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Aerospace engineering major Derrick Brown picked up a set of white gloves rigged with copper sensors and wires to explain its practical applications in the field of sports medicine Friday in the sun-filled entrance of the Armstrong Center, one of more than a dozen students showcasing presentations during TechFest.
The event, co-sponsored by the Technology Association of Georgia and Armstrong Atlantic State University’s Computer Science and IT department, is a so-called knowledge exchange for students and tech or tech-enabled companies to network and learn from one another.
Brown and the rest of his engineering design class were tasked with helping a group of sports medicine grad students researching shoulder injuries devise a way to measure when a patient caught and received a ball.
Over the past 11 months, Brown and his class worked on a prototype that would connect a glove to a digital multi-reader that would measure voltage. Each time the patient would catch and release the ball, the physical therapy students could see quantitative results on a screen to inform them of their treatment options.
“The best part of it all is getting them the results they needed,” Brown said of the collaborative project. “They needed to optimize efficiency for rehabilitation. … The design process was very interesting, to come up with a reliable and consistent method to fit their needs.”
That enthusiasm was prevalent among the students attending TechFest, which also featured a keynote address by Tino Mantella, president of the Atlanta-based Technology Association of Georgia.
Mantella gave key findings from his association’s annual state of the industry report on technology in Georgia.
Among the findings, Mantellla said, was that technology wages had grown in Georgia for a third consecutive year, from a state average of $82,600 to more than $83,000.
He also said Georgia had moved from No. 10 to No. 4 in venture capital funding for startup companies.
Total venture capital funding in the state of Georgia totaled $411 million, he said, but while the amount of money increased the number of investment deals decreased, from 54 to 41.
The disparity has to do with a particularly lucrative deal with Atlanta firm AirWatch last year.
“People who do investment, they invested more in real estate in Georgia,” said Mantella. “In 2000, after the tech bust, a lot of people got hurt during that era and started to sit on their hands, so it’s been slow getting people back in the industry to invest.”
He said 92 percent of the investments in tech come from outside the state.
Mantella said a priority should be getting more investors interested in tech, noting that only two seed capital companies currently operate in Savannah, SLAAM Ventures and Ariel Southeast Angel Partners.
One student asked Mantella whether it was a case of Georgia needing more venture capital money or venture capitalists needing more companies to invest in.
“I would say it’s that there needs to be more venture investment — that we have plenty of companies that are worthy of getting funding,” responded Mantella.
Mantella said Savannah had “broken out” among Georgia’s other mid-markets like Augusta and Columbus, particularly with jobs geared toward the knowledge industry.
“Savannah boasts more than 400 creative and knowledge-based businesses, including design, graphics, Web programming, software applications and other financial areas,” said Mantella.
The state of Georgia, meanwhile, led in the areas of communications services, health IT and logistics. He said the state’s technology companies have created more than 20,000 new jobs since 2010, and at a higher rate than the national average.
“I’ve been working with TAG for 10 years, and what I’ve seen, particularly in the last year, is some of the most positive information for tech industry in Georgia since I started,” said Mantella.