Iowa’s three regents universities team up today (Wednesday) to try and show how much their research has enriched economic development in the state. Professor Tahira Hira of Iowa State University, says the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa have been developing new inventions, products and ways of doing things and solving problems for years now.
At a technology fair in Des Moines today, they’ll show it off. She says there’ll be a panel of people from the three state universities telling what they do, and another will feature people from businesses that were on the receiving end of that benefit, telling how they partnered with universities, and then at a “wonderful reception” several booths from each university will show the work that’s going on.
After that the same presentations will be taken to towns around the state. After the event, which she expects to be “a smashing success,” it’ll go north, south, all over the state. The central Iowa debut, she says, is just because they needed somewhere to start. During the fiscal year that ended in June 2005, she says companies in the state earned about 27-point-4-Million dollars using technology licensed by Iowa, UNI and I-S-U. The “innovation event” is this afternoon and evening at the John and Mary Pappajohn Education Center in downtown Des Moines.