Report Says UK Struggles with Research Commercialisation | Times Higher Education | #highered

The Times Higher Education site has an interesting piece highlighting the difficulties British universities are having commercializing all of the research funding they receive from their government. A new report on the subject has supported this criticism. From Elizabeth Gibney:

“British entrepreneurs are being badly let down by a lack of access to financial support and a system that often forces them to sell out to private equity investors or larger foreign companies to get ideas off the ground,” said committee chair and Labour MP, Andrew Miller.

MPs said they had been encouraged by the work of the Technology Strategy Board and its network of “catapult” centres, but said that they were concerned about the access of small firms to facilities, and that government grant funding was often highly bureaucratic to apply for and only enough to “get an idea off the ground”.

The report, Bridging the Valley of Death: Improving the Commercialisation of Research, adds that while academic research is the “jewel in the crown of UK innovation activity”, the committee had concerns about how universities interact with the commercialisation of research.

It questions whether changes to the Higher Education Innovation Fund, which reward institutions that have already benefited from successfully commercialising their intellectual property, might further decrease the success of already struggling institutions.

“We would like to see how well changes to the Higher Education Innovation Fund improve commercialisation activity; whether there is a need for greater amounts of proof of concept funding in the sector; and challenge the institutions to become more accommodating to non-traditional backgrounds among their academic staff,” it reads.

“We have concerns that driving an innovation agenda too aggressively through universities may have diminishing returns with regard to commercialisation and risk damaging the academic research that is working well,” it adds.

via MPs criticise government over research commercialisation | News | Times Higher Education.

New Master of Entrepreneurship Program | University of Michigan

The University of Michigan, a leader across many disciplines (and my alma mater) has announced the creation of a Master of Entrepreneurship. Its great to see it is a joint venture between business and engineering. I was fortunate to interview Michigan Alum and supporter Sam Zell a few months back and it was evident in our short talk that Michigan, its leaders, and supporters were fully aware of the interdisciplinary nature of entrepreneurship. This is a great development for Michigan and the practice, research, and teaching of entrepreneurship in higher education. From the Michigan Master of Entrepreneurship website:

The Michigan Master of Entrepreneurship (MsE) gives students the ability to create new technology-focused ventures, either as standalone entities or within established innovative organizations.

This instruction is not available through conventional business or engineering curricula. Most business schools focus on the skill set required in larger, more mature organizations. Most engineering programs do not include market assessment and commercialization skills. The MsE program brings these two cultures together in a novel synthesis that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The first students will begin in August 2012 and the application is available online. Go Blue! (I can write that, this is a blog!)

via Master of Entrepreneurship | University of Michigan.

D.C.’s Newest Accelerator “The Fort” Debuts Inaugural Class | TechCrunch

More accelerator news in the DC Metro. From Techcrunch

Hot, new Washington D.C. tech accelerator known as The Fort is debuting its inaugural class of startups today. The organization grew out the efforts from early stage VC firm Fortify Ventures LLC, also known as Fortify.vc (that’s its URL, too), which had previously invested in nearly dozen D.C.-area tech companies.

Over the past 9 months, The Fort’s co-founders, Jonathon Perrelli and Carla Valdes, have been busy trying to spark innovation in the nation’s capital. They set up the fund, invested in group of startups, created the accelerator, hosted a pitch competition called “Distilled Intelligence” which handed out $25K to winners, and selected a dozen more startups for The Fort’s first program.

“D.C. is not a place where people are always working together,” says Perrelli of the group’s efforts, “but now there is this uprising. People are trying to build something here.”

He notes that the area, despite being the center of government where important policy decisions are made, has been slow to join in the burgeoning tech scene. But things have been changing. With The Fort, the hope is to provide a path to get D.C. area startups off the ground.

The program, which gives founders anywhere from $25,000 to $100,000 in seed capital, was lured to the area from nearby Arlington thanks to a $100,000 grant from D.C. Mayor Vicent Gray. Now set up in offices on K Street two blocks from The White House, the organization its opening its doors to 12 new companies who will spend 6 months in its program.

Its interesting to note that accelerator founders are now playing the  economic development game. And, once again we see more pressure on universities in the entrepreneurship education space. BTW, I met some of the founders in the The Fort’s first class at GWU’s Startup Job Fair earlier this week.  Some cool new ventures.

via D.C.’s Newest Tech Accelerator “The Fort” Debuts Inaugural Batch | TechCrunch.

