SpeakerNeil Kane
DateOct 5, 2011
Time12:00 pm
LocationEnterpriseWorks Atrium, 60 Hazelwood Drive, Champaign
Cost$0
SponsorEnterpriseWorks
ContactMichelle Morfey
E-Mailmmorfey@illinois.edu
Phone217-333-8324
Views411
About the Event: Startup Cafe is a luncheon series in the Research Park to highlight entrepreneurs that have lead their companies and created successes. The forum gives a chance for entrepreneurs to share their entrepreneurial story and provide their insights on success and things they wish they would have know before getting started. Free lunch for participants will be served. About the Speaker: Neil Kane is a co-founder and was the founding CEO of Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., a firm he founded in 2003 by licensing technology from Argonne National Laboratory (U.S. Dept. of Energy). Mr. Kane is the former co-Executive Director of the ITEC at Argonne and Entrepreneur in Residence with Illinois Ventures, LLC. In these roles he was founding CEO of several startup companies based on university or federal laboratory research. He has closed multiple rounds of venture capital from various sources and has secured numerous SBIR/STTR and other government contracts and awards. Earlier he was Regional Business Development Manager for Microsoft Corporation in Chicago and was a liaison to Andersen Consulting. He began his career as a manufacturing engineer in IBMs San Jose, California disk drive facility where he designed robotic tooling. He holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from UIUC and an MBA from The University of Chicago. He was named a 2007 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and attended their annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland in 2007 and 2008. In 2007 he received recognition from NSF for Outstanding Entrepreneurship, and in 2009 he was named a Mover & Shaker by Frost & Sullivan. In June 2010 he was an invited witness on the panel From the Lab Bench to the Marketplace: Improving Technology Transfer in the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Research & Science Education.
