Southfield, Mich. - Michigan inventor Stanford Ovshinsky will kick off the Student Organizations Summit (SOS) on the Environment with a speech Thursday, Feb. 25, at 7 p.m. in the Architecture Building auditorium (A200) at Lawrence Technological University, 21000 West Ten Mile Road, Southfield. The event is free and open to the public.

The 87-year-old inventor has won some 400 patents over 50 years, mostly involving energy and information. He developed an environmentally friendly nickel-metal hydride battery that has been widely used for consumer electronics and electric and hybrid automobiles. He has patents for rewritable CD and DVD computer memories, hydrogen fuel cells and thin-film photovoltaic laminates and panels.

He and his late wife Iris founded Energy Conversion Devices, the Rochester Hills-based company that designs and manufactures photovoltaic laminates that generate clean and renewable energy by converting sunlight into electricity. In 2007, Ovshinsky retired from ECD and founded Ovshinsky Innovation LLC.

The day-long SOS conference, which is a celebration of sustainable technologies, will be held at Lawrence Tech the following day, Feb. 26. It is expected to draw middle school, high school, college and graduate students, as well as working and displaced professionals. For more information, visit www.sos.ltu.edu.

Stanford R. Ovshinsky received the Doctor of Science degree, honoris causa, from Lawrence Tech in 1980.
 
In 2005, Dr. Ovshinsky was also the inaugural recipient of the University's Leaders & Innovators Award, presented by Lawrence Tech in partnership with WWJ Newsradio 950, the Great Lakes Innovation and Technology Report, and Grant Thornton.  His award launched the weekly series of profiles which has now continued for nearly five years.  It features Michigan men and women who are leading innovation and as a result, growing and diversifying the state's economy and competitive position worldwide.

Lawrence Technological University, ltu.edu, offers more than 100 undergraduate, master's and doctoral degree programs in Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Management. Founded in 1932, the 4,500-student, private university pioneered evening classes and today has a growing number of weekend and online programs. Lawrence Tech's 102-acre campus is in Southfield, and programs are also offered in Detroit, Lansing, Petoskey and Traverse City. Lawrence Tech also offers programs with partner universities in Canada, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.