Electronics Show to Feature Science Start-Up Exhibits

Flexible solar panel (Solarmer Energy Inc.)

The 2012 CES in Las Vegas, the world’s largest consumer electronics trade show, will feature an exhibit of start-up companies and technologies emerging from research and development, including small businesses funded by National Science Foundation. The exhibit, called Eureka Park, is a collaboration of the National Science Foundation (NSF), Startup America Partnership, CNET, and UK Trade & Investment.

As of late December, 94 companies will exhibit in Eureka Park, housed in Las Vegas’s Venetian Hotel during the 10-13 January trade show. NSF initially recruited 28 of the participating companies, all of which received Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants from the agency.

Among the exhibitors are Solarmer Energy Inc. in El Monte, California. Solarmer Energy makes transparent, flexible plastic solar panels (pictured at top), produced using manufacturing techniques similar to newspaper printing, and thus much lower in cost than traditional solar panels. The company, founded in 2006, commercializes research conducted at UCLA and University of Chicago. The company has received both SBIR and STTR awards.

Another exhibitor is Perpetua Power Source Technologies Inc. in Corvallis, Oregon, a developer of energy sources for wireless sensors, for health care and other applications. The company’s technology captures heat that is converted into electric power. At Eureka Park, the company plans to exhibit a wireless armband device that captures body heat to send physiological data to a nearby laptop base station. Perpetua was awarded an SBIR grant from NSF in March 2011.

Other NSF-supported Eureka Park exhibits will feature company-developed products including a contact-lens-sized display, an agile robotic arm, and a fluid-electronic e-reading system. The exhibits also include university-based research institutes such as Carnegie-Mellon University’s Quality of Life Technology Center that plans to display prototypes of personal assistive robots, and human-awareness and driver-assistance technologies.

Read more: Small Business Grant Funds University Biodiesel Start-Up

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