Open Minds 2011 Video Competition

With the support of

Student teams participating in Open Minds 2011 created short videos that told the stories of their innovations.

 
                        

Winning 2011 Open Minds Videos Announced!

The three winning videos were announced on Saturday, March 26 during the Open Minds public exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Tied for first place (winning $1,000 each):

Third place (winning $250):

Congratulations to our winners!

 

The Judges

NCIIA recruited a distinguished panel of video competition judges. Judges considered public opinion, video creativity, and the presentation/delivery of each team's pitch to decide the winners. 

 

Dr. Robert Lemelson, The Lemelson Foundation

Dr. Robert Lemelson serves as a director of The Lemelson Foundation, a family foundation whose mission is to promote innovation and invention in American society and the developing world. He is currently a research anthropologist in Center for Culture and Health, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the Semel Institute of Neurosciences at UCLA, and an adjunct  professor in the Department of Anthropology. His areas of specialty are Southeast-Asian studies, psychological anthropology, and transcultural psychiatry.

As a documentary filmmaker and psychological anthropologist, Dr. Lemelson's work focuses on personal experience, culture, and mental illness in Indonesia and the United States. He has been conducting anthropological research in Indonesia since 1993. Dr. Lemelson has completed his most recent film entitled 40 Years of Silence: an Indonesian Tragedy, a feature length documentary about the traumatic long-term effects of Indonesia's 1965 mass killings on four families. He also directed and produced the Afflictions: Culture and Mental Illness in Indonesia series, a Limited Series Award Nominee for the 2010 IDA Documentary Awards. Read more about Dr. Lemelson

 

Adriane Brown, Intellectual Ventures

Adriane Brown is President and COO of Intellectual Ventures.
Before joining Intellectual Ventures, Ms. Brown served as President and CEO of Honeywell Transportation Systems. Under her management, this $5 billion business unit experienced profitable growth through disciplined global expansion and innovative new products. Under her leadership, Transportation Systems consistently outperformed the industry through innovation, global reach, and operational excellence. Over the course of 10 years at Honeywell, serving the aerospace and automotive markets in positions of leadership, Ms. Brown earned a reputation for driving business results, strengthening customer relationships, and inspiring and leading talented people to meet business objectives.

In 2009, Ms. Brown was named one of Black Enterprise Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America. In 2006, she was named one of Fortune Magazine’s Women to Watch and in 2005,  Automotive News featured her in its list of the 100 leading women in the North American automotive industry. Read more about Ms. Brown
 

 

Mike Drummond, Inventors Digest

Mike Drummond is the editor of Inventors Digest, the nation’s longest-running print and web publication for the innovation industry.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist who served two reporting tours in Iraq, he’s also the author of Renegades of the Empire (Random House, 2000), an inside story of Microsoft's computer-game and Internet ambitions. Read more about Mr. Drummond

 

John Calvert, United States Patent and Trademark Office

Mr. John Calvert is Administrator of the Inventor Assistance Program, which includes inventor outreach and university outreach initiatives. He has expanded the Inventor Assistance Program to include educational initiatives for students, inventors and small businesses and has created inventor assistance through pro bono and pro se initiatives both inside the USPTO and through working with universities and Bar organizations.

Prior to being named Administrator, John was responsible for supervising as many as 25 examiners in the areas of textile technology and absorbent products. He also served as Acting Director for the Office of Independent Inventor Programs.

Mr. Calvert has received numerous achievement awards, including the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for superior Federal service and the United States Patent and Trademark Office Exceptional Career Award.  Read more about Mr. Calvert

 

Gene Quinn, IPWatchdog

Gene Quinn is a US Patent Attorney, blogger and a principle lecturer of the most popular patent bar review course in the US. Mr Quinn’s particular specialty is in the area of strategic patent consulting, patent application drafting, patent prosecution, technology licensing and litigation. In addition to representing inventors Mr. Quinn also represents business with respect to copyright matters. Mr. Quinn is also a member of the Board of Directors of the United Inventors Association, and is an inventor himself. He is also known by many as “The IPWatchdog,” having started the widely popular intellectual property website IPWatchdog.com in 1999. Read more about Mr. Quinn

 

Tessie Topol, Time Warner Cable (TWC)

Tessie Topol is the Senior Director of Strategic Philanthropy & Community Affairs at Time Warner Cable (TWC). Tessie joined TWC in April 2008 with a mandate to reimagine the company's philanthropic strategy. The result is Connect a Million Minds (CAMM), a five-year, $100 million cash and in-kind initiative to increase education and career opportunities for youth in science, technology, engineering
and math (STEM). CAMM launched in November 2009 at a White House event with President Obama, in conjunction with the administration's Educate to Innovate campaign, where he recognized TWC's leadership in the STEM education space. In 2010, the initiative was voted “Community Relations Program of the Year” by PR News, CableFax, and the Association of Cable Communicators, and was named an official Webbie Award Honoree for connectamillionminds.com.

Prior to joining TWC, Tessie was Director of Strategic Partnerships & Public Affairs at MTV where she helped lead the company's effort to develop MTV's first-ever online activist community for youth, think.mtv.com, which empowers young people with powerful tools to change their lives, communities and world for the better.

Before MTV, Tessie served as Director of Development at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, where she launched the 125 year-old organization's first-ever Young Leadership division, now a multi-chapter program with thousands of volunteers. Tessie was also a Junior Fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Tessie holds a MIA from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, a Certificate from the Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies at Columbia, and a degree in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.