Archive for August, 2008

Green Chemistry: Solutions for a Healthy Economy

Published August 29, 2008 Events , PTC Member Leave a Comment
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The Rachel Carson Legacy Conference: “Green Chemistry: Solutions for a Healthy Economy,” on September 20, 2008 at Duquesne University’s Powers Conference Center, will address the underlying need to design the toxicity and hazardous component out of consumer products and the processes that make them. It is not only healthy for us and for the world we depend on, but it makes good business sense too. The conference will address:

  • Environment & Health Connections
  • Innovations in Products and Processes
  • Design for Non-Toxic Results
  • Business Strategies: Risk, Investment and Insurance

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This conference draws together 15 outstanding speakers including Dr. Paul Anastas, the founder of the principles of green chemistry,  Dr. Terry Collins, Thomas Lord Professor of Green Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh recipients of the EPA Green Chemistry Awards, and entrepreneurial companies who are using green chemistry to solve problems. Also featured are Dr. Ruth Etzel and Dr. Bruce Lanphear who will address the epidemiology and the pediatric implications of significant environmental contaminants, with an emphasis on how designing them out of the system can improve the prognosis. Act 48 credit will be available for teachers.

Interactive Workshops Include:

  • Health Impact of chemicals in the environment
  • Students Sustainability initiative
  • Teaching green chemistry –high school
  • The green chemistry curriculum for training chemists and engineers
  • Institutional barriers to green chemistry in the mainstream
  • Doing business under the European R.E.A.C.H. standards

View the full Agenda
Read more or Register

Company: Rachel Carson Homestead Rachel Carson Homestead
Web Site: www.rachelcarsonhomestead.org
Location: Springdale, PA 15144
Description: The Rachel Carson Homestead was formed in 1975 to preserve and restore this National Register historic site and to offer education programs which advance Rachel Carson’s environmental ethic. Read more.
 
Company: Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon University
Web Site: www.cmu.edu
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Description: Carnegie Mellon is a national research university of about 7,500 students and 3,000 faculty, research and administrative staff. Carnegie Technical School was founded in 1900 in Pittsburgh by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Read more.

Personalized Commuting Options and a Chance to Win

Published August 29, 2008 News , Regional Impact Leave a Comment
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The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership (PDP) has teamed up with CommuteInfo to offer a chance to win a $75 gift card to one of numerous downtown businesses. CommuteInfo offers commuters who complete a profile on their website a detailed report of personalized commuting options. Commuting options include alternative suggestions to current commuting habits, including transit, carpooling, vanpooling, and bikepooling. The program serves employers and commuters in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland counties. The sites says that personalized profiles take two business days to process, however we received ours in several hours.

For Pittsburgh commuters who complete a profile by the end of 2008, the PDP will draw three monthly winners for gift cards to Capital Grille, McCormick and Schmick’s, Six Penn Kitchen, Macy’s, Saks, and One Oxford Centre.

What do you think about this service? What did your personalized report tell you? Let us know by posting a comment below.

Click the link below to see our report from Dormont to the PTC Offices. Personal information was deleted for obvious reasons.

Continue reading ‘Personalized Commuting Options and a Chance to Win’

MAYA Design Hires Education Director to Start New Venture Devoted to Design Literacy

Published August 28, 2008 PTC Member , Personnel News Leave a Comment
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MAYA Design, which has been developing a suite of design-education products and services, has named Chris Pacione, previously with BodyMedia, Inc., Director of Advanced Development, Education. Pacione will lead a venture devoted to the emerging need for design thinking in organizations.

“My job is to incubate our educational offering and ultimately spin off a new company that will not only satisfy the growing need for human-centered design in product-focused organizations, but also satisfy the need for design literacy in any organization,” said Pacione, who defines design as the discipline of bringing about intentional change through the making of “some thing.”

