Corporate & Academic Innovation

Bloomberg has recently released findings related to companies with the highest net income per employee. Surprisingly, InterDigital was found to have the most profitable employees of U.S. companies. InterDigital employs more than 200 engineers, creates working prototypes of all its technologies, and “amasses a trove of patents.”

Donald P. Dinella, PA Q ’85, is chief licensing officer and chief licensing counsel at InterDigital, which in 2012 sold 1,700 patents to Intel for $375 million. Gilbert F. Amelio, Ph.D. (GA A ’65), is on InterDigital’s Board of Directors and it was rumored in 2011 that the company might be bought by Apple or Google for its intellectual property. Read more about InterDigital from Quartz

Τ

A team of researchers, working with NASA astronauts, have developed the firs zero-gravity coffee cup. The patent for the “first-ever cup designed for drinking fluids in micro-gravity conditions” was awarded to Portland State engineering professor Mark Weislogel and mathematicians Paul Concus, CA B ’54, and Robert Finns. For more information, read the article

Β

IBM has announced new partnerships and new grants to support the study of “big data” at universities in the United States and abroad. Nine universities will introduce new curricula developed in partnership with IBM. In addition, “IBM also announced a new set of winners of its periodic Big Data and Analysis Faculty Awards.” Read the article from The Chronicle of Higher Education by clicking here

Π