| The Michigan Small Tech Association (MISTA) held their inaugural event yesterday at the Smart Sensors & Integrated Microsystems facility at the Wayne State University, College of Engineering. The event, “Growing Michigan Business With Small Tech” highlighted developments statewide in the fields of Nanotechnology, Microsystems and MEMS. It brought together over 125 attendees from the business, financial/legal, research and academic communities. “Today was a great day for MISTA. Several attendees commented that they were unaware that this kind of innovative work was being performed here in Michigan,” said John Bedz, Director of MISTA. “Our program was a good mix of global and state perspectives on these enabling technologies, combined with sessions featuring Michigan companies,” Bedz added. Keynote, Louis Ross, Managing Partner for the Global Emerging Technology Institute, spoke on how Asian business partners work together developing technologies before competition kicks in on product applications for the technology. The Advantage Michigan presentation featured the Michigan Molecular Institute, an educational and research resource and Dendritech, a successful nanotech partner company. Later, Patti Glaza, COO of Small Times Media presented the “Small Tech State of State” report on Michigan’s improvement to number eight on Small Times’ 2004 Top Ten states list. Breakout Sessions on the Automotive, Defense & Security and Life Science sectors featured presentations from: Delphi Medical Systems, Integrated Sensing Systems (ISSYS), Advanced Sensor Technologies, The Wireless Integrated Microsystems- NSF Engineering Research Center (WIMS-ERC), Ford Motor Company, Tellurex Corporation, Sensicore Inc, U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research and Development Center (TARDEC) and General Dynamics Land Systems. “The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) is pleased that MISTA is bringing together this growing community of high tech companies. These enabling technologies touch all economic sectors and integrating them into products manufactured here will be important to growing Michigan's economy-,” stated Gary Krause, of the MEDC. |