Building Hawaii's Innovation Economy Summary of a Symposium (2012) / Chapter Skim
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Session III: Small Business, Universities, and Regional Growth
Session III: Small Business, Universities, and Regional Growth
Pages 72-88
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From page 72... ...
Ku said that she was "very ambivalent" about bringing Stanford's experience to the meeting, being "the smallest unit represented from a very dynamic innovation cluster in Silicon Valley." She said she would confine herself to the Stanford experience as an example of what a university can do to make technology transfer effective. She began with the university's philosophy of technology transfer, which is to do what is best for the technology -- to move it into society so that innovations can be useful.
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From page 73... ...
"We were very proud that one of our biggest inventions, the Yamaha chip, came out of the music department," she said. "It's probably in your cell phone; every time your phone plays some interesting song, that's probably a Yamaha chip." One of Stanford's biggest inventions was recombinant DNA, the cloning technology that has enabled people to put genes into bacteria.
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From page 74... ...
. Of some 8,300 inventions seen by the Office of Technology Licensing, only 20 cases had generated $5 million or more, and only 58 had generated $1 million or more.
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From page 75... ...
Patents are only a small part of the picture, but most start-up companies want an exclusive license to give the illusion that they can keep out the big players. Com mercialization of university research is very, very high risk, and success really depends on the receptiveness of industry and entrepreneurs." Several factors affect licensing and technology transfer.
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From page 76... ...
He began with a satellite image of the world at night, showing how economic activity, as indicated by the distribution of light, is clustered in geographical regions that bear little 19 NationalResearch Council, Managing University Intellectual Property in the Public Interest, Stephen Merrill and Anne-Marie Mazza, eds., Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2010.
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From page 77... ...
Finally, there was little available investment capital. At the same time, the region had nascent strengths, including underutilized research assets, entrepreneurial potential, opportunities brought by globalization, a convergence of public and private interests, and a focus on differentiation and productivity.
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From page 78... ...
It also devel oped an innovation campus that serves both to house the research foundation and to provide incubator space. To bridge technology development from concept to actual success, he said, angel investors are needed, so the foundation developed a regional angel network which has also then spawned a student-driven investment network and a women's angel network.
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From page 79... ...
It has also been named the Ohio Research Foundation, rather than the University of Akron Research Foundation, to avoid jealousies. The foundation had received many awards, including recognition as the most productive foundation in Ohio in the rate of return per research dollar in technology commercialization.
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From page 80... ...
We will not measure ourselves by how many students we exclude, but by the value we add to students and the relationships we build with our communities in solving real problems." CONVERTING UNIVERSITY RESEARCH INTO START-UP COMPANIES Barry Weinman Allegis Capital LLC Mr. Weinman, who chairs the University of Hawaii Foundation, began by revisiting the purpose of technology commercialization.
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From page 81... ...
That's probably a fairly radical view, but I think that's the way the public universities will win or lose." He said that there are many "urban legends" at universities, including the UH, about why it is difficult to convert university IP into start-up companies. "Some examples of these legends are: we've always done it that way; we've never done it that way; the legislature won't give us permission to create a technology transfer office, or to privatize the technology transfer process; maybe the unions will be against it; it's not the faculty's job; we're not Silicon Valley; what hap pens if we fail?
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From page 82... ...
While many firms are attempting to exploit social networking phenomena, he said, Hawaii has an advantage in its unique cultural mix, along with local capabilities in computer science. "We need to leverage our ‘unfair advantages'," Mr.
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From page 83... ...
Walshok, associate vice chancellor of public programs and dean of extended studies at the University of California at San Diego, spoke about the importance of the community in strengthening university research and research transfer. She said she would illustrate how this can happen through her experi ence in San Diego, a city and region that in the 1950s faced challenges similar to those of Hawaii -- a need to diversify and to transform the regional economy.
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From page 84... ...
One, Linkabit, was started by a faculty member, Irwin Jacobs, in 1968, based on defense contracts. This grew into Qualcomm." The other was a computer graphics company, ISSCO, started in 1970 by Peter Preuss, then a graduate student at UCSD and later a national pioneer in the field of computer graphics.
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From page 85... ...
The major institutions -- including Salk, UCSD, Sanford Burnham, and Scripps -- all used the strategy of hiring senior-level people to accelerate research excellence. "When you hire a senior-level person in science," she said, "you hire a person who has connections with the Washington establishment and foundations, and who brings grants, grad students, and postdocs to your region.
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From page 86... ...
I think we need the inventors to be championing the technology, and we want to help them." Dr. Proenza added that many universities are doing good jobs at technol ogy transfer, and suggested that the Kaufmann team "had seen many of the less 20 National Research Council, Managing University Intellectual Property in the Public Interest, op.
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From page 87... ...
Goldin agreed with Katharine Ku that "money isn't the main issue. Getting technology transferred is multidisciplinary, and too many universities depend on the technology transfer office.
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