

The other institutions and regional optical networks with 100 Gbps data transport capability include Indiana University, Ohio State University’s Ohio Academic Resources Network, and the University of Oklahoma’s Oklahoma Area Network.

The Campus Research Network had to be rebuilt, piece by piece, to accommodate the 100 Gbps connection. But the network is now poised for innovations scheduled this spring, including GatorCloud, a 200 Gbps campus computing initiative, and a computer cluster that will be the largest in the state of Florida.

The focus on computing is expected to be an economic booster, too, UF administrators said. UF computing networks support Innovation Square, a business and technology incubator blocks from campus, and Progress Corporate Park, home to many biotechnology startups that originated with UF research.

“Budding entrepreneurs will gain round-the-clock access to a collaborative working environment, where they can benefit from educational seminars, networking opportunities and personalized advice from experts,” said Innovation Hub Director Jane Muir.

The program, which costs $400 for three months of mentorship, events and collaborative workspace, has rolling application deadlines. Companies that meet or exceed performance goals are eligible for a one-time renewal.

“We’re very excited about The Hatchery,” said Gayle Dykeman, the Innovation Hub’s building manager. “This is a great program for individuals who may have an idea for a business but haven’t yet thought about incorporating or renting office space. They can experience the creative collision of the Innovation Hub without making a long-term commitment.”

An experienced entrepreneur will serve as a “Mentor in Residence” to Hatchery entrepreneurs, providing advice on strategic and tactical approaches to starting technology-based companies.

Resident partners and service providers, including accountants, attorneys and venture capitalists also donate their time and sponsor educational workshops, which will be available to Hatchery participants.

”The Hatchery is for entrepreneurs who would like to locate in the Innovation Hub but haven’t quite developed their business concept enough to qualify,” Muir said. “This program enables us to provide them with the help they need to become a viable business entity.

“We see many budding entrepreneurs who want to start a company but often find the transition between simply having a great idea and actually forming a company around it rather difficult. By offering entrepreneurs a wide range of resources and support, we can make the much less daunting.”

Built with an $8.2 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and a $5 million contribution from UF, the 48,000-square-foot Innovation Hub opened in October 2011 as the first building in Innovation Square, a 24/7/ live/work/play research community. It is one of the only incubators in the nation to house a leading university technology-transfer office, service providers and other partner organizations, such as UF Tech Connect and the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research, which nurture high-tech companies.

In the first 10 months, the Innovation Hub’s two dozen startup companies created 85 jobs and secured $7.2 million in private investment.

Contact Dykeman at gbdykeman@ufl.edu or 352-273-4819 for a Hatchery application or to learn more about the program.

On Tuesday, 55 women will emerge from a new program, Empowering Women in Technology Startups, or eWiTS, ready to change these statistics — and the world.

The University of Florida Office of Technology Licensing, UF Tech Connect and the Florida Innovation Hub partnered with local women technology entrepreneurs and community leaders to launch eWITS.

During the nine-week program, participants formed teams around nine technologies developed by female researchers at UF. Experienced women entrepreneurs and business executives volunteered to mentor the teams toward their goal: to develop a business plan and present the opportunity to a panel of female investors.

These investors, also volunteers, will judge the presentations in a competition from 3 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Florida Innovation Hub at UF, 747 SW Second Ave., Gainesville. Winners will receive prizes including iPads and gift certificates to Dragonfly Sushi and a local spa.

“The women in this program have worked incredibly hard,” said Innovation Hub Director Jane Muir, who founded the program. “They’re graduating from this program with training and skills that will empower them for the rest of their lives. From our perspective, we’ve developed a talent pool of potential entrepreneurs who will help the university commercialize research discoveries.”

Organizers modeled the initiative after Startup Quest, another collaborative effort by UF Office of Technology Licensing, FloridaWorks and the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce. That program, which concluded in 2011, resulted in three new companies based on UF technologies.

The STEM disciplines — science, technology, engineering and math — have historically been dominated by men.

“In our working lives, we’d all had the experience of being the only woman in the room,” Muir said. “There’s no good reason for this since every one of us knows smart, highly capable women who could make meaningful contributions to the STEM fields.”

