Kalenian Award
"The highest and best use of a WPI education is to invent, and patent, then create an invention-based business and employ."
– Aram Kalenian, ’33, inventor, businessman
Aram Kalenian, inventor and businessman
The Kalenian Award, established in 2006 through the generosity of Alba Kalenian in memory of her late husband Aram (Class of 1933), provides seed funds to support and advance the ideas and inventiveness of WPI students, faculty and alumni(ae). Aram Kalenian was an inventor who had numerous useful ideas and reduced many of them to practice. The purpose of the Kalenian Award is to encourage similar innovation and entrepreneurship at any stage of development from the WPI academic community. This award’s focus is to fuel the entrepreneurial spirit through annual funding of a single viable invention.
Aram Kalenian’s inventions and hard work have provided the perpetual funds for this award, and in this same spirit we hope that award recipients will succeed so well in life, as to provide WPI with future award funds to encourage invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship in their own names.
The Award
This single award will be given annually or every other year on a competitive basis and the recipient(s) will be the holder(s) of the 'Kalenian Award' in the year given. The award may be given to support innovative ideas or the development of commercial products. Ideally, the recipients should be either a part of an existing small business enterprise or in the process of trying to establish a small business. The duration of the award shall not exceed 18 months.
"Nine out of ten ideas may well be patentable, but only one in ten will create a viable business."
- Patent Attorney, David Wolf
The award will be in the form of a grant of $25,000 plus $5000 in legal services from Wolf Greenfield, which may be given to an individual or group involved in the invention of a product in order to assist in the process of moving the invention toward commercialization.
Call for Proposals
Proposals are encouraged for projects that:
- demonstrate the need for an initial effort to provide proof of concept,
- show that an idea requires reduction to practice, or
- involve products that are in the early stages of commercial development
Cover Page contents:
- Kalenian Award Proposal
- Name of company, product, or project title
- Name of applicant(s)
- WPI Year Graduated, Major(s) if alumni(ae); Department and title if faculty or staff; Major and anticipated year of graduation if student
- Business name, address, web site - if any
- Applicant(s) telephone
- Applicant(s) email
Maximum 3-page narrative outlining:
- the activity to be undertaken
- the expected outcome in the 18-month time frame of the award
- the perceived importance and/or market value of the product, and
- longer-term anticipated outcomes
Proposals to the Kalenian Award should be clearly marked as such and directed to the Collaborative for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Please note, email is the preferred method for us to receive your application, however, three other options exist.
1) Email: please enter "Kalenian Award Proposal" as the subject, attach your proposal, and email to: Gina Betti at gbetti@wpi.edu.
2) Deliver in person: (three bound or stapled copies) bring the proposals in a sealed envelope to Gina Betti in 216A Washburn Shops M-F before 5 PM. If Gina is not in her office, please leave proposal with the Department of Management administrative staff in Room 215, request they place the proposal in Gina’s mailbox. Please clearly mark the envelope with "Kalenian Award Proposal".
3) Mail: (three bound or stapled copies) clearly mark the envelope with "Kalenian Award Proposal" and address to:
Gina M. Betti, Associate Director
Collaborative for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
100 Institute Road
Worcester, MA 01609-2280 USA
4) FAX: please FAX to Gina Betti at 508-831-5720. Clearly write Kalenian Award Proposal on the FAX cover page.
Deadlines
The deadline for proposals to be received in the Collaborative for Entrepreneurship & Innovation office is Tuesday, April 22, 2008 by 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. We regret that extensions to this deadline will not be possible. Please contact the Associate Director of the CEI, Gina Betti at gbetti@wpi.edu and 508-831-5761 with any questions.
Proposal Review
Proposals will be reviewed by three judges including Paul Kalenian, son of Aram and Alba Kalenian and Mac Banks, Director of the Collaborative for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Selection of the award recipient will be based on some or all of the following criteria:
- novelty of the idea
- commercial potential, including market opportunity
- demonstration of a viable business plan evolving from the idea, product, or process
- likelihood of success
2008 Award Announcement
The winner of the 2008 Kalenian Award was announced at the May 13, 2008 WPI Venture Forum program. Judges Paul Kalenian, McRae Banks and Arif Padaria were present as the winner and Honorable Mentions were announced. The winner is Professor Dalin Tang for his research advancing modeling of cardiovascular disease images. First Honorable Mention was received by Professor Peder Pedersen for creating a portable training system for ultrasound sonographers. Honorable mentions were also received by Dr. Quanqin Dai and Professor Weiyong Yu for research in safe, efficient LED technology and Malcolm Ray, P.E., Ph.D. for a novel highway guardrail concept. The first place prize is a $25,000 monetary prize plus $5,000 in legal services provided by Wolf Greenfield. For information on this year's proposals, please contact the office of the Collaborative for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
2008 Applicants:
Dalin Tang, Ph.D.; Winner. Image-Based Computational Mechanical Analysis and Indexing for Cardiovascular Diseases.
Peder Pedersen, Ph.D.; First Honorable Mention. Virtual Interactive Training System for Ultrasound.
Malcolm Ray, Ph.D.; Honorable Mention. Novel Highway Guardrail Concept.
Quanqin Dai, Ph.D.; Honorable Mention. Efficient and Environmentally-Safe LED Lighting Nanomaterial.
Remaining Proposals in Alphabetical Order:
Ryan Angilly and Scot Junkin. SpekEZ.
David Christenson. Multi-user KVM Switch for Virtualized and Terminal Computing Environments.
John Delorey, Proprietary Technology for Choral Group Use.
Brian Freeman. Proprietary Security Technology.
Neil Heffernan. ASSISTment System. An online system to tutor and assess student learning.
Peter Herget. Proprietary Scanning Technology.
Tatyana Ishutkina. Creating college dorm interiors imparting measurable positive psychological effects to inhabitants.
Jason P. Julian. Mountain bike transmission technology.
Paul Klinkman. Orbiting Atmosphere Gatherer.
Tim McGreal. Alarm-Arm.
Jozsef Patvarczki and Abraao Lourenco. Proprietary technology to exploit isolated storage resources.
Roger Pryor. Proprietary database concept.
Ali S Rangwala and Scott R. Rockwell. Proprietary technology for measuring velocity in fire flows.
Douglas Roberts. Solar panel technology.
Russell Cameron Thomas. Open teams and networks software system.
Frank Weber. Proprietary Ultrasonic Flowmeter Technology.
Paul and Cathy Kalenian
Paul Kalenian
Professor Allen Hoffman, Michael Scarsella, Stephen Toddes, Paul Kalenian
Last modified: May 22, 2008 12:25:23