U of Cincinnati Looks To Engineers and Entrepreneurship for Opportunity Creation and Economic Growth

Just read an interesting piece about University of Cincinnati’s efforts  to offer more entrepreneurial opportunities to students and faculty in its engineering programs. (h/t tto2newco).

Apparently Dean Carlo Montemagno of the College of Engineering and Applies sciences is an educational innovator at UC. From the Enterchange:

He soon will launch an Entrepreneurial Innovation Center, too. In recent interviews, Montemagno revealed to the Enquirer the first details of a university initiative to create high-tech, high-paying jobs and drive economic development in this region.

Likely to open at the Edgecliff campus in Walnut Hills, the innovation center will give his college’s 140 professors and 4,300 students access to workshops, mentors, lab space and an engineering accelerator program to help build and launch businesses.

A new entrepreneurial sabbatical allows professors a year away from teaching in order to start their companies.

Eventually, all three efforts will be open to faculty and students in other UC colleges.

“The idea is to remove the wall between discovery at universities and implementation in the economy,” Montemagno says. “It ensures the relevancy of the research to fit the needs of the economy.”

From a recent university press release on the entrepreneurial initiatives:

University of Cincinnati officials today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) designed to increase the level of technology commercialization in Southwest Ohio.
Signing the MOU between UC and the Hamilton County Development Corporation were Santa Jeremy Ono, UC provost and senior vice president; Carlo Montemagno, dean of UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science; and  David Main, president of the Hamilton County Development Co., Inc. (HCDC) and Hamilton County Business Center, Inc.

The non-binding MOU intends to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship within the university’s College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) by promoting the creation of technical businesses based on the research achievements of faculty, students and staff. This enterprise is expected to encourage the creation, development and growth of innovative ventures by leveraging the combined strength of UC’s technology expertise and HCBC’s entrepreneurial assistance services.

I have been looking and I see no mention of the Carl H. Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati in any of the materials discussing these recent initiatives.

 

2012 Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index | 2012 Launch Event

I am fortunate that Dr. Zoltan J. Acs is my dissertation chair as he is a world leading scholar and a great mentor. One of his major projects, The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index is just about to release its 2012 results. Which country is the most entrepreneurial country in the world? We will find out this week.

GEDI is a major breakthrough for investors, policy makers, entrepreneurs, and development professionals interested in high impact entrepreneurs and sustainable economic growth (Read what the Economist said about GEDI). You can read more about GEDI and its fascinating techniques.

There are two kickoff events this year. One at the Heritage Foundation on 5 January 2011 and another, more casual event and discussion at George Mason University’s Founders Hall in Arlington VA on 6th January 2012. Register for the GMU event (Jan 6th 5 pm – 7 pm) or for Heritage (Jan 5th 9 am – 12 pm).

Will Your College Survive? | John Katzman

Nice piece in techcrunch by John Katzman, founder and former CEO of Princeton Review and currently CEO of 2tor, an education startup partnering with universities to deliver online course and resources. From Will Your College Survive? by John Katzman:

Some might imagine that in this consolidation, the top schools will win and the less prestigious schools will lose. Not so.

Universities and bookstores compete differently. Schools are more specialized—engineering schools don’t compete with music schools, for instance—and they are of varying levels of selectivity. Since much of a school’s value comes from the interaction among students and between students and faculty, universities both recruit and are attractive to students of similar academic backgrounds. Harvard, in other words, does not compete for students with Devry.

The likely winnowing, then, will happen within each tier of university. Instead of competing for students on a regional basis, online schools targeting adult learners compete on a national basis; so will the elite schools or the schools focused on any particular academic discipline. And within each tier, only the schools that properly navigate the quality/size cycle will survive the shakeout.

Within the elite tier, a few others will have a second chance. Due to their endowment and general excellence, most Ivy League schools might become less central to the global education world, but still be islands of research and learning. Within other groupings of universities, though, the new competition will be less forgiving. As states continue to lower subsidies, and as schools with similar reputations step up their competition, this could be a difficult decade for many colleges.