For more information, visit www.ewits.org.

Women interested in future information sessions can register here for updates once dates for the next program are announced: http://ewitswaitlist.eventbrite.com/

Here are some of the teams’ technologies:

http://apps.research.ufl.edu/otl/pdf/marketing/12685.pdf
http://apps.research.ufl.edu/otl/pdf/marketing/12687.pdf
http://apps.research.ufl.edu/otl/pdf/marketing/12808.pdf
http://apps.research.ufl.edu/otl/pdf/marketing/12845.pdf
http://apps.research.ufl.edu/otl/pdf/marketing/13272.pdf
http://apps.research.ufl.edu/otl/pdf/marketing/13398.pdf
http://apps.research.ufl.edu/otl/pdf/marketing/13812.pdf

Materials with enhanced properties engineered from nanostructures have the potential to revolutionize the marketplace in everything from data processing to human medicine. However, attempts to assemble nanoscale objects into sophisticated structures have been largely unsuccessful. The UF study represents a major breakthrough in the field, showing how thermodynamic forces can be used to manipulate growth of nanoparticles into superparticles with unprecedented precision.

The study is published in the Oct. 19 edition of the journal Science.

“The reason we want to put nanoparticles together like this is to create new materials with collective properties,” said Charles Cao, associate professor of chemistry at UF and corresponding author of the study. “Like putting oxygen atoms and hydrogen atoms together in a two-to-one ratio – the synergy gives you water, something with properties completely different from the ingredients themselves.”

In the UF study, a synergism of fluorescent nanorods, sometimes used as biomarkers in biomedical research, resulted in a superparticle with an emission polarization ratio that could make it a good candidate for use in creating a new generation of polarized LEDs, used in display devices like 3-D television.

“The technology for making the single nanorods is well established,” said Tie Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at UF and lead author of the study. “But what we’ve lacked is a way to assemble them in a controlled fashion to get useful structures and materials.”

The team bathed the individual rods in a series of liquid compounds that reacted with certain hydrophobic regions on the nanoparticles and pushed them into place, forming a larger, more complex particle.

Two different treatments yielded two different products.

“One treatment gave us something completely unexpected — these superparticles with a really sophisticated structure unlike anything we’ve seen before,” Wang said.

The other yielded a less complex structure that Wang, and his colleagues were able to grow it into a small square of polarized film about one quarter the size of a postage stamp.

The researchers said that the film could be used to increase efficiency in polarized LED television and computer screens by up to 50 percent, using currently available manufacturing techniques.

“I’ve worked in nanoparticle assembly for a decade,” said Dmitri Talapin, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago who was not involved with the study. “There are all sorts of issues to be overcome when assembling building blocks from nanoscale particles. I don’t think anyone has been able to get them to self-assemble into superparticles like this before.”

“They have achieved a tour-de-force in precision and control,” he said.

Four companies have already graduated, most recently Shadow Health, which started with three employees and now employs more than two dozen.

“We are required to collect data and report back to the Economic Development Administration for the $8.2 million they granted us,” said Innovation Hub Director Jane Muir. “We contacted each of the companies and were thrilled with the numbers they reported in just ten months.”

Built with an $8.2 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and a $5 million contribution from UF, the 48,000-square-foot Innovation Hub is a unique innovation ecosystem that houses not only startup companies, but also service providers, including accountants, attorneys, venture capitalists and product designers that sponsor events, host educational workshops and donate at least eight hours of their time each month to the startup tenants.

The Innovation Hub is one of the only incubators in the nation to house a leading university technology transfer office in addition to those service providers. The Innovation Hub also houses the UF Development Corp., which is responsible for developing Innovation Square, and other partner organizations that nurture high-tech companies such as UF Tech Connect and the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research.

UF Tech Connect, housed in the Office of Technology Licensing, recently received a $645,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration to support its efforts to commercialize university research and create technology-based startup companies. During the last fiscal year, UF Tech Connect client companies created 230 new jobs and generated $180 million in private investment. During that same time period, the UF Office of Technology Licensing received 324 invention disclosures executed a record-setting 79 licenses, and helped start 15 new companies founded on those new discoveries.

