Sam Palmisano's $100M Bet

The Next Net is reporting that one of the things IBM CEO Sam Pamisano will be talking about at the Second Life event is the winners of the Innovation Jams.

The list:

"He is putting $100 million into the final ten ideas in the hopes that a few may turn into billion-dollar businesses. Here is where he is placing his bets:

Smart Healthcare Payment Systems: Speeding healthcare payments by connecting patients, doctors, and insurance companies through smart cards.

Simplified Business Engines: A suite of Web 2.0 business apps (running on blade servers) for small businesses.

Real-time Translation Services: Seamless speech-to-text-to-speech software that can translate one language to another like a Babble Fish (based on IBM Research's impressive MASTOR technology).

Intelligent Utility Networks: Bringing network management and monitoring to the utility grid.

3D Internet: Build a technology platform for virtual worlds so that businesses can conduct meetings, presentations, focus groups, product demos or run virtual stores in a "standards-based 3D Internet" (sort of like Second Life).

“Digital Me”: Online storage and management for personal digital photos, videos, music, files, identification documents, and health and financial records.

Branchless Banking for the Masses: Sell technology to financial institutions that lets them provide basic banking services to the unbanked in remote parts of India, China, and other fast-growing emerging markets.

Integrated Mass Transit Information System: Back-end systems for connecting and managing real-time data for all of a region’s transit systems, and coordinating among buses, rail, highways, waterways and airlines.

Electronic Health Record System: Create a central repository for health records that accepts data from any provider, integrates with the health payment system (see above), and offers personal healthcare records to consumers and their doctors.

“Big Green” Innovations: A new business unit that will focus on emerging environmental opportunities, such as advanced water modeling (looking for water like today we look for oil), nanotech-based water filtration and efficient solar power systems."