The Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes of $10,000 are given in two categories, one for experimental and the other for theory advances in nanotechnology. The prize is named after Dr. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, whose original goal for nanotechnology — systems of molecular machines building with atomic precision, is the guiding vision of long-term nanotechnology.

"This further demonstrates that nanoTX '06 is not merely a Texas event, but is sure to be one of the finest international nanotechnology events ever," said Kelly Kordzik, President of the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative. "We are very pleased that Foresight approached us to announce their award winners. The Feynman Awards are highly respected in our industry, and it is our honor that nanoTX '06 will be the site for their granting."

Established in 1993, the Foresight Feynman Prizes in nanotechnology are given to researchers whose recent work have most advanced the achievement of Feynman's goal for nanotechnology: the construction of atomically-precise products through the use of molecular machine systems.

H. Ross Perot of Dallas, internationally renowned business leader and two time Presidential candidate, will deliver the opening remarks at nanoTX’06 September 27. Chosen in 2004 as one of history's 10 greatest entrepreneurs, Mr. Perot is known to have followed advances in nanotechnology since 1999. Today Mr. Perot is heavily invested in nanotechnology firms with undervalued intellectual property rights, including trademarks, trade secrets, patents and copyrightable material. His opening message on the business of nanotechnology will be riveting, bringing new insights in his most quotable style. Then in the evening of the 27th sponsors, exhibitors, and chosen guests will gather in the atrium of the Business Hall for the Exhibitor’s Cocktail Reception where the Foresight Feynman Award winners will be announced. The following day two winners will present their work as the conference continues.

Presented by the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative, the event carries the theme: The Promise of Tomorrow—The Business of Nanotechnology, and features 150 top rated nanotechnology speakers from 17 different countries. Sponsors include Lockheed Martin, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments, the Japanese Consulate, Winstead, Zyvex, BioForce Nanosciences, among other big firms and organizations in nanotechnology.

Also expected at nanoTX’06 are Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-30th Dist.) on the House Science Committee and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) who, as chairman of the Department of Defense Appropriations Committee, included $15 million in new funding for Research in Nanotechnology (SPRING). The program is a consortium comprised of the University of Texas (UT) at Arlington, UT-Austin, UT-Brownsville, UT-Dallas, UT-Pan American, Rice University and University of Houston, that are participating in nanoTX’06, September 27-28, 2006. Also part of the event is Texas State Technical College.

This funding will build on that effort and continue the consortium's work to establish a collaborative network of well-equipped research centers to rapidly develop and promote nanotechnology.

"Texas is pushing the envelope even further in research and that is certainly the case with nanotechnology," Sen. Hutchison said, who has made elevating the national profile and federal funding for Texas' higher education research a top priority.

To mark these strides in Texas, Governor Rick Perry has proclaimed the week of September 24 through September 30, 2006, as Nanotechnology Week in Texas to coincide with International Nanotechnology Week. Dallas mayor Laura Miller also signed a similar proclamation of her own. Both proclamations can be seen at www.nanotx.biz.

The $200Million Texas Emerging Technology Fund is also a subject of study at nanoTX’06. Technologists and business leaders from around the country have been requesting detailed information on how the Texas governor’s office launched the Emerging Technology Fund. Now the office of Governor Rick Perry, in cooperation with the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative, has agreed to have two people key to the funds’ creation and implementation release a detailed study of the fund at nanoTX’06.

To be released are valuable insights in the creation of the fund, its passage through the Texas legislature, and how it is being implemented, told by three key people. "It was difficult and complicated in organizing technologists and businesses to get behind such an effort in a state as large as Texas," says Kelly Kordzik, president of the Texas Nanotechnology Initiative in Austin. Kordzik is joining with the governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Phil Wilson, and Mark Ellison, Director of the Texas Emerging

Technology Fund at nanoTX’06 in Dallas where they will tell how to push such an effort through a legislature that is heavily focused on other budgetary items. The team will also explain how the fund is being used around the state to commercialize advanced technologies such as nanotechnology.