“Everything—from consumer products to public policy—is fundamentally designed,” said Pacione. “Because design is universal, design methodology can benefit many aspects of an organization, not just product development, and eventually separate the winners from the losers.”  

Pacione cofounded BodyMedia, Inc., where he led interaction design and customer marketing. His main responsibilities were the creation and design of the company’s clinical and consumer product offerings.
 Before cofounding BodyMedia, Pacione was an assistant professor in the School of Design at Carnegie-Mellon University, where he developed new curriculum and taught courses in human-computer interaction, interface design, information design, and drawing. In earlier years, he worked at Fitch Richardson & Smiths’ Exploratory Design Lab as an interface and interaction designer.  

Pacione has an undergraduate degree in design from Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s degree in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He holds several IDEA Gold Medal Awards sponsored by BusinessWeek and the Industrial Designers Society of America.

Company: MAYA Design MAYA Design
Web Site: www.maya.com
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15203
Description: MAYA is a design consultancy and technology research lab. They tame complexity by transforming complex technology into easy-to-use products. Read more.
 
Company: Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon University
Web Site: www.cmu.edu
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Description: Carnegie Mellon is a national research university of about 7,500 students and 3,000 faculty, research and administrative staff. Carnegie Technical School was founded in 1900 in Pittsburgh by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Read more.

First Annual Pausch Prize Goes to Walt Disney and Pixar President

Published August 28, 2008 News , PTC Member , Regional Impact Leave a Comment
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In the spirit of the late Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor who dreamed big and persevered to become a Walt Disney Imagineer, the first annual prize in his honor will be given to the president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studio.

Ed Catmull will accept the first Randy Pausch Prize from the Entertainment Technology Center on Sept. 26th and present a lecture in the McConomy Auditorium, the place where Pausch offered his famous “last lecture” to friends and colleagues. He died last July at the age of 47. The Pausch Prize will honor entertainment industry experts who embody Pausch’s spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration.

Carnegie Mellon is also planning a memorial service for Pausch next month. Details will be announced later in the week.

“In years to come, the ETC will seek to honor those individuals whose technical and creative expertise empowers writers, artists, designers, digital media professionals, and even the average citizen to realize dreams, visions, and imaginings beyond the confines of what is possible today,” says Don Marinelli who co-founded the ETC with Pausch. “He helped us make the ETC a place where right-brained and left-brained individuals can work together successfully.”

A four-time Academy Award winner, Catmull is the co-founder of Pixar and created two leading centers of computer graphics research, the computer graphics laboratory at the New York Institute of Technology and the computer division of Lucasfilm Ltd. He is also one of the architects of a highly touted rendering software, RenderMan, which has been used in 44 of the last 47 films nominated for an Academy Award in the Visual Effects category.

Catmull’s lecture will also also serve as a keynote address for the 7th Annual International Conference on Entertainment Computing at Carnegie Mellon, one of the largest and most prestigious conferences for entertainment computing in the world from Sept. 25-27.

Writer: Deb Smit
Source: Don Marinelli, Bryon Spice, Carnegie Mellon University

Company: Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University
Web Site: www.cmu.edu
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Description: Carnegie Mellon is a national research university of about 7,500 students and 3,000 faculty, research and administrative staff. Carnegie Technical School was founded in 1900 in Pittsburgh by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Read more.

Cellumen and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation Collaborate in Discovery Toxicology

Published August 27, 2008 News , PTC Member Leave a Comment
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Council member company, Cellumen, Inc. – a leading innovator in cellular systems biology – recently made an exciting announcement. Check it out!

Cellumen, Inc., a discovery toxicology company, today announced an agreement with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC), one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in Japan, to develop panels of biomarkers that identify toxicity early in the drug development process.

“We’re pleased to announce this collaboration with MTPC,” says D. Lansing Taylor, PhD, CEO of Cellumen. “By working together to develop biomarker panels, we hope to identify toxic liabilities much earlier in the drug development process than currently exists in the marketplace. Our ultimate goal is to enable MTPC to prioritize its lead drug series.”

