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I actually did not know about Howard's cleanroom. But UMD has one. User accessible. Georgetown has one, and is building a new one in their new science building. User accessible. NRL and NIST both have massive (and underused) cleanrooms, but they're harder to get in. Still doable with careful planning, good connection and preferably American citizenship.

So, plenty of cleanrooms around.

My grad-school (located in a rural area) actually worked with the local government and managed to turn into quite a successful incubator for small micro- and nanotech start-ups.

The government gave students a cheap modest loan (basically a modest salary for a year), and the university would give the students a room, plus indoor rates for access to the labs, first-license rights to certain IP - usually developed by the students starting the company themselves.

The investment was cheap enough that the failed companies did not cost too much, but some of the successful ones now have tens of employees. And that in the region that is only had agriculture. Meanwhile, the university benefits because after the first year, these companies keep coming back, paying external rates for access to the labs (and new employees).

One of the companies that came from there created a 3d motion sensor that ends up in a lot of runner's shoes and was used by Hollywood to track realistic motion for animated movies.

by Jasper on Jul 16, 2012 8:25 pm • link • report