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LIFE & CULTURE, 6A WEDNESDAY December 3, 2014

Ten reasons to make podcasts an addition to your daily routine. OPINIONS, 4A

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THE DAILY ILLINI he independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871

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Vol. 144 Issue 054

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Coors billboards around campus taken down BY JOSH WINTERS STAFF WRITER

MillerCoors may be the official beer sponsor of the University, but do not expect to see any of their billboards around campus. “We just didn’t know, and it wasn’t expressed to us, that they were going to be used on billboards,” said Marty Kaufmann, assistant director of athletics. “They did it on their own, we didn’t know they were going to do it, but they understood our concern.” The University, through the efforts of its advertising partner Learfield Communications and its subsidiary Fighting Illini Sports Properties, entered into a sponsorship with MillerCoors on July 1. While the University has

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Editorial board discusses the contradictory removal of the billboards. Page 4A

not had any alcohol sponsors in the past, Kaufmann said that 2014 was a good year to start. “For the past decade or more, even though they didn’t have authorization to use our logos, you could walk into restaurants or bars and you could see posters, schedule signs, many things that were produced without authorization by several beer companies,” Kaufmann said. “We kind of looked it as, ‘if we’re going to open it up, if we’re going to allow beer sponsor-

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JASMINE DINH THE DAILY ILLINI

Students march through campus on Tuesday in a peaceful protest spurred by recent Ferguson events.

Central Black Student Union organizes protest in response to Ferguson events BY ERIC FRIES STAFF WRITER

Hundreds of students took to the streets Tuesday evening to show support for African-Americans on campus and protest the recent events that have unfolded in Ferguson, Missouri. The peaceful march was organized by the Central Black Student Union, which advocates for minorities around campus. After assembling at the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center, the long column of demonstrators marched down Gregory Drive, holding signs and chanting “Black lives matter.” “With the whole Mike Brown situation that’s been going down in Ferguson, I personally feel that justice was not served,” said Michael Idemudia, junior in AHS and member of the Central Black Student Union. ”We feel that something needs to be done

because what happened to Mike Brown could have happened to anybody.” The throng of protestors, while predominately black, included students from various ethnic backgrounds. Crowds gathered on sidewalks to observe and listen to the group. “The whole Ferguson case is a very big deal because this is something that not just affected the Ferguson community, but there are a lot of African-American communities across the country who dealt with cases like this,” said Olabode Oladeinde, senior in AHS and president of the Central Black Student Union. “Police brutality is just something that we need to raise awareness about, because we feel like it’s been going on for way too long.” Participants expressed dissatisfaction with the grand jury’s decision not to indict

Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. “I feel like (the grand jury decision) was wrong, because regardless of race, the cop wasn’t right or justified in his killing,” said Dy’Min Davis, a freshman in LAS. Oladeinde said he thought the case should definitely have been taken to trial. “I felt like there were a lot of holes in the decision, and a lot of things weren’t considered, like the fact that when a suspect may be fleeing there’s such thing as a kill shot and a stun shot,” Oladeinde said. Tuesday’s protest was peaceful and very little hostility was expressed by demonstrators or onlookers. Police blocked off intersections to ensure safety and a police vehicle followed the group as an escort. The protestors received support from some observ-

startups have early success BY JANE LEE STAFF WRITER

With more than 90 companies at Research Park, over 400 University students are finding hands-on experience with part-time or full-time internships at startups and business incubators. “It has been a great asset to the campus to have these large corporations and startups right here on campus land, contiguous with the main part of the University,” said Laura Frerichs, Research Park director. Frerichs highlighted two companies that have recently found commercial success with their projects: Electroninks and Intelliwheels.

