From funding the new Veronica Mars movie to the Arduino Digital Signal Processing Shield, crowdfunding is turning dreams into realities. It will be the subject of a Fairfield University panel discussion by Connecticut entrepreneurs, on Monday, March 31, 2014, at 7 p.m.

Free and open to the public, "Crowdfunding Your Invention," will take place in the Dolan School of Business Dining Room. The event is co-sponsored by Fairfield University's Charles F. Dolan School of Business and the School of Engineering, in collaboration with the Inventors Association of Connecticut (IACT).

Mark Nowotarski, president of Darien, Conn.-based Markets, Patents & Alliances, LLC, will moderate a panel of entrepreneurs who have successfully raised funds for new projects using crowdfunding web sites. Crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter, indiegogo, and RocketHub are pathways to raise money from relatively large numbers of people who each contribute a relatively small amount of money to back a project.

Discussion will center on what drew entrepreneurs and inventors to crowdfunding, how they were successful, and what they have learned since they raised their money.

Panelists include:

Doug Lyon, Ph.D., chairman of the Computer Engineering Department at Fairfield University. He is also the inventor of the Arduino Digital Signal Processing Shield (DSP for Arduino), a programmable circuit board that helps musicians make unique sounds and helps students learn the basics of digital signal processing. He raised $7,859 on Kickstarter to produce the first run of his product. He is president of DocJava, Inc., and CTO of Lyon-Ratafia.

Inventor Michael Carpanzano, whose latest product, nuplug, is an innovative extension cord with clamping system designed for smart-device charging convenience. Last May, he successfully raised over $85,000 via Kickstarter to begin production of his product.

Cliff Their, president of West Hartford-based iKeyboard, Inc., maker of the TacType keyboard, which piggybacks over the virtual keyboard of the Apple® iPad®. iKeyboard raised $26,000 on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter.

Jennifer Shaw, founder of New York Tech Women and Bella Minds, and former senior data analyst for comScore, Inc. With Bella Minds, she is leading the way to educating rural areas of the nation. Bella Minds raised $28,690 in seed money from crowdfunding.

For further details, visit http://www.inventus.org

For more information about Fairfield University, visit www.fairfield.edu

Image: Mark Nowotarski, president of Darien, Conn.-based Markets, Patents & Alliances, LLC, will moderate a panel of entrepreneurs who have successfully raised funds for new projects using crowdfunding websites.

Posted On: 03-25-2014 03:03 PM

Volume: 46 Number: 235