Panel: Commercializing University Tech

Collaboration among university research, start-up companies and financial backers is an essential component of the entrepreneurial ecosystem which results in long-term stability and ensures that new inventions arising from federal funding or otherwise are available to the public as quickly as possible. Many universities now have offices of technology transfer looking to turn research into commercial ventures. The advances in information and biological science and the growth of Internet commerce has led to an explosion of entrepreneurial companies. Many factors affect this process of converting university research into a successful start-up, including the type of funding involved, university policies and market opportunities. We will try to understand these aspects with officials responsible for research funding, university policymakers and venture capitalists who invest in tech/research based start-ups.