ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan today announced a series of podcasts showcasing U-M inventions, U-M researchers, and tech transfer opportunities for outside commercialization partners.

The podcast series, called U-M TechCast, is “just one more way to engage people outside the University in a dialogue about putting these technologies to use,” said Ken Nisbet, executive director of U-M Tech Transfer.

“Our primary mission is to effectively transfer U-M technology to business partners to benefit society,” Nisbet said. ?We?re always exploring new ways to see that accomplished.?

Today, people can find out about U-M technologies and opportunities through the U-M Tech Transfer Web site, individual researcher Web sites, scientific publications, media stories and personal contact with U-M licensing professionals and researchers.

U-M Vice President for Research Steve Forrest said TechCast is a good example of how the University is being more proactive about working with industry.

“This is just one example of a much larger movement at the University of Michigan to lower the barriers between our labs and the outside world,” Forrest said. “We want to increase collaboration, and TechCast is one new channel available to reach business partners.”

The U-M TechCast is designed to provide expanded information on selected technologies emerging from U-M research, along with occasional inventor interviews. TechCast is available as a subscription and online.

Unlike many other podcasts today, however, TechCast is offered both as a traditional sound-only podcast and as an enhanced podcast, displaying selected images similar to a slideshow. Each episode runs for about 2.5 minutes and new podcasts will be added every two weeks.

The first two episodes focus on an innovative lecture capture and speaker tracking system developed by U-M professor Homer Neal, and ergonomic software available directly to end-user’s that helps to calculate the strength required for various tasks and population percentages that can reasonably be expected to complete them.

TechCast podcastsTech Transfer