Electroninks Frerichs said Electroninks was started by research that was done through materials science at the University. She said there has been a lot of interest in science technology engineering, math education and teaching children about electronics. E lect ron i nks’ fi rst launched project, Circuit Scribe, is a pen that can draw circuits and has been sold through Electroninks. com and Amazon. Frerichs

said projects that would normally use a breadboard or other types of circuitry to create lights could be done with these pens. The company started a Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $650,000 in pre-sales from their product. “Their goal had been $85,000, so this was a big deal,” Frerichs said. Electroninks also pre-sold 15,000 Circuit Scribes and partnered with Autodesk, the maker of Adobe products, Frerichs said. Alumnus Brett Walker, CEO and cofounder of Electroninks, said the pen has been available for purchase since the launch of the company’s Kickstarter campaign in December 2013. “We’ve sold approximately 1.2 million in sales of the Circuit Scribe pen in total. We actually just started shipping as of August of this year,” Walker said.

Intelliwheels Marissa Siebel, cofounder of Intelliwheels and Ph.D. student, said she began the company with alumnus Scott Daigle when he was a mechanical engineering student working in a wheelchair compulsion lab within AHS. It was Daigle’s idea to add gears to manual wheelchairs. During that time, Siebel was working with the Illinois Wheelchair Athletics

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Beer in the Big Ten

ers, who cheered them on as they passed. On Green Street, a group of people yelled encouragement from a second-story window. Demonstrators felt that the peaceful nature of the protests was important. Instead of violent tactics like looting, which has occurred in Ferguson, Davis said if people aim to have a positive impact and stand together, things will get better. Idemudia felt similarly about the actions taken by protestors in Ferguson. “I support the protests because I know that most of them were peaceful. However, the riots I don’t support, I don’t feel like anyone supports them,” Idemudia said. “I feel like people who partook in the riots were doing it for themselves rather than for the cause.”

Eric can be reached at fries2@dailyillini.com.

University students find opportunities at Research Park New technology

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SOURCE:Universities’ ahtletic alcohol policies and media reports

ILLUSTRATION BY TOREY BUTNER

Community offers help to HIV patients PORTRAIT BY SONNY AN THE DAILY ILLINI

Joshua George, graduate of the College of Media and founding partner of Intelliwheels, poses beside an early prototype he constructed.

Illinois ranks 6th in AIDS cases BY ALI BRABOY STAFF WRITER

program. The two combined her knowledge of wheelchairs with Daigle’s innovation to form a team. I ntelliwheels’ fully geared wheelchair is developed from the idea of a gear reduction system and will potentially cost between $500 and $700 for consumers. In August, the company received a $1.5 million grant from the National Institute of Health, which Siebel said will be used to develop the business. “Our product that we currently have out is a gear reduction system and it is just as if you were to downshift on your bike to make it easier to pedal when you go uphill,” Siebel said. She said this is useful for older people that have a hard time pushing themselves because it enables them to be independent and not have to rely on others to push them. Intelliwheels consistently works with groups of students from the University, Siebel said, to give them

of Public Health. Joe Trotter, prevention lead agent at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, said Illinois could be ranked high because there are more facilities for individuals with AIDS to get tested in Illinois than other states. Trotter said Illinois has good access to HIV treatment, and he has heard of cases where people have tested HIV-positive in another state and moved to Illinois to receive better care. Another factor, Trotter

internship opportunities. The company has worked with teams of students from the Technology Management Program within the College of Business and with students who helped Intelliwheels build different structures of human resources and labor relations. “We have worked with a bunch of different student teams,” said Siebel. “We’ve recently hired two more engineers from the University. All of our employees are actually from the U of I.” This includes alumnus Josh George, a University wheelchair athlete and Paralympian gold medalist. “It’s been neat to see connections with the wheelchair athletes on campus getting excited about this company and just the history of accessibility technology from this University,” Frerichs said.

It has been 33 years since HIV was fi rst identifi ed, but the virus that causes AIDS continues to impact people today. Monday was World AIDS Day, and currently, Illinois is ranked the sixth highest state in number of AIDS cases in America, with over 30,000 total cases of the virus occurring, according to the Illinois Department

Jane can be reached at janelee5@dailyillini.com.

Students ask questions to speakers from the Special Populations’ Student Health Concerns Committee on Tuesday. The RSO showed a film on AIDS at the Illini Union.

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