The first UNMC-UNO Innovation Accelerator Gathering was held earlier this week, an event that was organized in part by the UNMC Department of Emergency Medicine’s Research Coordinator, Thang Nguyen (at left). UNeMed’s Michael Dixon (upper right) and Deepak Khazanchi (lower right), Associate Dean of UNO’s College of Information Science and Technology. were also on hand.
OMAHA, Neb. (Feb. 21, 2018)—The University of Nebraska Medical Center hosted today the first UNMC-UNO Innovation Accelerator Gathering, a small meet-and-greet between the College of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine and the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s College of Information Science and Technology.
The informal meeting was held in the Linder Reading Room at the Michael F. Sorrell Center. The stated goal was the hope of fostering more collaborative projects between the two campuses.
“We wanted to get the channel open so there are no road blocks because there are so many great ideas,” said event organizer Thang Nguyen, MSN, FNP-C. Also a doctoral candidate at UNMC, Nguyen is the research coordinator for UNMC’s Emergency Medicine program, and an Advanced Practice Provider for Nebraska Medicine’s emergency department.
At the meeting, departmental leaders outlined for the group major areas of research interest and clinical expertise. They also suggested how those areas of interest and expertise might overlap, perhaps opening the door to future collaborations.
Michael Dixon, PhD, UNeMed’s President and CEO, also addressed the group with brief remarks. He explained how the University’s tech transfer and commercialization office in Omaha can help support the innovations that might grow from those collaborations.
“We just want to be a resource for you,” Dixon told the group. “Hopefully help commercialize your inventions and ideas into products that can go market and actually do what we all want them to do, which is help people live healthier lives.”
Future meetings are not yet planned, but a steering committee was established to help guide potential collaborators, ideas and projects.
