UF Innovate | The Hub News

The Science of Stealing: Researchers Study Shoplifting at UF’s ‘Safer Places Lab’

The need to cut back on retail theft is a worldwide issue. One in four Americans work in retail, and crime aimed at those stores is on the rise. Organized retail crime is up 26%, the latest studies show. It turns out, retailers across the globe are turning to researchers with the University of Florida to fix the issue. Cory Lowe with UF Innovate"s Loss Prevention Research Council (or LPRC) walked FOX 35 through what the team calls its Simulation Lab.

The Transformative Power of Tech Transfer: How One University Makes an Impact Around the Globe

UF Innovate has served as a model for universities nationwide looking to further their tech transfer efforts. UF connects innovators with entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts, while its business incubators (The Hub and Sid Martin Biotech) take research discoveries from the laboratory to the market. Since its inception in 1995, UF Innovate has generated more than $10.4 billion in private investments, launched upwards of 300 startups via tech licensing, and created 7,900-plus startup jobs.

A Founder’s Collaboration Skills May Be the Key to Success, Especially in Deep Tech

Accelerators like UF Innovate are crucial to the early-stage economy, and to innovation in the United States. It’s at places like these that new technologies can be brought to the market, including technologies that with a profound effect on people’s lives and health. One UF Innovate company, for instance, is MYOLYN, which makes therapy systems for people with neurological disorders and injuries, like multiple sclerosis or stroke.

Startup Spotlight: Slice Engineering

Imagine 3D printing a body part for a major organ transplant surgery to save a person’s life. The backgrounds of both co-founders, Daniel Barousse and Chris Montgomery, have been influenced by this incredible technology. Their curiosity and insights into creating a better and more dynamic 3D printing experience for their clients were the geneses of UF Innovate | Accelerate client resident, Slice Engineering.

Satellite-Mounted Telescopes Get a New Focus: Earth

With Garmendia leading the way, UF, the State of Florida and the Spanish government developed a plan for a $10 million collaboration to develop small satellite telescopes to look for dark matter, and to conduct Earth observations. Over the next several years — with support from UF Research, the Florida Space Research Institute (now Space Florida), and the Florida High Tech Corridor Council — Guzmán and the Satlantis team based at UF Innovate’s The Hub in downtown Gainesville worked with astronomy department engineers on the new telescope.

From Fighting Shoplifting to Pioneering Gene Therapies, the Startups in This Accelerator Are on the Front Lines of “Super Creativity”

The startups within UF Innovate, as well as the accelerator itself, are vivid examples of what creativity and innovation expert James Taylor, based in Scotland, describes as SuperCreativity—a phenomenon that many business leaders are trying to foster in today’s fast-changing business environment. It is a concept that goes beyond creativity or innovation alone.

Admiral Named One of the Fastest Growing Companies in U.S.

The UF Innovate | Accelerate resident client Admiral also ranked as Top 100 (75) of Marketing and Advertising companies, Top 100 (90) from the state of Florida, and the #1 fastest growing company from its hometown of Gainesville, FL

Why Aren’t Digital Pills Taking Off?

In 2017, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broke ground by approving the first drug with an embedded biosensor to track its use. The enthusiasm for digital approaches involving sensors, apps, and wearables that could transmit information across systems, commonly grouped under the term Internet of Things, also spread. Yet, despite the landmark FDA approval, digital pills have not exploded in pharma. Privacy and logistical concerns, especially while studying such applications for vulnerable populations, have lingered.

Using AI, UF Startup Companies Boost Ailing Citrus Industry

As news broke that Florida’s citrus industry ended this year’s growing season with its lowest production in eight decades, an unlikely union has formed between two University of Florida startup companies to help reverse the trend.

What Does a Dog’s Nose Know? A.I. May Soon Tell Us

UF Accelerate client Canaery, thinks it can read the neurons firing in a dog’s olfactory bulb in real-time and, with the help of machine learning, turn the animal into a detection device able to suss out a vast range of molecules, all without the animal having to be specially trained. “This does for scent what machine vision did for sight,” says Gabriel Lavella, Canaery’s founder and chief executive officer.