Jul 17 2008
The Perot Museum of Nature and Science is a new facility to be built at Victory Park in downtown Dallas named in honor of Ross Perot Sr. and his wife, Margot. Those attending nanotxUSA’08 will be able to see a model and architectural conceptions of the new facility. The event will be held October 2-3 at the Hyatt Regency convention hotel, Dallas.
In a reciprocal arrangement, all those attending nanotxUSA’08 Conference/Expo will also receive free admission to the existing museum facility (normally $8.75 for adults, but free when showing nanotxUSA attendee badge) located on the state fair grounds after paid admission to the state fair. When “we discussed partnership possibilities between nanoTX(USA) and our museum at the senior directors’ meeting … there was consensus that this is a wonderful opportunity to initiate this year and to develop in the future,” Paul Vinson, museum Director of Exhibits wrote nanotxUSA organizers.
“We have been courting a partnership with the Museum of Nature and Science for some years,” said nanotxUSA General Manager Richard Mason, “because it covers so well education, research and engineering, all the things that we’re about. And now with their dramatic expansion to Victory Park, the new Perot facility makes the time about perfect. We are so proud to have the Perot Museum part of nanotxUSA now, and for years to come.”
At the time the new Perot facility was announced the Dallas Morning News reported Ross Perot Sr. as saying “we need more engineers in this country. I want to make one clear point: Go to any of our most advanced engineering universities and check to see who’s getting the Ph.D.s in engineering. I’m glad you’re sitting down. Eighty percent come from India and China, 18 percent come from all over the world – I’m up to 98 percent – and 2 percent come from the good ol’ USA. Now that is a recipe for disaster.” The News reported that Perot went on to say he hoped the museum would help to reverse the trend by inspiring a new generation of engineers and scientists.
Those attending the nanotxUSA Expo can expect to see revolutionary (and currently top secret) advances developed at the University of Texas (Dallas) Nanotech Institute; artificial muscles with incredible strength; an update on synthetic blood by HemoBioTech; commercial coatings where graffiti just runs off; latest equipment in Raman spectroscopy revealing structural and electronic properties of single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes from Lambda Solutions; the latest (and portable) surface metrology equipment delivering the most minute measurements imaginable from NanoFocus; bio-degradable plastics from Novomer Corporation based on discoveries out of Cornell University; electrospinning nanofibers and their hundreds of diverse applications from SNS Nano Fiber Technology; even minute nano delivery systems pioneered by Salvona Technologies, overcoming adhesion forces at the nanoscale; major universities with incubators for commercializing nanotechnology; and a hall full of other exciting exhibits.
nano tech Japan is a Global partner of nanotxUSA. In addition to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, other sponsors include MANCEF; the international law firm of Baker Botts; Applied Nanotech; BIO-DFW; the Dallas Regional Chamber of Commerce; AeA; North Texas RCIC; Consortium for Nanomaterials for Aerospace Commerce and Technology with partner Lockheed Martin; Office of Technology Commercialization, and Masters of Science Technology Commercialization, University of Texas at Austin; Texas State Technical College; Austin Community College; Texas State University at San Marcos; and many others can be viewed at website, www.nanotxUSA.com
In addition to the Expo, a major scientific conference for a crowd of nanotech business interests will be held at the same location. Major names in science and nanotechnology will present startling new developments in commercialization, such as K. Eric Drexler, world-famous futurist and the man Wired Magazine credited with coining the word, nanotechnology, will be a leading attraction.
Much of what Drexler saw coming is being realized today, indeed he worked to create it. This field has been his basis for numerous journal articles and books, including Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (written for a general audience) and Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation (a quantitative, physics-based analysis). And Drexler helped lead development of the 2007 Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems, a project managed by Battelle and hosted by several of the U.S. National Laboratories.
Other top minds at this year’s conference include people like Stan Ovshinsky, world-famed pioneer in nanostructures, who was once named Time Magazine’s “Hero of the Planet.” Ovshinsky has become a living legend in the scientific and business communities, having once been profiled in a one-hour PBS program on NOVA entitled “Japan’s American Genius.” The most recent exciting advancement is his solid hydrogen storage system, a metal hydride solid which can be stored in a granular, inert form in compact tanks.
Also speaking is scientist/businessman William Kroll, chairman of Matheson Tri-Gas and who served on the Commission of Outsourcing and Off-shoring for the governor of New Jersey; Mark Hakey, Manager of IBM's Process Integration team at Albany Nanotech; Dr. Zvi Yaniv Founder of Applied Nanotech; Dr. Ray Baughman, Director of the Nanotech Institute at UTD; Dr. Faruq Merikar, Managing Partner, Nanobiz. Many other top names can be seen at www.nanotxUSA.com, where new special rates for early registration are offered, but will expire August 15.