Innovation Forum is an annual competition and networking event showcasing Princeton research with the potential to be commercialized. Each participant will present a short pitch followed by Q&A from a feedback panel. Audience members will have the opportunity to interact with the presenters through on-screen demo stations.
The event consists of two distinct tracks: a track for science and engineering innovations and a track for social sciences and humanities innovations.
Keynote: Can Social Entrepreneurship Deliver Social Justice?
Manish Bhardwaj, CEO and Co-Founder of Innovators In Health; James Wei Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship 2021-2022
Justice is hard because it is not win-win: it requires some to cede advantage. Enduring justice requires that this ceding of advantage be rooted in a realization of moral obligation, a realization of the moral costs of our advantage. Social entrepreneurship frames progress differently. It prizes innovation, disruption, sustainability, scale, and the utility of business precepts. Can these two frames be reconciled? Are there precepts of justice that social entrepreneurs must incorporate in their work? I will draw on my experience at the frontlines of the work of justice, and as a product of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in seeking this reconciliation.
Event Schedule
- 1:00 pm - Opening remarks by Dean Andrea Goldsmith
- 1:10 pm - Welcome by Cornelia Huellstrunk, Executive Director of the Keller Center
- 1:13 pm - Science, Technology, Engineering and Math pitches
- 1:13 pm - Yue Ma: Reconfigurable Antenna for IoT/5G Wireless Systems – a reconfigurable antenna system, based on large-area electronics.
- 1:22 pm - Alex Place: Tantalum Superconducting Qubits – an invention with the potential to revolutionize fields ranging from drug discovery to artificial intelligence by speeding fabrication and extending coherence times.
- 1:32 pm - Xiaohui Xu: Solar Absorber Gel – a technology that purifies polluted water using only natural sunlight.
- 1:42 pm - Nathaniel Banks: Project Plastic – a floating bio-filter platform treatment that removes micro-plastics from rivers and active water systems.
- 1:52 pm - Micah Nelp: Soliome – a genetically encoded, engineer-able sunscreen that is ecologically safe and made from components already present in the human body.
- 2:02 pm - Robert Shi: Mechanical Multiplexer – a mechanical device using a single driving motor to control multiple outputs
- 2:15 pm - Remarks by Esther "Starry" Schor, Chair of the Princeton University Humanities Council
- 2:20 pm - Humanities and Social Sciences pitches
- 2:20 pm - Jacob Shapiro: A Multi-Stakeholder Research Development Center for a Digital Age – proposes to build a Center that enables cross-sector research collaboration.
- 2:30 pm - Sarah Rivett: Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton – seeks to promote the history and culture of Indigenous communities, especially those impacted by Princeton’s institutional history, and build mutually beneficial collaborations that will serve their needs while enhancing the ethic and integrity of Princeton scholarship.
- 2:40 pm - Natalia Ermolaev, Andrew Janco: New Languages for Natural Language Processing – a tool that addresses the lack of linguistic diversity in digital technology.
- 2:50 pm - Elena Araoz: Innovations in Social Distant Performance – takes lessons learned from modifications made to performance art during the pandemic to modernize and reimagine theatre and performance beyond traditional models.
- 3:00 pm - Xiaoxiao Shen: ReChat – an interactive platform to promote deliberative democracy that allows researchers to administer, monitor, and analyze live conversations in online survey experiments.
- 3:10 pm - Gissoo Doroudian, Rebecca Koeser: Startwords – an experimental, conversational play-space for humanities scholarship.
- 3:20 pm - Remarks by Rod Priestley, Vice Dean for Innovation
- 3:30 pm - Poster and networking session
- 4:00 pm - Keynote by Manish Bhardwaj, CEO and Co-Founder of Innovators In Health; James Wei Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship 2021-2022
- 4:20 pm - Closing ceremony and remarks by Naveen Verma, Director of the Keller Center
Requests for accommodations can be made when you register to attend. Please provide at least 7 days advance notice.
Who can attend?
Open to the public and the campus community.