Oak Ridge Today

ORNL wins four federal lab awards for tech transfer

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Open Port Sampling Interfaces for Mass Spectrometry, invented by Gary Van Berkel (left) and Vilmos Kertesz, features simplicity and elegance. (Photo by ORNL)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Open Port Sampling Interfaces for Mass Spectrometry, invented by Gary Van Berkel (left) and Vilmos Kertesz, features simplicity and elegance. (Photo by ORNL)

 

Four technologies developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have earned Federal Laboratory Consortium awards for excellence in technology transfer, a press release said.

The FLC is a network of more than 300 federal laboratories, facilities, and research centers dedicated to promoting and strengthening the commercialization of federal laboratory-developed technologies and expertise, the press release said.

The honors place ORNL in elite company, according to Donna Bialozor, FLC Awards committee chair, who wrote: “This year, your laboratory is one of a select number of recipients, an indication that your nominations were truly of the highest caliber.”

Mike Paulus, ORNL’s director of technology transfer, noted that it is especially significant that ORNL won four of the 19 FLC awards for excellence in technology transfer.

“With these latest awards, ORNL has now won 55 since 1986, reaffirming the importance and relevance of our research and development,” Paulus said.

ORNL earned recognition for the following technologies: [Read more…]

Pro2Serve, Covenant Health form joint venture in health care data analytics

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Tony-Spezia-Barry-Goss-Agreement-Signing-2016

Pictured above are Tony Spezia, left, president and CEO of Covenant Health, and Barry Goss, founder and CEO of Pro2Serve. (Submitted photo)

 

Professional Project Services Inc., or Pro2Serve, and Covenant Health have formed VortexT Analytics Inc., a strategic partnership that will address the rapidly evolving field of big data analytics in health care, a press release said.

The joint venture will use VortexT, a data analytics software based on algorithms originally developed and patented by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and licensed and further advanced by Pro2Serve. VortexT is currently being used in critical national security applications and is producing valuable data, the press release said.

Barry Goss, founder and chief executive officer of Pro2Serve, calls VortexT “a disruptive big data analytics technology that is proven, sustainable, and ready to be introduced into commercial markets, starting with healthcare.

“VortexT analyzes more data in less time and at less cost, and produces more valuable information than other big data analytics technologies,” Goss said. “We also hold field-of-use licenses for applying the technology to the insurance, financial services, and legal services industries.” [Read more…]

Tech 2020 winding down operations; Pro2Serve among its success stories

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Technology-2020-Jan-27-2016

The board of directors for Technology 2020, which is located in Commerce Park in south Oak Ridge, voted Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016, to wind down operations after more than two decades. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

Tech 2020—a nonprofit organization that counts Pro2Serve, a technical and engineering services firm, as one of its early success stories—announced last week that it is winding down operations after more than two decades.

Facing increased financial pressures, the Tech 2020 Board of Directors voted Tuesday, January 26, to begin an orderly process to wind down their operations, a press release said. The organization has been focused on technology-based economic development activities in the Knoxville-Oak Ridge region.

Tech 2020 once had 12 to 15 employees or more, but it is now down to less than five full-time employees, said Tom Ballard, past Tech 2020 chair and longtime Executive Committee member who was on the founding board. The organization has one building at Commerce Park in south Oak Ridge and manages a second building, an entrepreneurial center, for the City of Oak Ridge.

Tech 2020 was established in 1994 in Oak Ridge with significant grants from BellSouth, now part of the AT&T enterprise, and others, the press release said. The organization’s initial focus areas were telecommunications and entrepreneurship. One of its early creations was Digital Crossing Networks LLC, which is located in downtown Knoxville.

Pro2Serve is another success story, Ballard said. The company went from a home office to the Tech 2020 building to headquarters in the National Energy Security Center in the Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The company now has more than 350 employees. [Read more…]

Students to test skills, vie for scholarships in UT Pro2Serve Math Contest

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Hundreds of Tennessee high school students will put their mathematics skills to the test and vie for scholarships during this year’s UT Pro2Serve Math Contest, hosted by the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Registration opens Tuesday, August 25, for the 17th annual contest. The daylong event pits students—public, private, and home-schooled—from across the state in both individual and team competitions.

