At the OSU College of Engineering, we believe good ideas become even better when they make a broad and sustained impact. That’s why we support research development and commercialization opportunities to help nascent technologies become new ventures and start-ups. Our contribution to Oregon State’s intellectual property has facilitated new solar and safer nuclear devices, better dialysis machines, and innovative applications for thin-film transistors and circuits.  In turn, these spin-outs create new jobs and new solutions to complex problems. Here is just a sampling of companies formed based on our research.

Strands
Faculty: Tom Dietterich
A unique social recommendation engine using “collaborative filtering” that is capable of automatically learning people’s tastes and how their preferences evolve over time. It can be used to generate real-time recommendations in a vast number of domains.

Azuray Technologies
Faculty: Terri Fiez, Karti Mayaram
Reliable and efficient nano-inverters for solar photovoltaic systems. These miniaturized inverters are expected to achieve 25-year reliability at a significantly reduced cost.

NuScale Power Incorporated
Faculty: Jose Reyes
A new reactor design that eliminates pipes, pumps, and moving parts by using passive forces like gravity and natural convection. The result is a safer, smaller, more streamlined reactor.

Inpria
Faculty: Doug Keszler, John Wager
Printed inorganic thin-film transistors and circuits via solution-processing, which are expected to have much higher performance at far lower cost than organic approaches. Created a landmark LCD display using this technology.

Precision Plant Systems
Faculty: Thomas Plant, Les Fuchigami
Hand-held meter for the instant determination of the nitrogen, chlorophyll, and water content of plants by optical transmission through leaves. All leaf readings and field notes are GPS tagged for visualization and analysis.

CSD Nano
Faculty: Chih-hung Chang, Brian Paul, Jimmy Yang
Developing the future of solution deposition through new manufacturing equipment and techniques. The continuous solution deposition techniques apply to a wide variety of industries including auto glass, eye-glasses, photovoltaic solar cells, and building materials.

Home Dialysis Plus
Faculty: Goran Jovanovic
Microtechnology that will allow patients to carry dialysis equipment on their belt. Prototypes are five times smaller than current dialysis machines.