Evolve or Else

Like any other disruptive transition, the move to online and blended universities will bring tremendous benefit to students—better education in more places at lower tuition. However, these changes will be painful for many schools. Most bookstores and travel agencies found themselves on the wrong side of a steadily growing force; the schools that thrive over the next two decades will do so only because they have carefully harnessed that very same force: the Internet.

While I think the internet is a huge reason that higher education is under pressure, the question of whether BAs, MBAs, and PhDs as credentials matter is a big question many are now asking. For many they still do, but for many they do not.

Entrepreneurship education, which many schools are still trying to figure out, is under pressure from accelerators, entrepreneurship events such as 3 Day Startup and Startup Weekend, and radical experiments such as the Thiel Fellowships and the uncollege movement. How administrators and professors evolve their delivery of entrepreneurship education will determine if it continues to be a cash cow for the universities or becomes a missed opportunity to provide value to students, society, and the schools themselves.

via Will Your College Survive? | TechCrunch.

Startup at Sea | A Start-Up Incubator That Floats | NYTimes.com

In college I considered participating in Semester at Sea (I ended up studying at Kansai Gaidai near Osaka Japan). Just read about a new idea to have a boat near Silicon Valley (in international waters) that would serve as a place for entrepreneurs, investors and others to interact with Silicon Valley without visa hassles. Its called Blueseed and its pretty wild. From the NY Times:

Technology gurus have long lamented how hard it is for foreign talent to secure American visas and create start-ups here. As Congress spins its wheels with endless debate over immigration, an ambitious venture based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is trying to chart a more productive course aboard a 600-foot boat, or possibly a barge.

That’s the idea behind Blueseed, which aims to create a visa-free, floating incubator for international entrepreneurs off the California coast near Silicon Valley.

Blueseed’s co-founders, Max Marty, 27, and Dario Mutabdzija, 31, envision a seaworthy, 1,000-passenger hothouse for entrepreneurs from around the world, moored 12 nautical miles offshore — just outside California’s territorial waters — with enough appealing amenities to make it a “Googleplex of the Sea.” Passengers could take a day trip by ferry to the mainland on temporary tourist or business visas, returning to sleep in cabins that would rent for $1,200 to $3,000 a month.

“Blueseed is a way to connect Silicon Valley with the amazing founders and entrepreneurs out around the world,” Mr. Marty said. “Existing visa policies were designed for a different era. The nature of business has changed, and what’s lacking now is an avenue for people to be able to come in and create great companies.”

Its interesting to note that two of the founders worked at the Seasteading Institute — they are a Friedman family ‘project’ that views government as inhibiting progress.  Anarchists? (Depends who you ask.) From their website, “we work to enable seasteading communities – floating cities – which will allow the next generation of pioneers to peacefully test new ideas for government. The most successful can then inspire change in governments around the world.”

Its also interesting to note that Peter Thiel has funded the Seasteading Institute.

via A Start-Up Incubator That Floats – NYTimes.com.

Millenials, a Recession is the Perfect Time to Start a Company | Inc.com

Kimberly Wiesel of Inc writes that Millenials are making excuses instead of launching firms. I continually stress to my students that there is always growth somewhere even if GDP is shrinking, as the economy is shifting and opportunities are being created and made by the shifts (creative destruction) They seem to get it. From Inc:

It can’t be all that surprising that 54% percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 say they want to start their own company, according to a new survey from the Kauffman Foundation and Young Invincibles.

I’m all for entrepreneurial enthusiasm, no matter who the potential founder is. But it’s discouraging to see many of these young people make a classic mistake before even getting off the ground: They’re letting a poor economy stop them. In the Kauffman study, 38% of respondents cited the economy as the reason they’re not already entrepreneurs.

That’s a lousy excuse. Statistically, an entrepreneur’s odds of success are the same whether he or she starts a company during a boom or during a bust. There are distinct advantages to starting a company during a recession. And there are so many other factors that influence an entrepreneur’s timing—having the time and money to devote to a novel idea, meeting a great co-founder, or spying the opportunity to be the first mover in an exciting a new market—that the current state of the economy is not, in the grand scheme of things, as important as you might think.

