ROCHESTER ? Delphi spin off SpaceForm was presented with the 2006 Michigan Corporate Partnership Award presented last week at the Michigan Technology Leaders 2006 conference.

The Michigan Corporate Partnership Award Council was created in 2005 to identify, create, support, and honor partnerships between Michigan companies and local individuals or groups benefiting the technology community.

?SpaceForm is the prototype for the MCPA in its awareness of how to focus on collaboration in the state with organizations and institutions like Wayne State University, NASA and Automation Alley,? said Tracy-Ann Palmer, president and co-founder of Aricus International, who created the award. ?All the nominees for the MCPA had made great strides to work and partner with Michigan based companies, but SpaceForm was in a class by itself in the way it developed partnerships, but how it discovered solutions.?

SpaceForm is a DTI spin-off company focused on the commercialization of Delphi?s patented Deformation Resistance Welding (DRW) technology. The technology was created by Dr. Anthony Ananthanarayanan, Delphi?s Welding Fellow. NASA and the Michigan Research Institute (MRI) became interested in the technology and a multi-year, multi-million dollar research project under NASA?s Man on the Moon and Man to Mars space exploration projects.

The collaboration continues with a created business opportunity lead by DTI, Automation Alley, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and the formation of SpaceForm. Delphi serves as a minority shareholder and licensor and the board is chaired by Thomas Anderson of Automation Alley. Also, TechTown, Delphi Corporation, the MEDC, MRI, University of Michigan, The Community Fund of SE Michigan/Adams Fund, the Edison Welding Institute (EWI) and Wayne State University are involved.

?The synergy from our partners extends beyond the financial and managerial contributions as we?ve been able to take advantage of a very extensive and established network of contacts which can be coordinated to accelerate into the marketplace a novel technology looking for early adopters,? said Jayson Pankin, Delphi?s new venture creation specialist.. ?We are obviously extremely honored to be recognized as the 2006 MCPA winner so early in the development of SpaceForm.?

For more information on SpaceForm, click on SpaceFormTech.Com