Colorado Inventor Showcase honors innovators: making headway into the future

ColoradoBiz, Jan, 2008 by Eric Peterson

There was no shortage of worthy entrants at last November's Colorado Inventor Showcase at the Daniels Cable Center at the University of Denver. The DaVinci Institute event featured innovations in everything from tailgate parties to robots, with the judges picking four concepts--Optibike, LucidLights, OmniluX and Txtbus--as the cream of the crop. ColoradoBiz was media sponsor for the event and participated in the judging.

INVENTOR OF THE YEAR

JIM TURNER, OPTIBIKE, BOULDER, WWW.OPTIBIKE.COM

Jim Turner's resume reads like a good book. Before he invented Optibike--a.k.a. "the Ferrari of the electric bike industry"--in 1997, Turner was a professional motocross racer (and Canadian champion) as a teenager in the 1970s before getting his bachelor's and master's degrees, the latter at Stanford University in mechanical engineering. In 1984, he traded Palo Alto for Detroit and a job at Ford Motor Co.

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That lasted only two years. "I didn't like the corporate life," Turner said. "Ford didn't seem too interested in innovation." So he returned to California, this time to Santa Cruz, and took a job at a small company where he designed a chemical dispenser that became an industry standard. He also got into bicycles, going as far as getting rid of his car in 1987 to commute exclusively on his bike.

In 1990, Turner took a job in Silicon Valley's semiconductor industry after an around-the-world bicycle trip with his wife, Susan, was cut short, and designed a wafer-cutting machine that became another industry standard.

But his entrepreneurial urges led him to start a company of his own seven years later. "I had a few criteria," Turner said. "I wanted to use the skills I had, and I wanted to affect people directly. I also wanted to make a positive impact on the environment.

"I'm also really stubborn," he added. It took a decade--including post-dot-bomb funding issues and a near miss with Lee Iacocca's electric bike company--but Turner's stubbornness is now paying off, thanks in part to $3-a-gallon gas.

Since 2006, he has sold more than 75 Optibikes at $5,500 to $8,000 a pop. The bikes--which are fully functional road bikes with an electric motor that can propel the rider at a top speed of about 30 miles an hour--have a range of 25 to 100 miles on about 5 cents of electricity from an ordinary wall outlet.

"Our 2008 models are moving the standard way beyond what anybody's doing now," Turner said.

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CONSUMER PRODUCT OF THE YEAR

LUCIDLIGHTS WWW.LUCIDLIGHTS.NET ENGLEWOOD INVENTOR: JOHN CRAIG

On Oct. 1, 2006, John Craig and his wife, E.J., were at a Styx and REO Speedwagon concert at Coors Amphitheatre when the LucidLights vision sprouted wings. The couple saw all of the glow-in-the-dark necklaces and blinking LED (light emitting diodes) souvenirs for sale and cigarette lighters coming out for the encore. "We thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if the LEDs would spell out Styx and REO Speedwagon?'" E.J. said.

John already had a concept for a handheld row of programmable LEDs and put together a prototype within a week. Thanks to built-in sensors, the device could be programmed to hypnotically spell out colorful words as you wave it from side to side, whether the phrase is "Obama 2008," "Trick or Treat," "Go Broncos," or the complete lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven." Animated graphics--such as virtual Zippo lighters opening and flicking aflame--can also be programmed. The plan is to sell them preprogrammed for specific events, such as football games or concerts, then allowing buyers to program in their own personal messages at home.

"There are no moving parts," John said. "All of the work is done mathematically. Whether you swing it fast or slow, it paints the picture. People stop in their tracks."

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With several prototype models in hand and a patent pending, LucidLights is in fundraising mode at the moment, with a target rollout later in 2008. ("We really want to have an American flag model for the Democratic National Convention," E.J. said.) LucidLights will retail for $49 to $149, and target not only event-goers but the public safety, education and advertising markets as well.

E.J., a writer and independent publisher, and John, a veteran programmer and prolific author of programming books, "merged" their families in 2005, and have five kids aged 9 to 21. "We have a pretty busy home office," E.J. said.

COMMERCIAL PRODUCT OF THE YEAR

OMNILUX WWW.OMNILUXINC.COM HIGHLANDS RANCH INVENTOR: ENRIQUE GUTIERREZ

After working for Motorola in Chicago until 1995--and before working toward a "paradigm shift" in lighting--Enrique Gutierrez started his own company and moved to Colorado in 1999. Because his company, Technu, owned several factories in Mexico, people pitched him "goofy ideas" all the time. In 2004, an inventor approached Gutierrez with a product, the Safe-T-Scan. It was a knockoff of the inventor's patented concept of a flashlight that sprayed light from side to side rather than focus all of it dead ahead. The inventor had recently won a lawsuit against the Chinese manufacturer--but not before 50,000 units were sold at $50 a pop in just a few months. He had no finances.