Winners, including the first-ever Member’s Choice Award recipient, will be announced during the LES (USA & Canada) Spring Meeting, May 12-14 in La Jolla, CA

WASHINGTON, March 30, 2015 – Nine teams of entrepreneurially-minded students from around the globe will advance to the Final Round of the Licensing Foundation's 2015 International Graduate Student Business Plan Competition, to be held May 11, 2015 preceding the Licensing Executives Society (U.S.A. and Canada) Spring Meeting in La Jolla, CA.

Now in its 11th year, the LES Competition uniquely focuses on student business plans that hinge on ground-breaking technologies and that offer sound strategies for commercializing intellectual assets to achieve business objectives.

As always, the Competition attracted a highly competitive pool of participants from countries around the world, including Egypt, Singapore, India, Canada and the United States. These teams will compete in the Final Round:  

• Akabotics, University of Hawaii, USA has designed the Microdredger™, a patent pending, small-sized robotic system that offers continuous maintenance dredging at a dramatically lower cost to the customer.
• Enlightened Diagnostics, University of Notre Dame, USA is a cancer diagnostic company developing products that enable targeted, personal diagnoses from a three-dimensional platform. EnDx technology allows clinicians to make a more complete diagnosis based on a new three-dimensional tumor-viewing diagnostic system. 
• Guardian, Delhi Technological University, India creates a mobile application and a wearable, intelligent, fully automated device that provides safety to women by utilizing human resources around them. The device sends a distress signal along with location to a regional control room, which will forward it to friends, family, app users in that region and police.
• Maieutic, University of Waterloo, Canada addresses imprecision and wear in industrial dies and surfaces. “Programmable Surface” forms persistent shapes that can be adjusted in real time to monitor and correct defects and variations that occur in the manufacturing process.
• Opticent Health, Northwestern University, USA aims to commercialize a novel non-invasive non-contact diagnostic instrument for the early detection of multiple chronic diseases; and produce high quality, affordable and individually patient specific 3D printed medical implants.
• Phytosys, Rutgers University, USA seeks to provide information to researchers and improved outcomes for patients with Visikol™, a novel chemical formula that renders biological tissues transparent; effective in Pathology, Histology, Toxicology, basic research, Botany and quality control.
• Sozo Innovations, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore designs a spectrum of Assistive and Rehabilitative devices for the ageing population, including a patent pending innovation that enables redistribution of weight from a weak leg and improves the stability of the user with an addition point(s) of contact with the ground.
• TriboTEX, Washington State University, USA is a clean-tech startup leveraging a proprietary, eco-friendly nanoparticle product with two functionally different sides that effectively reconditions moving parts during normal operation.
• Wavve Stream, University of Houston, USA is a water filtration company producing a patented graphene-based nanotechnology that enable existing water filtration systems to simultaneously remove various contaminants. The company manufactures a liquid solution that can be applied to filter membranes, and beads that can be integrated to water filtration filters.

Throughout the Competition process, participating teams have received unmatched educational resources, mentorship, and opportunities to sample IP services. Moving forward, finalists will compete for a $10,000 Grand Prize, a $5,000 LES International Global Award and the inaugural LES Member’s Choice Award. All runner-up teams will receive $1,000, and each of the teams will select from a pool of value in-kind prizes to assist with future business needs.

2015 Competition sponsors and donors include: Betts, Patterson Mines; Collective IP; IP Checkups; Knobbe, Martens, Olson and Bear; Questel; Relecura; Techpats; Thomson Reuters; and Tracklight.

Stay tuned to www.lesfoundation.org for final results and to learn more about the 2015 Competition and finalists. For more information on LES (USA & Canada) and the Spring Meeting visit www.lesusacanada.org.

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About Licensing Executives Society (U.S.A. and Canada) Inc., LES International and LES Foundation: The Licensing Executives Society (U.S.A. and Canada) Inc. is the pre-eminent professional organization in the field of intellectual property transfer and commercialization in the U.S.A. and Canada. It is one of over 32 national societies (representing 90 countries) of the Licensing Executives Society International, which has over 11,000 members worldwide. The LES Foundation was established by the Licensing Executives Society (U.S.A. and Canada) Inc. to increase awareness and understanding of the licensing of intellectual property rights and to communicate the critical role licensing plays in bringing creativity and innovation to the commercial marketplace.

Read the press release here.