The Inventivity Pod

Computers and smartphones are about to get a lot faster. If Roger Tipton succeeds with his invention, light will replace copper wires as connectors of computer components. This will be like using fiberoptic cable to access the web instead of a dial-up modem. A recent arrival to the University of South Florida, Roger was inspired to invent during high school shop class in Cleveland.   TRANSCRI...

2019 Cade Prize runner-ups Joe Sleppy and Isaiah Oladeji have invented a wire-shaped supercapacitor. Unlike batteries, capacitors are not used to store energy, but to deliver it quickly and in dense amounts. Using wires instead of plates or boxes greatly reduces the space needed on things like circuit boards. Isaiah, raised in Nigeria, said he was “a very bad student.” His parents rece...

Auxetic foam is an advanced form of padding for helmets and athletic shoes. The material, which has a honeycomb structure, becomes denser as more pressure is applied. Betsy Condon and her husband Joe have licensed the technology from Florida State University and are hoping for a breakthrough with the military or with shoe companies. Betsy and Joe had extensive experience working in the manufacturi...

Dr. Paul Sanberg, a Vice President at the University of South Florida, holds 157 patents and has published 650 scholarly articles on neurology. One of his biggest contributions, however, is founding the National Academy of Inventors and the Florida Inventors’ Hall of Fame in Tampa. A native of Hialeah, Florida, Dr. Sanberg later moved to California and then studied music in Canada, where he...

As a kid and a young man Michael Seres, the founder and CEO of 11 Health, was plagued by Chrons disease and intestinal problems. Eventually, this required him to have an intestinal transplant, just the 11th ever performed in the UK. The surgery left him with a permanent companion, an ostomy bag. Tapping on business skills he developed creating product merchandising for TV shows like The Apprentice...

With an aging infrastructure, the United States faces more scenarios like Flint, Michigan, where high lead levels became a threat to safety. Safa Amiri, a chemistry professor at the University of Florida, has developed a handheld water-quality sensor that detects contaminants with just a few drops of water. Learning to play the violin as a child, Safa says, helped him learn how to persevere. His m...

Optical filters are made for filtering out parts of the color spectrum that we don’t need, or that are even harmful. Migraines, for instance, are often caused by light from a particular part of the spectrum.  Hooman Banei has invented a way to manufacture high-quality optical filters at scale for a reasonable cost.  As a child growing up in Iran, Hooman worked in his father’s...

Without a free market for over almost 60 years, Cubans have been forced to make do without most things. Turns out your average Cuban is pretty ingenious. Randy Batista, Jorge Lavoy, and Gabriela Azcuy, decided to start collecting examples of how Cubans have repurposed almost everything into something. From turning Soviet washing machines into lawnmowers and electric coils into water heaters, the c...

Where do creative ideas come and how do we capture them? Judah Pollack, author of The Net and the Butterfly, talks frontal lobes, “genius lounges,” and the Rolling Stones. Born and raised in Manhattan, Judah made his way to the West Coast, where he advises organizations like Air BnB, Google, Sonos, and the U.S. Army.     TRANSCRIPT:   Intro: 0:01 Inventors and their inve...

Amir Rubin is the co-founder of Paracosm, a company that developed a handheld device that creates 3D color maps of real-world environments. “We’ve turned reality,” says Amir, “into a video game.” Amir is a second-generation entrepreneur. Both his parents are PhD’s, but his father quit academia to start a hardware store, and later a bakery. Amir wonders if any en...

The son of a Pennsylvania preacher, Philip Koehler made his way to Florida courtesy of the U.S. Navy. Eventually he became a Professor of Urban Entomology at the University of Florida. He’s developed a mosquito and fly trap that uses a minimal amount of insecticides, and he also has developed a trap for bed bugs. He patents inventions because “you can write an article for a scientific...

Detecting diseases in water is harder than it sounds. The normal process involves expensive, time-consuming lab tests. Joseph Moss of the University of West Florida has invented a better method that spins out water-borne pathogens to help identify them quickly and cheaply. A native of Holland, Pennsylvania and the youngest of five children, Moss was a “fidgety” boy who loved being outs...

