~Five local early stage companies competed for a chance to win one of two technology commercialization grants~
Innovation Park of Tallahassee is pleased to announce that DiaTech Diabetic Technologies and NeuroJungle have been named the 2018 winners of the Innovation Park TechGrant Program.
DiaTech has developed a sensor technology that actively monitors the viability of an insulin injection site to detect changing conditions that indicate insulin delivery failure and alert the user. These recent graduates from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering took home the first prize of $15,000.
John Wilcox, CEO and Co-Founder of DiaTech Diabetic Technologies stated, “As a Tallahassee based company, we are thrilled to receive Innovation Park’s support towards our mission of improving the care for people with diabetes. We will utilize our awarded grant funds to support our progression of applying to a National Science Foundation SBIR Phase 1 Grant. Our future is promising as we plan to continue on with further development of a novel insulin pump malfunction sensor and other optimized medical devices. Our passion and empathy drives our venture, but more importantly, motivates us to improve the quality of life for patients worldwide.”
NeuroJungle, a company that has developed an anatomical interactivity technology for stroke survivors that uses a wearable limb manipulation device that is connected to Virtual Reality, took home the second prize of $10,000.
Vince Macri, Founder of NeuroJungle said, “NeuroJungle, LLC, heartily thanks Innovation Park and will happily use our $10,000 grant to build, with G5 Engineering (Talla.) and FAMU computer science programmers, a device to improve stroke survivors ‘dropped foot’.
NeuroJungle will also be rolling out test-demos of its device in the coming months. Any stroke survivors interested in participating can contact Macri via email at vjm@vincemacri.us.
These grants were awarded during Innovation Park’s annual TechGrant Pitch Night, which was co-presented this year by Hancock Whitney and Danfoss Turbocor, and took place on Wednesday, May 16th at Goodwood Museum and Gardens. More than 100 Tallahassee Business and Community Leaders gathered to watch five impressive companies compete for a chance to win one of these grants. The other finalist companies were Nhu Energy, Footy Training, and WeatherTiger.
Innovation Park initiated the TechGrant Program in 2005, and since then has given away $437,000 to 26 companies, several of whom are still flourishing in Tallahassee and producing high-wage tech jobs.
Event Sponsors this year also included Lewis, Longman and Walker, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Parker Services Air Conditioning and Heating, NAI Talcor, Brown & Brown Insurance, The Office of Economic Vitality, Thomas Howell Ferguson, C&L Associates and Broad and Cassel.