The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology sponsors a Student Innovation Contest (SIC) with the goal of innovating new interactions on state-of-the-art hardware. They give you the latter, and you show them what you can do.

This year they will be working with the new Microsoft TouchMouse. In addition to supplying you the hardware for free, Microsoft is providing exclusive access to a pre-release of the TouchMouse API. This lets you get at the underlying 2D capacitive image captured the mouse’s sensor matrix. You will get a chance to hack together some cool demos before the everyone else gets their hands on the API. Contestants will demo their creations at the October 17th demo reception. The winner will be announced the following day.

Teams must register by August 17th and will receive hardware in September. See the UIST SIC site for more information.

The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology sponsors a Student Innovation Contest (SIC) with the goal of innovating new interactions on state-of-the-art hardware. They give you the latter, and you show them what you can do.

This year they will be working with the new Microsoft TouchMouse. In addition to supplying you the hardware for free, Microsoft is providing exclusive access to a pre-release of the TouchMouse API. This lets you get at the underlying 2D capacitive image captured the mouse’s sensor matrix. You will get a chance to hack together some cool demos before the everyone else gets their hands on the API. Contestants will demo their creations at the October 17th demo reception. The winner will be announced the following day.

Teams must register by August 17th and will receive hardware in September. See the UIST SIC site for more information.

Demand Response; What is it and
What are the Business Opportunities?

Dr. Bjorn Frogner

4:00pm Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Maryland Clean Energy Technology Incubator
UMBC South Campus

Bjorn will discuss the aspect of the Smart Grid called Demand Response (DR). DR is where the action is in the Smart Grid. Implementation of DR is made possible by the merger of the following two forces.

• The State of Maryland has set the goal of reducing average electricity consumption by 15% and reducing the peak-to-average consumption by 15%. These two requirements will reduce the peak capacity needs by 30%. The goal is to reach these goals by 2015. This makes DR more valuable than all other renewable energy sources combined for the next five years.
• Smart Meters are already available in many businesses and they are soon going to be installed in 1.5 million homes in BGE and PEPCO customer residences. These meters will provide two-way communication and data readings from our homes as frequently as every 15 minutes. This provides tremendous opportunities for changes in the way we consume electricity.

These forces will rapidly transform the electric utility industry. DR will make the cost of electricity become a function of supply and demand which will make electricity be like other commodities where the market determines the price. If you are well-informed, you may save money. And, if you are real well-informed, you may be able to see some of the many new business opportunities that are being created by DR.

Bjorn Frogner has a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from University of California at Berkeley. He worked for about 35 years across a broad range of technologies, primarily related to energy and IT, while he lived in Silicon Valley in California. He moved to Annapolis, Maryland, in 2009 and he now works part-time as Entrepreneur-in- Residence at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His function there is to help startup companies in the clean energy field. He had many years of experience with the electric grid during the 70s and 80s. He has spent significant amount of time during the last 18 months making himself informed about the cyber security for the electric grid.