“Smart Steward” is a web-based platform that helps doctors prescribe antibiotics with the goal of reducing antibiotic resistance.  The software helps track what other doctors have given a patient and makes custom recommendations for treatment.  Guest host Randy Scott interviews entrepreneur Guy LaTorre who grew up in West Orange New Jersey, site of Thomas Edison’s lab.&...

Stephanie Bailes is the executive director of the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention, the sponsor of Radio Cade.  In 2017, Stephanie was drawn to the Cade’s mission of “inspiring and equipping visionaries, inventors and entrepreneurs.”  A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Stephanie knew of Robert Cade and his invention of Gatorade, but didn’t realize how tran...

Serial entrepreneur Randy Scott founded Novamin, a toothpaste using the bio-glass technology invented by Larry Hench (featured on “Glass that Grows,” 9/25/18).  Bio-glass is a ceramic that essentially fuses with bone and cartilage in your body.   Randy says the key to starting a biotech company is “to fall out of love with the science” and instead understand the e...

A native of Bogota, Colombia,  Dr. Juan Claudio Nino became infatuated with science and math as a young child. Gravitating to something “less nerdy” than physics, he chose to study mechanical engineering along with his best friend.  It was a line from his professor that solidified his choice of study,  “If you were to put a piece of steel into a grinding stone and...

For most people, mosquitoes are very unwelcome.  They can also carry dangerous diseases like the zika virus and malaria.   Dr. Roberto Perreira has invented a simple mosquito water trap that doesn’t contain pesticides.  Born and raised in Brazil, Pereira had no interest in insects as a kid.  He went into entomology “through the back door” in graduate school by...

Nine billion chickens are hatched every year in the U.S. Roy Curtiss and his colleagues came up with the idea of spray vaccinations, virtually eliminating the threat of salmonella for about one penny a chick.  Always interested in genetics, Curtiss began became fascinated with pathogens and and has taught about them in various fields, including biology and dentistry.   He eventually beca...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is hard to detect, and is sometimes called the “invisible injury.” Nancy Denslow, a scientist at the McKnight brain institute and cofounder of Banyan Biomarkers has developed a blood based test that will make TBI detection and treatment easier and faster Daughter of diplomat, was born and raised overseas in Mexico and Ecuador, and Turkey. “Petrified b...

Making rechargeable batteries more powerful, cheaper, and longer-lasting benefits just about everyone. “Not a very good student in school,” Phil Bennett didn’t get into any of the major Florida universities but grew interested in science in community college and meeting Nobel laureates while working summers at the Miami Museum of Science. He helped develop Nickel-Metal Hydride (N...

Imagine a brain on a computer chip. Jack Kendall, founder of Rain Neuromorphics has figured out how to connect artificial neurons in “neuromorphic hardware,” a brain scaffolding useful for artificial intelligence. He hopes it will make A.I. cheaper and faster for all types of applications. A fan of the Crocodile Hunter, Jack grew up in the tiny town of Belleview, Florida.   ...

EEG’s are great for diagnosing all sorts of conditions, including head injuries and seizures. But they’re hard to administer and thus don’t get used as often as they should. Elena Fraser and Duncan Kabinu, work with EncephaloDynamics a company that has developed a cap that makes EEG’s much easier to use. A born adventurer, Elena grew up one of four girls with a single mom....

Both recent graduates of the University of Florida, Marlana and Nahu work on building apps for a wide variety of customers. Their story is a partnership of two visions, one rooted in entrepreneurship and the other in engineering. Both credit their parents as the ultimate role models, showing them “resilience and independence.”     

A veteran of both SpaceX and General Electric, Alan Hamlet, along with Matthew Bellman, is the inventor of the Myocycle. The bicycle-like device provides exercise and functional electrical stimulation for people with paralysis, and offers hope to those with multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.   

Born and raised in Nottingham, England, Gerry Shaw was always interested in biology. His mother’s dream was that he become “a priest or a doctor.” After receiving what Gerry calls his “Phony Doctor” (PhD), Gerry began a career in biochemistry. In 1999 he founded Encor BioTechnology, which develops antibodies to help identify specific proteins in order to study them. &...