The contest, to be held Tuesday, October 27, at the Holiday Inn World’s Fair Park downtown, will award $6,000 annual scholarships to UT to the top 10 students in the individual competition. The scholarships are funded by UT and Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek. Other prizes also will be given. [Read more…]

Two ORHS students win UT scholarships in statewide math contest

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KNOXVILLE—Two Oak Ridge High School students were among 10 from across the state who received $6,000 annual scholarships to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in this year’s UT-Pro2Serve Math Contest. More than 700 students from 51 schools all across Tennessee competed in the competition, held November 6 at UT.

The scholarship winners were:

  • Joseph Andress, Oak Ridge High, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
  • Christopher Dean, Cookeville High, Cookeville, Tennessee
  • Jason Fu, Farragut High, Knoxville, Tennessee
  • Gene Li, Ravenwood High, Brentwood, Tennessee
  • Remilia Li, Pope John Paul II High, Hendersonville, Tennessee
  • Ohm J. Patel, White Station High, Memphis, Tennessee
  • Daniel Tancredi, Memphis University School, Memphis, Tennessee
  • Barbara Xiong, University School of Nashville, Nashville, Tennessee
  • Albert Xue, Oak Ridge High, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
  • Chang Yu, Memphis University School, Memphis, Tennessee

[Read more…]

Pro2Serve appoints new chief financial officer

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Mark Haub

Mark Haub

Professional Project Services Inc., also known as Pro2Serve, has appointed Mark A. Haub as the company’s new chief financial officer, or CFO.

Haub replaces Paul Martin, Pro2Serve’s CFO and treasurer since February 1999. Martin retired this month.

Haub is a certified public accountant who earned his master’s of business administration in marketing, management, and strategy, and finance from the Kellogg School of Management and his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Illinois State University.

He has more than 23 years of experience as a senior financial executive working in higher education, manufacturing, distribution, and retail in domestic and international markets, a press release said. Haub has negotiated terms to secure a multimillion dollar equity capital infusion to fund corporate growth initiatives, led the substantial improvement of product and services bids through implementing market-driven bid processes, played key roles in the development and execution of strategic business plans that substantially improved cash flow and new product gross margins, and provided financial and operational leadership in an entrepreneurial venture resulting in substantial revenue growth, the release said. [Read more…]

High school students receive UT scholarships in math competition

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Larry Shen of ORHS, a Math Contest Winner

Larry Shen of Oak Ridge High School was one of 10 students who recently won $4,000 annual scholarships to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in a UT-Pro2Serve Math Contest. (Photo courtesy University of Tennessee)

KNOXVILLE—Ten students were recently awarded $4,000 annual scholarships to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in a UT-Pro2Serve Math Contest.

More than 600 students from 50 Tennessee high schools participated in the competition held Nov. 14 at UT.

The scholarship winners included Larry Shen of Oak Ridge High School.

The other nine winners were:

  • Jia Liang of Collierville High in Collierville
  • Sanghwah “Samuel” Rhee of McCallie School in Chattanooga
  • Jason Wen of McCallie School in Chattanooga
  • Anwesh Dash of White Station High in Memphis
  • Sajant Anand of Science Hill High in Johnson City
  • Saaber Pourmotabbed of White Station High in Memphis
  • Queena Lu of Pope John Paul II High in Hendersonville
  • Yunhua Zhao of Memphis University School in Memphis
  • Zachary Strickland of Webb School of Knoxville in Knoxville [Read more…]

Oak Ridge partnership merges strengths of lab, private sector

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An Oak Ridge engineering services firm with an international footprint has teamed with three Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists to form a subsidiary and market an award-winning text analysis system.

The subsidiary, Global Security Information Analysts LLC, is the product of Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) and the inventors of Piranha, which is software used by the military and U.S. Department of Homeland Security to analyze large sets of streaming data.

[Read more…]