Cellumen is focused on decreasing the drug attrition rate due to toxicity. The company’s CellCiphr® CSBTM Toxicity Profiling Services can identify toxic compounds in late primary screening through early pre-clinical phases, before entering expensive pre-clinical testing where the pharmaceutical industry is losing millions of dollars from drugs that do not meet the FDA’s safety requirements. By integrating optimal cells, panels of functional biomarkers and classifier software, CellCiphr is able to create a Safety Risk Index for compounds, and help researchers predict potential rodent or human toxicity earlier than ever before.

Company: Cellumen, Inc. Cellumen, Inc.
Web Site: www.cellumen.com
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15238
Description: Cellumen will be forming discovery partnerships with industry, as well as government and academic centers to more rapidly and deeply understand the functions of genes, proteins and regulatory RNA in living cells. Read more.

Technology Day of Caring Hosted by United Way

Published August 27, 2008 Events , PTC Member , Regional Impact Leave a Comment
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In the super-fast realm of technology, it can be difficult to see and feel the impact of your work on the world around you. What if you could quickly and easily make a difference in a tangible way?

Volunteers are needed for the 2008 Technology Day of Caring on Friday, September 19. Sponsored by the United Way of Allegheny County and the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, the Technology Day of Caring gives technical volunteers the opportunity to help local nonprofit agencies with specific single-day projects. Projects are pre-defined and selected to maximize your one-day gift of time and talent. The agency will provide a dedicated staff member to be your liaison for the day and will express their appreciation by providing breakfast and lunch. Last year’s projects included hardware assessments, informal software training, web site assessments, and mini-tech planning sessions.

Sign up now to participate. If your company is planning on participating, we’d love to hear about it…leave a comment below and let us know what you will be doing!

Company: United Way United Way of Allegheny County
Web Site: www.unitedwaypittsburgh.org
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Description: United Way of Allegheny County is a non-profit organization focused on creating community impact by measurably improving the quality of people’s lives. The United Way supports the critical needs in the community in areas such as children and families, basic needs and seniors. Read more.

Why Green is Good Featuring Charles Lockwood

Published August 26, 2008 Events , PTC Member Leave a Comment
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With today’s market realities – rising energy costs; shrinking power and space capacity; increased regulatory scrutiny; and higher customer expectations – going green is not only socially responsible, it’s an economic imperative. Join IBM Express Advantage and the Pittsburgh Technology Council for an event that will address how to get started, the green benefits being achieved today and a thoughtful approach to building a green strategy for your entire organization. The event features keynote speaker, Charles Lockwood, green real estate authority and author of the article “Building the Green Way,” published in the June 2006 Harvard Business Review and reprinted in 2008 as the first chapter of its book “Harvard Business Review on Green Business Strategy.” Through panel presentations and breakout sessions, you’ll hear first-hand about the benefits of embracing a green strategy from Green industry experts and local businesses.

This event will address issues such as:

  • How to get started with your green initiative
  • What trends you need to adopt to be profitable
  • A thoughtful approach to a green strategy for your entire organization
  • Five ways to think about green:
    - Physical location
    - Day-to-day operations
    - Products and services
    - Supply chain, including vendor relations
    - Branding

Similar Items on this Topic:

Green to Gold
IBM’s Jeff Gluck interviews Andrew Winston, co-author of Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage.

ENERGY STAR
This podcast features, Bob Sauchelli, a program manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Partnership and is one or the originators of the ENERGY STAR Buildings program.

Why Green is Good

Carnegie Science Center
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
7:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Read More or Register

Company: IBM IBM
Web Site: www.ibm.com
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15237
Description: IBM strives to lead in the creation, development and manufacture of the industry’s most advanced information technologies, including computer systems, software, networking systems, storage devices and microelectronics. Read more.

