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Global convention in Austin this week is paying off for Texas
[May 05, 2006]

Global convention in Austin this week is paying off for Texas


(San Antonio Express-News (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) May 5--AUSTIN -- The World Congress on Information Technology is already generating new business deals in San Antonio.

Today, representatives from a Taiwanese research institute will meet with staff at the Southwest Research Institute to license medical device technology, said Yio-Wha "Richard" Shau, general director of the Industrial Technology Research Institute's medical and device technology center.



The institute wants to license the technology from SWRI to use in the development of a portable medical doctor device.

The device, which would be about the size of a paperback book, would cost less than $300. Its biometric nose could sniff a person's breath in the morning and diagnose his or her condition. It would also have a built-in blood monitor that could check for other ailments such as diabetes and liver disease.


The device would connect wirelessly to the Internet to deliver the test results to a doctor's office, Shau said.

The Taiwanese institute is also working with the University of Texas on the device, said Shau, who graduated from the university with a doctorate in aerospace engineering.

WCIT 2006, which concludes today in Austin, is all about generating business discussions that could lead to commercialization of technology and new companies, said Glyn Meek, chief executive of the nonprofit group set up to run the conference. The $10 million conference could generate five times that investment in economic development benefits for the state, he said.

More than 2,000 of the world's top technology leaders from 80 countries have gathered in Austin for the weeklong conference. Today, many of those delegates have private meetings set up with Texas companies all over the state.

In addition to the SWRI deal, a group of information technology leaders from Japan will meet with city international trade and economic development officials at Rackspace Managed Hosting, the city's largest information technology company. Graham Weston, CEO of Rackspace, gave one of 25 presentations during the Innovation Exchange on Tuesday.

Six years ago, the World Congress on Information Technology in Taipei helped drive an economic transition in Taiwan, said Johnsee Lee, president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute, which helps incubate companies and develop technologies. The country moved from being an information technology manufacturer producing more than three-quarters of the world's notebook computers to an information- and services-based economy.

"It accelerated the speed for us to move from hardware to a service community," Lee said.

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