Finalist Judging

 

Finalist judging takes place at the University of South Florida each February 11th (Thomas Edison's birthday).  Finalists in each division present their invention to a group of highly experienced and distinguished judges.  The Galleria at the University of South Florida is the venue and can hold up to 500 attendees.  Finalist Judging Pin

Kevin Harrington, CEO of TVGoods.com, LLC is widely acknowledged as the pioneer and principal architect of the “infomercial” industry. Since producing the industry’s first infomercial in the 1980s, Harrington has financed more than 500 product launches resulting in sales of more than $4 billion worldwide with 20 products reaching individual sales of over $100 million each, and creating dozens of millionaires. In his latest venture, Harrington is an investor on a new ABC show called “Shark Tank”, in which budding entrepreneurs compete in pitching their potentially moneymaking ideas to business experts in hopes of securing investment financing. Harrington’s book, ACT NOW!, explains how he innovatively turns ideas into million-dollar products. Examples of popular products available through TVGoods.com currently are: Tony Little fitness, George Foreman cleaning, Jay “the Juice Daddy” Kordich Health, Flying Lure fishing, Wolfman Jack music, and the Dual Saw, marketed by the late legendary pitchman Billy Mays. One TVGoods.com product, the Air-Cutter, a precision vacuum haircutting system, will be featured in the upcoming film Father of Invention starring Kevin Spacey.  See Kevin's interview with program founder Anna Hopen here. Kevin Harrington
Bill Green is a veteran television host at HSN.   Bill, a native of Miami, has been on-air at HSN for 16 years. He began his career in radio at the age 16 and went on to produce and direct at several radio stations. He has presented thousands of products on-air at HSN and helped make hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.  In preparing to sell new and innovative products Bill conducts substantial hands-on research and practice.  He is widely acknowledged as one of the most dynamic, energetic and successful on-air hosts in his ability to convey the value of a product to a customer.  See Bill's interview with program founder Anna Hopen here.  You can learn more about Bill Green at his official website.
HSN's Bill Green - Finalist Judge and Long Time Television Host
Karen Holbrook, Ph.D. Dr. Holbrook is Senior Vice President for Research, Innovation & Global Affairs at the University of South Florida, one of the nations top public research universities and one of the public universities designated by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Prior to her appointment at the University of South Florida, Dr. Holbrook retired from the Presidency of Ohio State, the largest university in the nation, after serving from 2002 to June 2007. Before joining Ohio State, Holbrook held executive-level positions at the University of Georgia and the University of Florida. She spent the majority of her academic career as a professor of biological structure and medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine.   For more information on Dr. Holbrook, click here.
Karen Holbrook
Jen Holloway, former Bay News 9 anchor, is also an accomplished inventor and finalist on Every Edisons with her innovative exercise product Workout 180. Jen graduated with a degree in Journalism from Kennesaw State University in Atlanta. She also started her broadcast career in Atlanta at WTLK TV-14 as host of the city's only week night, live, entertainment program. After Atlanta, Jen worked at KPRC Channel 2 in Houston, TX for a couple of years.....then on to Tampa Bay. Jen is an active volunteer and fund-raiser for The American Cancer Society, The Red Cross, The Leukemia Society and Junior Achievement here in the Bay Area.  See Jen's interview with program founder Anna Hopen here. For more information on Jen, see www.jenniferholloway.com Jennifer Holloway
Paul R. Sanberg, Ph.D., D.Sc. is Senior Associate Vice President for Research & Innovation, Distinguished University Professor, and Executive Director of the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair at the University of South Florida. Dr. Sanberg trained at York University, the University of British Columbia, the Australian National University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, among others. Dr. Sanberg is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Institute of Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, and serves on numerous advisory boards for health-related foundations and companies. He is the co-editor-in-chief of Cell Transplantation, and serves on editorial boards for more than 25 scientific journals. Dr. Sanberg is the Executive Director of the American Society for Neural Transplantation and Repair. He is the author of more than 500 scientific articles, and thirteen books, with over 10,000 citations to his work. Dr. Sanberg is an inventor on approximately 30 health-related patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and numerous foreign patents. His co-discovery of a novel antidepressant drug is currently being developed by AstraZeneca. Dr. Sanberg's early work was pioneering in understanding why brain cells die in neurological disorders and in drug abuse research. His recent work has been instrumental in translating new pharmaceutical and stem cell therapeutics to clinical trials for Tourette syndrome, depression, stroke, Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease.  He is president of the National Academy of Inventors. Paul Sanberg

Sebastian Dewhurst, Ph.D.
  In 2000, Dr. Dewhurst developed the concept of a new Rapid Application Development software product, later to become EASA. He recruited the EASA team, closed the first sales of the newly released EASA product, and obtained a US Patent covering the EASA concept. In 2008, Seb oversaw a management buy-out of EASA, which continues to grow, and to serve customers such as Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, Zurich Financial, and Canon. Dr. Dewhurst obtained a First Class degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Oxford in 1988, with an internship at NASA’s Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.  Dr. Dewhurst authored six papers which were accepted at various international conferences, as well as obtaining his Doctorate from Oxford. His doctoral thesis, entitled “The Application of Three Dimensional Laser Doppler Anemometry”, covered subjects such as fluid mechanics, turbo-machinery, heat and mass transfer, computational fluid dynamics and data visualization, and was relevant to industrial applications such as aircraft engines and nuclear reactors. He also held lectureships in Mathematics, Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics at the University of Oxford.  For more information, see www.easasoftware.com
 Seb Dewhurst

Valerie McDevitt
is Assistant Vice President for Research in the Division of Patents & Licensing for the University of South Florida. In April 2008, Ms. McDevitt was appointed by Governor Charlie Crist to the Governor’s Task Force for the Study of Biotech Competitiveness.  As a Congressional Science Fellow with the American Chemical Society in Washington, DC, Ms. McDevitt worked as a subcommittee professional staff on a variety of topics including Superfund Reauthorization and Clean Water Act issues.  A graduate of Emory University School of Law, Ms. McDevitt also has an MST in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Florida and a BS in Chemistry from Siena College.  For more information on Valerie, see http://www.research.usf.edu/pl/
Valerie McDevitt
Israel Morejon is CEO and President of LEDNovation, a developer and manufacturer of environmentally-friendly, state-of-the-art LED lighting technology.  He founded Integrated Engineering Technology (IET) designing technology for lighting, hearing aids, kidney dialysis systems, robots and the core waveguide technology used in speed guns. At Johnson & Johnson he designed acute care patient monitoring products. At Jabil Circuit, he architected a diverse group of products including automotive, wireless, storage, computing devices, laptop docking stations, camera modules, PDAs, smart phones. wireless modem technology and optical tomography cancer systems in addition to architecting LED-based technology. A prolific innovator, Mr. Morejon has numerous pending and granted patents in a variety of technology areas. Mr. Morejon is an engineering graduate from the University of South Florida.   For more information, see www.lednovation.com Israel Morejon