“OTL staff, Tech Connect staff, Innovation Hub employees and Resident Partners all work in collaboration,” said David Day, director of the UF Office of Technology Licensing. “We all want these startup companies to succeed and we all help them do this in different ways. Education and networking opportunities are particularly vital.”

The Innovation Hub will celebrate its one-year anniversary with an open house from 2 to 5 p.m. Oct. 19 featuring demonstrations by technology-based startup tenants. Registration is available at http://anniversaryopenhouse.eventbrite.com/. A special tour is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Oct. 20. http://anniversarytour4.eventbrite.com/.

“This early-stage company, now a viable, fully independent enterprise, is moving into a vacant building in downtown Gainesville,” said Jane Muir, director of the Florida Innovation Hub. “The entire community can be proud of that.”

Shadow Health is one of about two dozen startup companies located in the Florida Innovation Hub at UF, a unique incubator for tech startups and the first building in Innovation Square.

The ultimate goal for these businesses is to “graduate” – or move out of the Innovation Hub — once they become self-sufficient.

“I think that the goal was to be here as short as possible, but we let the commercial process dictate the timeline,” said Shadow Health CEO David Massias. “We’re ready.”

Massias established the virtual education company in June 2011, shortly after working with UF Office of Technology Licensing staff to license technology developed by researchers on campus.

Since moving into the Innovation Hub in October 2011, Shadow has received two rounds of financing that total more than $1 million; hired 19 new employees, including its core management team; conducted extensive beta testing on three prototypes; and launched its signature product — interactive software that uses a virtual patient to teach students in the health care fields effective communication and assessment skills.

In less than a year, Shadow has made significant improvements to “Tina Jones” — the digital standardized patient featured in its communication training software — and added three offices as it began to outgrow its workspace.

Now the company is ready to leave its home on the second floor of the Innovation Hub for a larger location in downtown Gainesville.

The company will soon move to the old Rice Hardware building, vacant since American Apparel moved out more than a year ago. Shadow will rent half of the 6,000-square-foot building at 15 SW First Ave., allowing plenty of room for future expansion.

A serial entrepreneur, Massias is excited about his company’s achievements to date and knows the work has only just begun.

“Success to me is incremental,” Massias said. “I don’t ever view myself as a success.”

He said he expects that Shadow will need to expand again in about a year as market demand for the educational software has exceeded his initial expectations. Revenue was not expected until January 2013, but the company already has paying customers for its flagship product – software that guides students as they learn how to interview patients and examine bodily systems. Most of these customers are nursing schools, but Massias plans to target medical schools, physician-assistant schools and pharmacy schools sometime in the next six months.

“There are better ways to prepare students to communicate with and examine patients,” Massias said. “We provide clinical tools that students can use and experience prior to being in front of a real patient.”

He added that his products will enhance learning, save faculty time and increase patient safety.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration awarded $645,000, matched by the university over the next five years, to UF Tech Connect through its University Center Economic Development Program.

UF Tech Connect, an EDA University Center housed in the UF Office of Technology Licensing at the Florida Innovation Hub, assists in commercializing university research discoveries by helping create startup companies. During the last fiscal year, UF Tech Connect client companies created 230 new jobs and generated $180 million in private investment. The grant will allow the program to continue this work.

“Given the stiff competition for this grant, we are pleased that the EDA has decided to continue its support of our program,” said Jane Muir, director of UF Tech Connect, associate director of the UF Office of Technology Licensing and director of the Florida Innovation Hub at UF. “We’ve worked hard and collaborated with many partner organizations to create an innovation ecosystem in our state. This grant will help us build on the progress to date and further our goal of building a disaster-resistant innovation economy, creating jobs for Floridians.”

These grants “leverage university assets to promote American innovation and strengthen regional economic ecosystems,” the EDA said in its news release.

As a partner with UF’s Office of Technology Licensing, UF Tech Connect accelerates regional and statewide economic growth by assisting technology-based companies in commercializing inventions in medicine, biotechnology, engineering, health, information systems, and other fields. UF receives an average of 300 invention disclosures a year on more than $600 million in research, generating more than a third of the state’s new inventions and the majority of all university startups in the state. In the past decade, this partnership has helped launch more than 140 startup companies, garnering more than $800 million in private investment, and creating more than 1,200 jobs.