According to Kordzik, nanoTX’06 will draw the top minds in four vital and interrelated nanotech areas of commerce: Semiconductor/MEMS/NEMS, Defense/Homeland Security/Aerospace, Biomed/Health Sciences, and Energy/Chemical/Environment, plus an intense study of Trends/Finance/Investing by leading experts of industry in addition to H. Ross Perot. "An event of this quality and magnitude is drawing world-wide attention to Texas," says Kordzik. "There are 40 countries with state sponsored nanotechnology programs, including Japan, UK, Korea, Canada, Australia, France, the list keeps growing."

Cosponsoring organizations include the Nanotechnology Foundation of Texas, the Texas Healthcare & Bioscience Institute, the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, the Science Place & Planetarium, the Metroplex Technology Business Council, Texas State Technical College and others. Speakers will present the latest research on how their nanotech applications apply to business and commerce, and include such respected names as Dr. Ray H. Baughman, Director of the NanoTech Institute of the University of Texas at Dallas and the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry. Dr. Baughman will speak on New Inventions of UTD’s NanoTech Institute: From Multifunctional Nanotube Fibers and Sheets to Artificial Muscles, Displays, and Devices for Energy Harvesting, Storage, and Conversion. Among other top pioneers in nanotech to speak include Dr. Handel Jones, Founder and CEO of International Business Strategies; Dr. Hans Stork, CTO at Texas Instruments; Sue Billat, Benchmark Strategies; Dr. Mark Pinto, Sr. VP and CTO at Applied Materials; Mark Hakey of IBM Corporation and Jim Von Ehr, founder of Zyvex Corporation, the first molecular nanotechnology company in the world. Zyvex is a highly renowned world-scale player in the nanotechnology community, the most publicized private nanotechnology business in the world, and the most highly regarded company in the field of molecular assemblers.

One of the highlights of nanoTX’06 will be the Nobel Laureate Legends reception, dedicated to the memory of the late Richard Smalley and Jack Kilby, where Nobel Prize winners in various related fields will openly discuss their work and the future of nanotechnology, organized by Katharine Green, Director of Corporate Communications at Zyvex. Among the six Nobel laureates to be honored will be Dr. Robert Curl of Rice University (Buckyball fame, and colleague of Dr. Smalley); Dr. Alan MacDiarmid of the University of Texas, Dallas (2000 winner, Synthetic Metals); Dr. Michael Brown, UTSW Medical Center (Medicine, 1985); Dr. Alfred Gilman, UTSW Medical Center, (Medicine, 1994); Dr. Russell Hulse, UT Dallas (Physics, 1993); Dr. Ferid Murad, UT Medical School, Houston (Medicine, 1998).

Never before such a gathering of the top minds in nanotechnology, such as Dr. James S. Murday, Superintendent of Chemistry Division, Naval Research Laboratory; Dr. Kimberly McGrath, Director of Fuel Cell Research at QuantumSphere; Dr. David Bishop, VP of Nanotechnology at Bell Labs/Lucent; Dr. Christopher Rothfuss of the U.S. State Department; Dr. Bob Gower, CEO of Carbon Nanotechnologies; Dr. Michael Polcari, CEO of Sematech; Richard P. Wallace, President & COO of KLA-Tencor;

Dr. Harold Garner at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Dr. Vida Ilderem, VP & Director Embedded Systems &Physical Sciences Research, Motorola Labs at Motorola, Inc., to mention only a small number expected to include 150 heavyweights in nanotechnology.

Also such names as Carl Johnson, President of INFRASTRUCTURE; Dr. Zvi Yaniv, CEO at Applied Nanotech; and Jonathan Javitt, Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, among others.

Trends/Finance/Investing will feature a panel of venture capitalists led by Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital and the Forbes/Wolfe nanotech Report.

Kordzik says that Dallas was chosen because "Texas is uniquely suited to host a world class nanotechnology event and the Convention Center is big enough to hold it on the dates that are ideal."

An interview with Kelly Kordzik can be read at the nanoTX’06 web site, www.nanotx.biz/press.html