OMAHA, Nebraska (December 10, 2025)—The next Idea Pub: Morning Edition will be held on Thursday, Dec. 18, at 9 a.m. in the Catalyst building’s Forge Event Hall.
This month’s event will feature innovations in surgical simulation and medical education.
UNMC’s Joseph Siu, PhD, and engineering professor Carl Nelson, PhD, will lead a presentation that discusses their collaborative work in developing next-generation surgical tools.
Dr. Siu is professor and Chair of Global Health Opportunities in the Physical Therapy program at the College of Allied Health Professionals. He has developed a number of innovations related to simplifying and making surgical training devices more accessible and affordable.
Dr. Nelson, Associate Dean for the Undergraduate Programs in the College of Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has advanced several innovative improvements in surgical robotics.
Their presentation is expected to cover surgical simulation, smartphone-based instrument tracking, and custom joystick design. There are also tentative plans for a practical demonstration of a surgical simulator with haptic controllers or smartphone-based surgical instrument tracking.
Idea Pub: Morning Edition will be held in Catalyst Omaha on the western edge of the UNMC campus, on Saddle Creek Road. Free coffee will be provided. Catalyst, a co-sponsor of the event, will also offer complimentary facility tours on a first-come, first-served basis.
Park Omaha manages metered parking in a structure just north of the main entrance and along 46th and 48th Streets. See map for directions and more details.
The event is set for 9-11 a.m. in the Forge Event Hall on the north end of the building.
UNeMed, the technology transfer and commercialization office for UNMC and UNO, created Morning Edition to help University innovators and entrepreneurs connect and collaborate with colleagues and experts from the venture capital and startup communities.
Morning Edition will also regularly feature “Office Hours” with UNeMed staff and Charlie Cuddy, who co-founded the Nebraska Startup Academy and MOVE Venture Capital. Office Hours creates the opportunity for faculty, students and staff to have one-on-one time with MOVE or UNeMed professionals to discuss new technologies or startup potential.
MOVE is a pre-seed and seed venture capital firm focused on investing in Nebraska technology startup companies. The Nebraska Startup Academy is a mentoring program for startup founders, investors and the local entrepreneurial community with the aim of building Nebraska into “an innovation hub in the Midwest.”
Morning Edition will be held on the final Thursday of every month and will continue to feature guest speakers from the University’s stable of successful and budding startup companies and from Omaha’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The event will provide UNMC and UNO innovators an opportunity to build new partnerships and allies that can help develop their innovative ideas and discoveries into products that help people.
The event is free and open to all, and complimentary coffee will be provided as long as supplies last.
Morning Edition will continue in 2026, beginning on Jan. 22. CQuence Health will be the featured speaker, along with elevator pitches from the first cohort of UNeMed’s startup incubator, The Furnace.
Morning Edition is part of UNeMed’s “Idea Pub,” a suite of entrepreneurial networking events that includes “Innovations & Libations” and “Startup Showcase.”
