About eBio™, Inc.

eBio™ is dedicated to its proprietary science of “Digital Biography”™ – the matching of analog, archival and digital sources to create meaningful biographical profiles with accuracy, color and context. This technology is being deployed across numerous platforms and industries, from purely biographical to genealogical and medical research applications.

eBio™, Inc. was founded in 2009 by Daniel E. Smith who currently serves as its CEO and President. eBio™, Inc. is a privately held, Florida based corporation.


About the eBio SURF™ Program

The objective of the eBio SURF™ program is to expose undergraduate students to state of the art research methods in the social and engineering sciences in a non-academic environment.

Each year, a series of topics are selected of interest to eBio™ Inc’s ongoing research and development. The topics are designed for a diverse range of student interests and many are intentionally multi-disciplinary. The topics are merely meant to be guidelines. Students are free to suggest other topics that relate to the general topic objective and are encouraged to do so.

The program is especially interested in attracting creative, free-thinking, motivated, students who approach research needs in unconventional ways.

The eBio SURF™ Summer 2009 Topic Areas are:

Each topic area contains specific details about our areas of interest, but applicants are encouraged to suggest alternate areas that they might like to pursue that achieve similar objectives. Students may apply under multiple topic areas.

History of the eBio SURF™ Program

The eBio™ Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program is the vision of eBio™’s CEO, Daniel E. Smith, who was fortunate to serve as an undergraduate research assistant to then graduate student, Lawrence H. Summers, who later served as Secretary of the Treasury under the Clinton Administration, President of Harvard University, and currently serves as Director of the White House’s National Economic Council.

Professor Summers’ commitment to undergraduate education and his practice of engaging undergraduate research assistants in lieu of the more conventional practice of extending research opportunities exclusively to graduate students spawned Mr. Smith’s interest in expanding that model to the corporate world, in the hopes that other companies would follow suit.

This is the program’s inaugural year and it will serve as a pilot for a more extensive program in subsequent years. Up to 5 eBio SURF™ research fellowships will be awarded for the Summer 2009.


Qualifications

Applicants to be eBio SURF™ program must be enrolled in a four year bachelor program or equivalent at an accredited American university and have attended full time in the prior academic year.

With the exceptions of the Information Technology, Judaic Studies, and Arabic and Islamic Studies topic areas, the only required skills are general archival research experience and the ability to use the Microsoft Office suite including Excel and Word. In addition, experience with Adobe Acrobat Pro would be helpful, but not required.

For the Information Technology topic area, we would expect the applicant to have a more extensive software skill-set, including knowledge of programming language(s), data mining, and possibly OCR experience. However, no applicant to the Information Technology topic area should be discouraged if their skill-set is different than stated above. Any unusual combination of software engineering skills would be of special interest to the eBio SURF™ program.

The Judaic Studies topic area has an absolute requirement that the applicant be able to read Hebrew in any form – whether modern or Rabbinic text. Other language capabilities are of special interest and should be noted on the application.

The Arabic and Islamic Studies topic area has an absolute requirement that the applicant be able to read Arabic.


Application

  eBio SURF™ Application Form

Applicants must download and complete the eBio SURF™ Application Form and submit it via email to surf@ebio.com no later than Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 along with a resume or CV and cover letter. The announcement of the 2009 eBio SURF™ Fellows will be no later than Wednesday July 1st, 2009. Fellows will be required to sign a non-discloure agreement relating to their work with eBio, Inc. prior to commencing research.


Stipend and Location

Successful applicants will be provided a stipend of $5,000 for the 2009 Summer research term. Applicants are expected to commence research on or about July 1st and deliver a final summary on or about September 15th. At the sole discretion of eBio™, Inc., an alternate equivalent timetable may be agreed upon.

There is no location requirement for the applicants as eBio™ utilizes a virtual model for its operations. eBio™ currently has staff in Seattle, Boston, London, Miami and India. The only logistical requirement is that the applicant have broadband internet access in whatever location they choose to conduct their research.


Logistical Support

eBio™ will attempt to make available to the eBio SURF™ research fellows any logistical support necessary to enable the research topic selected. This support may include hardware, software, access to consultants and management, clerical support, etc.. All such support is at the sole discretion of eBio™, and must be approved in writing in advance by the research fellow’s designated eBio SURF™ contact.

In extraordinary cases, where the eBio SURF™ research fellow believes that travel is required to pursue their research interest, provision may be made for travel expenses. In the case of such allowances, the applicant indemnifies eBio™ for any consequences of such travel.

It is our desire to facilitate the fellow’s research in every way possible. Our objective for eBio SURF™ research fellows is that time be spent for uninhibited, creative thought and process design – tempered by the need to balance that with corporate objectives. We want to encourage that thought by providing any necessary logistical support within reason.


Research Summary

Periodically throughout the research term, the eBio SURF™ fellows are expected to provide short summaries of their work in progress and any data gathered to date. At the conclusion of the research term, an eBio SURF™ research summary document will be provided by the fellow along with any supporting data in a machine readable form.

We also request that each eBio SURF™ fellow complete an anonymous questionnaire about their experience in the program for review by a third party. The eBio SURF™ program is a work in progress and we hope that the experience of the inaugural fellows will improve the program for subsequent generations of eBio SURF™ fellows an encourage other companies to follow suit with our model.

At the student’s request, eBio™ will provide a summary and an evaluation of the student’s work to any university authority to document their selection as a research fellow and participation in the program.


Non-Disclosure

As the research fellow will be working in conjunction with eBio™ corporate staff and exposed to confidential and proprietary information about eBio™ Inc.’s ongoing research and development as well as being given access to proprietary and confidential support tools to enable their research, we require a signed eBio SURF™ Non-Disclosure Agreement prior to commencing research.

However, applicants are encouraged to use any skills developed during the eBio SURF™ program for future research endeavors, provided that they do not incorporate methods relating to specific proprietary eBio™ products under development or contemplated. One of the main objectives of the eBio™ surf program is to foster the development of multi-disciplinary research skills to enable future work in the fellow’s field of interest long after the eBio SURF™ Fellowship ends.

eBio™, Inc. reserves the right to publicize the names and biographical details of the successful applicants and their areas of research except for those details labeled as CONFIDENTIAL on the application form. Successful applicants will provide a digital photograph to facilitate publication of their award and research area.


THE BOTTOM LINE

The objective of the eBio SURF™ program is to foster the development of archival research interests and skills in the social sciences and offer unique opportunities for those with engineering interests to work side by side with eBio’s extraordinarily talented staff. It is a unique opportunity for any undergraduate with those interests to pursue research without being encumbered by logistics or specific deliverables. Grab it! We want to learn from you as much as you will learn from us.


ONE FINAL NOTE

Since we are more interested in methods than final data, it is unlikely that any of the suggested research in Topic Areas could be completed in the time allotted. Perhaps we will be surprised. In any case, one of the lessons of research is that you have limited resources and time. We want to see how the fellows use both wisely. There is no failure in not attaining complete results. Our interest is more in identifying methods that could yield complete results cost effectively if more time and resources were allocated.

 

©Copyright 2009, eBio™, Inc.