Talent Attraction Forum: Pittsburgh Regional Compact

Published August 22, 2008 News , PTC Member , Regional Impact 3 Comments
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As you know, over the next 10 to 15 years our region will face one of its greatest challenges:  the ability to attract enough workers to fill the positions that will become available. Our success in the area of talent attraction and retention is vitally important to our ability to grow and remain competitive. Because of our region’s demographic profile, we believe have the opportunity to become a model for the nation as for many years to come other regions will face similar challenges as baby boomers exit the work force. 

The Allegheny Conference has identified this as one of the central issues to be addressed within our next three year strategic plan. I am sure that you know about the Pittsburgh Compact. In the fall we will launch a new initiative to support our employers and those engaged in talent attraction efforts. We wanted to have the opportunity to brief you on this new effort and to discuss ways in which we might work together for our collective benefit.

I hope you are able to participate in a meeting on Monday, August 25, from 9:30 to 11 a.m. on the 31st floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower located at 425 Sixth Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15219 . RSVP to Mickey Denner at 412.281.4783 ext. 3103.

Dewitt Peart
Executive Vice President, Economic Development
Allegheny Conference on Community Development

Company: Allegheny Conference Allegheny Conference
Web Site: www.alleghenyconference.org
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Description: Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, an affiliate of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, supports and enhances the growth of the 10-county region’s business community by advocating for improvements in the business climate and quality of life and providing educational seminars, business networking events and government affairs services. Read more.

LANXESS Upgrades Commitment to Pittsburgh, North American Region; Dearth Named Managing Director

Published August 21, 2008 News , PTC Member , Regional Impact 1 Comment
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LANXESS AG Board of Management Chairman Axel C. Heitmann and the entire Board of Management from Germany joined LANXESS Corporation executives and many special guests last night at the Carnegie Museum of Art for a gala dinner event, where they hosted key customers, media and political leaders. 

At the dinner, Heitmann spoke about the significant role of the United States in the continued success of LANXESS and expressed LANXESS’s renewed commitment to the region and Pittsburgh. He also described the many ways LANXESS is helping the environment through production improvements, energy savings initiatives and green chemistry innovations. 

While in Pittsburgh, Heitmann also announced plans to develop a new Regional Organization combining the service organizations of the U.S. and Canada. The combined North American Service Organization will be headed by LANXESS Corporation President and CEO Randy Dearth, who will be named the Managing Director, Region North America. Dearth will retain his role as President and CEO of LANXESS Corporation in the U.S., headquartered in Pittsburgh. Alexander (Sandy) Marshall will assume the role of Country Representative Canada, reporting to Randy Dearth. Both LANXESS Corporation and the Canadian organization, LANXESS Inc., will remain operational as separate legal entities. 

“I have every confidence that this proactive model will be another successful example of LANXESS innovation,” Heitmann said. “Randy Dearth has exhibited proven leadership skills in the United States and will seamlessly transition his management style to this regional organization.”

The structure of the combined new regional organization will be finalized and announced in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Last week, LANXESS stated its strongest quarterly earnings in the company’s history. The company also revealed plans to relocate its global headquarters from Leverkusen to Cologne, Germany by 2011.

Company: LANXESS LANXESS
Web Site: www.us.lanxess.com
Location: Pittsburgh, PA 15275
Description: The LANXESS-Group manufacturers high-quality products in the areas of chemicals, synthetic rubber and plastics. The companies’ portfolio comprises basic and fine chemicals, color pigments, plastics, synthetic rubber and rubber chemicals, leather, material protection products and water treatment products. Read more.

Connect with TECHburgher on Twitter

Published August 21, 2008 Networking , News Leave a Comment
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You can now recieve all of your TECHburgher news as Tweets on Twitter. If you friend pghtech on Twitter, you will receive updates to TECHburgher as Burgher Bytes in your friend feed. If you don’t have a Twitter account, or are not familiar with the benefits of Twitter, view the video below to understand how to use it and how to set up your account.

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