News Briefs (March 9, 2006)

Krisztina Holly, formerly executive director of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a technology startup veteran, has been named executive director of the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization in Los Angeles, effective March 1. The institute is a resource for USC's campuses and research programs for creating startups and learning about intellectual property licensing, faculty intellectual property development and venture capital outreach. A mechanical engineer, Holly began her career with projects in holography, robotics, optics, control and mechanical design. As an MIT graduate student, she and two teammates invented and patented "The Stylus," a pre-Web electronic shopping tool, bought out by Artisoft in 1996 for $13 million. . . . Lighting Science Group Corp. of Dallas today announced that it entered into an agreement with Hong Kong-based LED maker OptiLED Holdings Co. Ltd. for distribution of Lighting Science's optimized digital lighting (ODL) Low Bay LED fixtures in the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. OptiLED will pay a royalty fee to Lighting Science per unit sold. The ODL fixtures will replace older lighting technologies in commercial, industrial, educational, retail and municipal applications and are rated for 50,000 hours -- nearly six years -- when used constantly, or about 500 percent longer than traditional lights.