EcoRegen from Swinburne University of Technology Receives Global Award

CHICAGO, MAY 6—Graduate Students from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia received the Global Award from the Licensing Executives Society International (LESI) and the Licensing Executives Society Foundation (a foundation of the Licensing Executives Society, USA & Canada) for their business plan to regenerate organic waste into renewable resources and organic products.

Swinburne was among seven innovation-minded graduate student teams from across the globe chosen to compete in finals of the 2008 LES Foundation Graduate Student Business Plan Competition during the LES International Conference here this week.

This is the first year the Competition has been global in scope. In honor of this fact, LESI presented the Global Award to recognize the team whose business plan best dealt with IP rights and their use in the global business environment.

"We are very happy to have been able to bring this Competition to an international level this year," said Chikao Fukuda, president of LESI. These student teams represent a very promising future for our industry."  

Swinburne received a $5,000 prize for EcoRegen, a biotechnology company established to regenerate wastes into resources for a sustainable ecology throughout the world.

"The unique system integrates high-tech process engineering and biotechnology to provide a total waste solution for sustainable agricultural resource management in the Malaysian palm oil industry," said Khai Yip Mun, CEO of EcoRegen. "The technology has the support of the Malaysian Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment and achieved approval from the United Nations Kyoto Protocol for Clean Development Mechanism projects."

The overall winner of the 2008 LES Foundation Graduate Student Business Plan Competition was the University of Texas at Dallas for MicroTransponder, Inc., a wireless neuroprosthetics company looking to develop medical devices to repair the nervous system. They received a $10,000 cash prize as well as $45,000 dollars worth of in kind services from Ocean Tomo and Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP. Each runner- up team received $1,000.

Information about the 2009 LES Foundation Graduate Student Business Plan Competition is available at www.lesfoundation.org.