“We are fortunate to have this strong partnership with EDA. It has enabled us to provide resources and assistance that many tech transfer offices cannot,” said David Day, director of the UF Office of Technology Licensing. “We look forward to our continued partnership with EDA in leveraging university discoveries to start new technology companies that are creating jobs.”

UF has partnered with EDA on several grant opportunities over the past several decades, including the 2009 grant for $8.2 million that funded the construction of the Florida Innovation Hub at UF. This unique business incubator opened in October 2011 as the first building in Innovation Square, a 12-acre science-and-technology community halfway between UF’s campus and downtown Gainesville. The 48,000-square-foot Innovation Hub houses UF Tech Connect; the Office of Technology Licensing; 24 technology-based startup companies; several service providers such as accountants, attorneys, product designers and venture capitalists; and other organizations that have access to state-of-the-art labs and office space, and, most importantly, programs and events that foster the “creative collision” of people and ideas.

Innovators in everything from robotics to Internet search engines study patterns that animal predators walk while searching for prey. But mathematical models that have been used in the past to study these patterns are in need of a little revamping, the UF study finds — because in the animal kingdom, scent plays a major roll in tracking prey.

The study appears in the July 10 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Imagine trying to find a bakery in a foreign city without a map,” said Andrew Hein, a researcher in UF’s biology department. “You’re in sort of a general search mode until you catch of whiff of fresh bread. Then you start to look more carefully for visual cues like a store front or someone else carrying a baguette.”

The strategy saves predators time and energy by helping them cut to the chase, but the models currently used to represent animals on the hunt aren’t equipped with olfactory senses. Hein worked with colleague Scott McKinley, a researcher in the mathematics department at UF, to endow two widely used computer models with a simulated sense of smell.

“In a natural environment, smell can be a very vague, directionless signal for where a target, like prey or a mate, can be found,” Hein said. “But even when an animal smells nothing, that signal is telling him something: Keep moving.”

In the study, Hein and McKinley pit the olfactory-equipped computer models against two of the original models in a series of virtual hunts. The models with smelling power won hands down. They were far more efficient and reliable predators than their non-sniffing counterparts, the study found.

The improvement also made the model behave more like what biologists have observed in nature, Hein said.

“We know that albatrosses alter their flight pattern when they encounter prey scent,” he said. “And frigatebirds find the eddies where they hunt at least in part, by smell.”

McKinley said their work addresses a gap in the existing body of literature on modeling animal search patterns. But Massimo Vergassola, a physicist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, said the study is important because it provides an abstraction of general principles that can be useful for scientists modeling bio-inspired search strategies in a variety of applications.

People are using this sort of research to inform a range of exploration, Vergassola said, from insect mating and reproduction control to “sniffer robots” that could be deployed to detect chemical leaks.

A list of frequently asked questions is available at https://www.gru.com/GRUCom/faqs.jsp

The initiative is part of a nationwide effort known as the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project, or Gig.U, a broad-based group of more than 30 leading U.S. research universities. Gig.U’s goal is to accelerate the deployment of ultrahigh-speed networks to leading U.S. universities and their surrounding communities in order to drive economic growth and stimulate innovations addressing critical needs, such as health care and education.

The higher-speed connection option is expected to be available to business and residential customers in Innovation Square – a segment within the Innovation District between the UF campus and downtown Gainesville – later this month and will be extended to other parts of the district as the area develops. That 1 Gbps service also will be extended throughout Gainesville as demand rises, officials with UF and GRUCom said.

UF President Bernie Machen said the effort is an important step in providing the kind of service and support that will speed economic development and growth at Innovation Square and in the Innovation District.

“Entrepreneurs and technology leaders work in a competitive world where big ideas and enormous amounts of information need to move quickly,” Machen said. “This is just what’s needed to attract those types of people to the Innovation District. Having a high-bandwidth community near our campus creates an environment that will better serve the mission of educating our students and creating a hub of high-tech economic growth for Florida.”

Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe agreed.

