Alberta’s Nanotechnology Asset Map (developed by nanoAlberta a business unit of Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures) has been fully launched via two media channels. The first is an interactive Google Map (here) and the second is a print/pdf booklet listing companies and researchers as well as featuring articles about funding, research institutions, and research foci (focuses) in Alberta.

Launched at an event which took place recently at the Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures (AITF) building, 100 copies of the map were distributed and a  five-foot-high buckyball was specially designed (donated by an American engineer, Paul Hildebrandt) to be massive in scale, built upon the basic carbon molecule format, and yet achieve both complexity and simplicity of design. The sculpture was delivered as 10,800 small coloured sticks and connector balls. Tech Futures staff and children, the Scouts group, and engineer volunteers from NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) spent over 100 man-hours assembling the sticks and balls into its pattern.

AITF nanoAlberta Executive Director Dan Djukich unveiling the sculpture.

“This buckyball is representative of the connections that exist within Alberta’s nano community,” [Dan] Djukich [AITF nanoAlberta Executive Director] explained at the reception. “In the same way this elaborate buckyball shows an intricate yet organized web of connections, this new Nanotechnology Asset Map helps to connect the dots within our nano community.”

More about the booklet tomorrow.