President Barack Obama hosted the “Winning the Future” forum in Cleveland yesterday to meet with the Northeast Ohio business community, including Albert Green, CEO of Kent Displays, Inc., a local spin-off company of the Liquid Crystal Institute that employs about 100 people.

In his closing speech, Obama spoke of Kent Displays, Inc., the NorTech cluster on FlexMatters and Kent State University’s Liquid Crystal Institute, as an important example of how an academic-industry partnership drives high tech and economic development. He praised Kent Displays for being a consumer electronics business that manufactures in the United States and exports abroad.

“Kent Displays researches, develops and manufactures flexible liquid crystal displays from a state-of-the-art production line in Kent,” Obama said, “and it’s the first of its kind in the world.”

Obama said spending on research, transportation and information networks will boost America's competitiveness.  He mentioned that Green recently took a trip to India, organized by the U.S. Commerce Department, where he and two dozen other chiefs of companies met with government officials and potential business partners there.

“Everywhere they went, people were asking: Are your products made in America?” Obama said.” The world wants American goods.”

Kent Displays is best known for its very low-power, flexible and non-light emitting technology, including its Boogie Board — an LCD tablet that can be written on like paper and is shipped all over the world.

A video of Obama's speech can be seen here:

http://www.c-span.org/Events/President-Hosts-quotWinning-the-Futurequot-Forum-in-Cleveland/10737419736/

(Kent Displays and the Liquid Crystal Institute is mentioned at 11:13)

To see more, go to Kent Displays' media coverage web page