“Ultrahigh-speed broadband is the new standard of performance that will power innovative research and development at the University of Florida,” Lowe said. “Sharing this capability beyond our campuses and to our communities will help us retain startup, high-tech businesses as they prosper and grow in the city of Gainesville.”

Here’s how it will work: All Innovation District residents and businesses will have access to gigabit connections to other homes and offices within the district. Using a network peering arrangement between GRUCom and UF, students, faculty and staff will be able to securely access the UF Campus Core Network from their Innovation District lab, office or home. They also will have remote access to on-campus connections with the Florida LambdaRail, National LambdaRail, Internet2, and research and education networks worldwide.

Said GRU General Manager Bob Hunzinger: “GRU has been actively involved in the design and planning of all utilities within the Innovation District. We want to make sure everything is in place to support our customers and the University in the context of entrepreneurial and technological development. Bringing GRUCom’s all-fiber speeds and the latest in communications networking technology will help us accomplish this goal.”

Gig.U Executive Director Blair Levin congratulated GRU, Gainesville and the university, noting “this partnership will provide Gainesville with a strategic bandwidth advantage that will enable its residents to invent and enjoy the next generation of bandwidth applications. Many generations of Gainesville residents will benefit from the leadership shown here today.”

About Gig.U

The University Community Next Generation Innovation Project, or Gig.U, is a broad-based group of more than 30 leading research universities from across the United States. Drawing on America’s rich history of community-led innovation in research and entrepreneurship, Gig.U seeks to accelerate the deployment of ultrahigh-speed networks to leading U.S. universities and their surrounding communities. Improvements to these networks drive economic growth and stimulate a new generation of innovations addressing critical needs, such as health care and education.

About GRU and GRUCom

Gainesville Regional Utilities is a city-owned, multi-service utility, providing electric, natural gas, water, wastewater and telecommunications services to approximately 93,000 retail and wholesale customers. GRUCom, the telecommunications division of GRU, delivers Internet, data transport, colocation, cellular carrier and wireless, and public safety radio services to customers across a 375-mile all-fiber-optic network. A key feature of the network is its active Ethernet backbone design, which ensures a consistently fast performance, even during peak usage hours.

About Innovation Square

Designed and developed as a sustainable, live/work/play community environment by the University of Florida Development Corporation, Innovation Square is the place for forward-thinking people and companies to take breakthrough ideas from mind to market, bringing the next great discovery to the world. Located two blocks from the University of Florida, one of the nation’s premier public research institutions with 170 centers and institutes, Innovation Square provides opportunity to collaborate with UF’s recognized 4,000 researchers, $619 million annual research awards and information where transfer of technology to the marketplace is highly successful.

This free event features food vendors, a new “Art Inspired by Science” display, a gallery of local bioscience companies and a bus tour of the park. There will be opportunities to network with representatives from more than 70 scientific and other vendors who will showcase their products and services and inform the public about the global impact that regional biotechnology advancements have under way.

The event is hosted by BioFlorida, the statewide trade association for the bioscience industry, as an initiative to raise awareness about Florida’s vibrant life sciences cluster. The event provides a special showcase for the Alachua/Gainesville area, home to the largest cluster of biotech companies in the state and anchored by companies such as RTI Biologics, Exactech and the University of Florida Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator. The Progress Corporate Park in Alachua is home to more than 30 companies. More than 80 percent of the 1,100 people employed there work at startup companies established with technology developed at UF.

The corporate host of the event is RTI Biologics, and sponsors include signature sponsor Fisher Scientific and event sponsors Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce, Banyan Biomarkers, FL High Tech Corridor and DavosPharma. The event is free and open to the public. For more information and a full list of the more than 70 scientific vendors, visit www.bioflorida.com.

BioFlorida is the voice of Florida’s bioscience industry association, and represents more than 200 member companies and research organizations in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device fields. Operating as a not-for-profit organization, BioFlorida members are involved in biomedical research and development, medical device manufacturing, clinics and hospitals, academia, government and nonprofit organizations and industry services/products. BioFlorida’s leadership and programs positively influence the growth of the industry through networking and initiatives related to capital formation, advocacy, workforce development, education and commercialization of research. In 2010, the BioFlorida Institute was established to focus on science education and professional development to provide bioscience industry resources.