2021 Newsletter: April-June

June 30, 2021

Message from Executive Director, Jessica Landacre
The Foundation is proud to share the educational programing made possible by our strategic partnerships. New programs like the Behind the IDEA webinar series and a virtual Innovation and IP event for college students have allowed the Foundation to reach a broader and more diverse audience to promote innovation and creation by, within, and for underrepresented communities. The Foundation believes that education about IP will drive innovation and economic prosperity in these communities. Join us in accomplishing this mission by becoming a strategic partner. Get involved by contacting Fundraising and Program Manager Kristen Lurye, klurye@ipo.org or 202-507-4502.

Thank you to the partners we’ve collaborated with so far this year!

Athletes Without Borders ● Bristol Myers Squibb Co. ● Comp-U-Dopt ● Corning Inc. ● Enventys Partners ● Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP ● General Electric ● Harness, Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C. ● IBM Corp. ● IPO Resource Groups ● Knobbe Martens ● Johnson & Johnson ● National Academy of Inventors ● Michelson Institute for Intellectual Property ● Micron Technology ● The Ohio State University ● Pfizer Inc. ● United States Patent and Trademark Office ● Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner, P.A. ● Shell Oil Company ● Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers ● Thurgood Marshall College Fund

Innovation and IP Virtual Event
IPOEF partnered with The Ohio State University to host a three-part virtual, interactive event on June 15 for more than 50 undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students from underrepresented communities to introduce them to careers in STEM and innovation. The event included a presentation by Gayathri Radhakrishnan (Micron Technology) about entrepreneurship and innovation from the VC perspective, followed by a panel of technologists from Corning, General Electric, Pfizer, and Shell. Students were then divided into breakout groups where they were able to speak directly with STEM professionals, ask questions, and learn how to stand out to a corporate hiring manager. Board members Mercedes Meyer (Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP) and Dave Kappos (Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP) also led small group round table discussions to talk with students about how intellectual property relates to their research. If you have connections to universities or associations that would be interested in partnering on an event like this, please contact Kristen Lurye.

Event Speakers 

Corning Hosts IP Patch Events for Local Girl Scouts
IPO Board Member Company Corning hosted three IP Patch events in May using free curriculum from IPO Education Foundation. Corning reached out to their local Girl Scouts troops and hosted events to teach students about the fundamentals of intellectual property and innovation. To learn more about the IP Patch curriculum and how you can host your own IP Patch event in your community, please visit IPOEF.org/ip-patch or contact foundation@ipo.org.
“We had so much fun and took full advantage of the IP Patch pamphlets that IPOEF offers. The kids love the event and asked a lot of questions about IP and innovation. They also had some great inventions of their own. Several wanted to invent robots to clean their room and make their bed.”
Board Members Participate in Strategic Partner Events 
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE)
Board member Bart Eppenauer (Shook, Hardy & Bacon) served as a judge at the regional finals of SHPE’s “Designing for a VUCA World Competition.” Participants were challenged to innovate, impact, and build a solution to directly address the world’s most VOLATILE, UNCERTAIN, COMPLEX, and AMBIGUOUS (VUCA) social problems within their respective communities. The teams addressed societal challenges such as social isolation and disadvantages of Work From Home, the impact of climate change and how to promote technologies to mitigate harm, and solutions to spur the rapid adoption of electrical vehicles. Mr. Eppenauer remarked that he was exceedingly impressed with the creativity, professionalism and poise the participants demonstrated under pressure and tight time constraints.
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Foundation Board President Manny Schecter (IBM Corp.) served as a judge for the USPTO National Patent Application Drafting Competition. Student teams were given hypothetical invention statements for which they had to search the prior art, prepare a specification, draft claims, and present their reasoning for patentability before the panel of judges. Judges were allowed and did ask many questions of the teams during their presentation – including questions about point of novelty, written description, claim drafting, and more. Mr. Schecter said, “The quality of the patent applications was impressive and I believe the competitors came to realize that patent application drafting is as much an art as it is a science.” Students gained valuable insight from the judges’ questions as to how the words they choose may later impact the interpretation of a patented invention and the ability to enforce a patent.
Buck de Wolf (General Electric) and John Cheek (Tenneco Inc) served as judges during The Pitch where students had seven minutes to pitch their ideas. “The teams fit in a lot in those seven minutes” Mr. Cheek commented, “It was great to see the creativity of the students and how well they did with so little time.” The ideas that were pitched by the students ranged from an app to promote fitness health and positive body image to a drone system to recycle cardboard. Mr. de Wolf added that the pitches were “thoughtful and creative and energetic and well prepared. I was particularly impressed given the short days they had to prepare.”
The first place team AI Minds pitched an app named 1837 in honor of the year the first HBCU was founded. This app allows users to round up purchases and donate them to the HBCU of their choice. Users can round up and donate cash or opt to contribute to an ETF or mutual fund and donate those contributions. Each team member received a $1000 scholarship and an Apple MacBook Air.
Behind the IDEA Webinar Series 
World IP Day
In celebration of World IP Day on April 26, IPO Education Foundation hosted a free Behind the IDEA webinar sponsored by Enventys featuring three inventors who discussed taking ideas to market. IPOEF Board Member Louis Foreman (Enventys) moderated the discussion with Sue Carr (CarrTech LLC), Gary Michelson (Michelson Institute for IP), and Grant Striemer (Procter & Gamble).
Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
The two-part webinar sponsored by Harness, Dickey & Pierce, P.L.C. featured a conversation with Swati Mohan, Guidance and Controls Operations Lead on the NASA Mars 2020 Mission. She spoke about her experience during the Mars Rover Mission and advice for students on how to find their passion and turn it into a career. In the second part of the webinar, STEM and IP professionals Patti Hoa (Apple), Jyoti Uppuluri (Facebook), and Vaishali Udupa (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) spoke about their careers and the required education and background to enter their roles. If you missed either of these live events, the recordings are available on IPOEF.org and the Foundation YouTube page.
Celebrating Pride Month
Follow IPO Education Foundation on social media where we share posts about innovators from the LGBTQ+ community who have positively impacted innovation. The Foundation will host a Behind the IDEA webinar to highlight LGBTQ+ STEM and IP professionals in a back-to-school webinar in September.
Stroke of Genius® Podcast
Season four of the Stroke of Genius podcast launched in April with an episode titled “Food for our Future.” The podcast explored how many underrepresented communities experience food deserts and how innovators are working to bring food supplies to those communities. Other episodes this season have explored how immigrants create businesses at twice the rate of people born in America as well as the history of vaccines and the importance of the IP system for their development. We are more than halfway through the fourth season of the Stroke of Genius podcast! Make sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform to listen to more stories from underrepresented communities and their impact on the world of innovation and intellectual property. Thank you to this season’s sponsors:
A Special Thank You to Our Gold Level Donors 
Become a donor of the Foundation and support the efforts to promote innovation and creation by, within, and for underrepresented communities by visiting IPOEF.org/donate