If I had to name the one thing that was both extremely useful and very cool, it would be Duck Tape. I just love Duck Tape! So, you can imagine my euphoria – and that’s no exaggeration – when I discovered that Duck Tape is made right here in North Carolina. Not only that, but it is made in Charlotte USA.

My assignment was to write an article for US Airways magazine on innovation in the Charlotte region. So, I started to canvass my co-workers. What really unique innovations are taking place here? They suggested some neat university and corporate R&D, nutrition studies at the North Carolina Research Campus, and a number of start-ups that were commercializing discoveries. Great ideas all, but I was looking for something that no other state, no other region could claim. Something that would make all those people flying US Airways throughout the world pick up the magazine and read about companies in the Charlotte region.

Then we nailed it: T1Visions, a young UNC Charlotte-birthed company that has made a reality of the touch-screen walls that Tom Cruise fictionally demoed in Minority Report, and Shurtape, an old company that not only modernized Duck Tape, but made it trendy.

I hope you enjoy reading “Imagination unbound” as much as I enjoyed writing it.