The 2008 technology innovation awards
Tata Motors small car, the Nano, and Tata Consultancy Services mKrishi initiative are among category winners………..Michael Totty
In a medical emergency, quickly tapping a vein to deliver medication or other fluids can mean the difference between life and death. But in millions of cases a year, doctors and emergency personnel cant get an intravenous, or IV, line started because of collapsed veins or other problems. The standard alternatives to an IV are time-consuming and raise the risk of possibly deadly complications.
Larry Miller, a 30-year veteran of emergency care, came up with a solution. Physicians have long known that lifesaving fluids could be effective if delivered to the blood-rich space inside bones, but there was a problem: finding a way to quickly penetrate the bone and insert a needle. Dr Miller developed a high-speed drill that uses a specially designed needle to bore into bones and deliver fluids.
The EZ-IO device from Vidacare Corp., the company Dr Miller co-founded in 2001, is the gold winner in The Wall Street Journals eighth annual innovation awards competition. A group of judges representing venture capital firms, other firms and research institutions reviewed more than 160 entries to pick gold, silver and bronze winners. They also selected the top technologies in 16 industry categories.
The silver award went to Audience, a maker of voice processors, for a noise suppression technology designed to block background noise in cellphone calls. The technology uses a sophisticated microprocessor to identify and reduce even rapidly changing sounds, emergency sirens, for instance, that pose problems for other noise-blocking technologies.
A team of scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory won the bronze for their work in developing a microchip that, by analysing DNA, is able to identify thousands of different varieties of bacteria that might be present in air, water, soil, blood or tissue samples. The PhyloChip can detect potentially disease-causing bacteria without the lengthy process of growing cultures. And unlike other genetic testing methods, it can distinguish several different pathogens simultaneously.
TheJournal received more than 700 entries for the innovation awards, and a Journal editor narrowed the field down to the 162 that were scored by the judges. As in the past, judges looked for innovations that broke new ground in their fields and that demonstrated some measurable impact.