It Takes a Village....

Back in January of 1996, Hillary Clinton went on tour to promote her book “it takes a Village, and others lessons children teach us” The book was pivotal in drawing attention to the fact that individuals and groups outside the immediate family unit affect a child’s well being drawing attention to a child’s development needs. I was recalling this quote as I was putting together text for the i6 challenge.  The i6 challenge is an innovation competition administered by the Economic Development Agency (EDA).  The goal is to fund ideas to drive technology commercialization and entrepreneurship in regions throughout the US.  I think this is exactly what we need to get teams of individuals and organizations focused on innovation.  I work quite a bit with Carnegie Mellon University and am always impressed with the activity around innovation.  Unfortunately, enthusiasm and energy around innovation does not always lead to commercialization.  There are several challenges these technologies and inventors face in making the leap from the lab to the market including:

• The sheer volume of ideas warrants that not all can have the attention they deserve.  A queuing theory based on prioritization can be appropriate but some of these technologies are very time sensitive
• Oftentimes, these technologies are often incredibly complex to assess.  They can be based on many years of advanced research and combine several disciplines into the end result
• Gap funding to help make the transition from government to private funding is difficult.  This is the beginning of what some folks call the “Valley of Death” where companies need to operate on private funding until they can subsist on their own.
• More inventors are commercializing technologies rather than just licensing.  This might have something to do with the economy, the visibility of successful start-ups, the attraction of autonomy, etc.

In research on social communities, one of the drivers is the ability to provide assistance to other community members.  I discussed this in one of my earlier blog posts.  If a University worked to create an infrastructure that would allow alumni and other stakeholders to “connect” with early stage technologies either within the University environment or freshly spun out, it might provide relief from some of the challenges mentioned above.  We are all familiar with forums, wikis and “semi-gated” communities.  Universities can leverage these technologies not only to broadcast interesting inventions and developments but also to provide some of the following:

• Harness the collective energy of the extended community to assess inventions from a technical and market based perspective
• Provide advice on markets, regulations and target industries
• Create a repository of digital information based on interaction between community members and inventors that can be used for better targeting, planning and resource allocation
• Identify and connect with suitable management and advisors
• Even provide much needed funding either through direct financing or connection to appropriate private funding sources

During some of my research, I heard from many alumni that the only time a University connects with them is when they need a donation.  If the value proposition becomes more bi-directional and Universities provide an easy mechanism for alumni (and others) to connect and work with University based technologies, they might find that they don’t need to continually try to find and reach out to some of these individuals.  Rather, they are already well entrenched within the University innovation community.  Micro-financing, much like what is taking place with Kiva.org, might also be in place to provide necessary gap funding required to get technologies to a phase where they can be spun out and go after other forms of financing.  Of course, this does not help pay for new buildings, build the endowment, pay for scholarships, etc but it does provide a need resulting in greater interaction and satisfaction, which makes for more engaged individuals.

Now some Universities naturally develop this interaction – technologies are continually introduced to the extended community and quickly charted along a path.  Others, have a much more difficult time with this activity in part due to separation (physical and psychological) between possible community members and the University, inability to disseminate information on technology development, lack of attention to business development and relationship building between departments, etc.  My belief is that social media and expert communities can be the great equalizer and Universities should be wielding these initiatives as strategic weapons against the Valley of Death and spurring their engines of innovation.   Another fact is that most Universities have Technology Transfer Offices that are mostly collegial and continually discuss viability of technologies, licensing opportunities, new commercialization’s process, etc.  This provides a perfect bridge to connect different networks together, increasing the reach any one University might have to find the necessary and interested resources to help move the technology to the market.

If you are interested in learning more about this space, you can check out the following resources:

• CMU has built an expert community to accelerate technology commercialization http://www.cmu.edu/cttec/
• UMich. does a great job in broadcasting technologies and aligning interests of their community with start-ups http://www.techtransfer.umich.edu/
• They are doing great things at Columbia through their Tech Ventures group http://www.techventures.columbia.edu/
• Bob Nidever from UCLA has compiled a fantastic resource for immersing yourself in the world of early stage technology commercialization.  You can see his list on Twitter @bnidever/techtransfer