If you don’t believe me, take it from Fred Smith, who founded FedEx in 1973, at the start of a two-year recession. Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft in 1975, when the country was still suffering from stagflation and flat GDP. Ted Turner started CNN in 1980, during the first slide in what was to become known as a ‘double dip’ recession; Steve Jobs rejuvenated Apple in the midst of the dot-com bust.

Entrepreneurs like these, who launch when no one else seems to have the guts, do reap advantages. In a recession, you can hire better people, and pay them less, than you could during a boom. Even if you’re not yet in a position to hire full-time staff, you probably have a lot more negotiating power with freelancers and vendors now than you’ve had in a long time. Rent is cheaper too, whether you’re working out of your apartment, buying time in a commercial kitchen, or renting office space.

 

via We’re in a recession. Time to start a company | Inc.com.

Stanford MBA Gives $150 M to Fight Global Poverty | #SOCENT #SOCINN

Like many philanthropists before him, Stanford MBA graduate and successful venture capitalist (Peninsula Capital) Bob King sees higher education as a central platform for improving society. From Kathryn Roethel of the San Francisco Chronicle:

Stanford University will announce one of the largest cash gifts in school history today – $150 million to the Graduate School of Business to create an institute that develops creative ways to fight poverty worldwide.

It all began with $1.25.

That’s the amount of money that 1.4 billion people in developing countries live on each day, according to the World Bank. And that’s the statistic that Bob King, founder of Menlo Park investment firm Peninsula Capital, and his wife, Dottie, cite when explaining why they decided to make the gift.

“We wondered, how might we do something bold and significant,” said King, who earned his MBA at Stanford in 1960. “Something like giving light to the slums (without electricity) in Nairobi, or something to improve the health of the children born there. Something that could combat malaria or alleviate AIDS in Africa.”

King said he and Dottie considered all of the poverty-fighting charities they could support directly, but picked Stanford because it will give students and professors a platform to do research in other countries and then return to create solutions using university resources.

Entrepreneurs have been key builders of universities in America and its clear that their vision in business is often matched by a ‘societal’ vision through their ‘investment’ in students, professors, and lines of research. This investments provide ongoing impact rather than just filling short term needs (see charity).

The role of philanthropist in the growth of entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship on campuses cannot be overlooked as we try to assess, understand, and improve entrepreneurship in higher education.

BTW, here is some of what Stanford will do with the funding:

Business School Professor Hau Lee will direct the program, called the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, known informally as Seed. He said many professors and students in the business, law, medical and engineering schools at Stanford already have been doing projects that fit the Kings’ goals, but the magnitude of their gift “will allow us to do something big.”

Plans include awarding travel grants – both to Stanford students who want to test products and ideas in developing countries, and to students from those countries who want to visit Stanford and seek support for their poverty-fighting solutions.

Lee said the institute also will offer stipends to students who want to take internships in developing countries for little or no pay – a big perk for those who have to weigh the humanitarian internships against well-paying summer jobs on Wall Street.

Institute leaders are creating entrepreneurial courses, some of which will begin this academic year. They also plan to expand many existing courses and bring them into the institute.

via Stanford gets $150 million to fight world poverty.

Charles Schwab Simple But True Message: Every Job Requires an Entrepreneur -

The simple fact is that every business in America was started by an entrepreneur, whether it is Ford Motor Co., Google or your local dry cleaner. Every single job that entrepreneur creates requires an investment. And at its core, investing requires confidence that despite the risks, despite the hard work that will certainly ensue, the basic rules of the game are clear and stable. Today’s uncertainty on these issues—stemming from a barrage of new complex regulations and legislation—is a roadblock to investment. We have to clear that uncertainty away.

Charles Schwab explains:

“I founded Charles Schwab in 1974, when America was confronting a crisis of confidence similar to today’s. We had rapidly rising inflation and unemployment, economic growth grinding into negative territory, and paralyzed markets. The future looked pretty bleak.

Sound familiar?

Yet I had faith that our economy would recover. My vision was simple: Investors deserve something better than the status quo. I launched the company with four employees, a personal loan on my home, and an audacious dream. I didn’t know exactly how we were going to do it, nor could I foresee that over the decades we would end up building a business that serves over 10 million accounts. But we went for it.

The piece is worth reading and reminding policy makers and politicians: behind every job is an entrepreneur who took a risk.

via Charles Schwab: Every Job Requires an Entrepreneur – WSJ.com.