The Journey to Impact

The Journey to Impact features insights from Rana K. Gupta, Director of Faculty Entrepreneurship at Boston University and Managing Director of BU’s Business Innovation Center.

Rana helps BU researchers bring technology and other research breakthroughs to the marketplace to increase their impact through programs and workshops, one-on-one consulting with faculty, educational resources, and community building among BU innovators.


Providing Doctoral Students Business Skills for Whatever Profession They May Pursue

Alexander Gold, a PhD candidate in microbiology at BU, described as “transformative” his time participating in BU Technology Development’s OTD Analyst program. Mengjie Yuan, a PhD candidate in BU’s School Medicine, described her participation in the Analyst program as a “very important experience for me”— one that helped her gain a... More

Equity Conversations Between PIs and Graduate Students

Negotiating an Equity Split with Your PI It can be the most fraught of conversations. A graduate student working on research that shows commercial promise seeks a sit-down with his or her principal investigator (PI) about starting a company. How does that grad student or post-doc broach the topic of a... More

You Have an Idea for Impact. What’s Next?

Q&A with Rana K. Gupta, Director of Faculty Entrepreneurship Rana K. Gupta is Director of Faculty Entrepreneurship at Boston University, co-reporting to Technology Development and Innovate@BU. He helps BU researchers bring technology and other research breakthroughs to the marketplace to increase their impact. He also manages BU’s Ignition Award program, which offers faculty commercialization funding.   Rana can... More

Photo of Steven Borkan

The Journey to Impact: A Passion for Helping AKI Patients

An interview with Steven C. Borkan, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine at BU, and Attending Physician at Boston Medical Center. The following discussion with Dr. Steven C. Broken took place at our BU Innovator of the Year Award event — where he explained his focus on treating acute kidney injury, his... More

The Journey to Impact: Watch Your Language

Are you working on an idea to impact a customer, audience, or market? (Since we have policy people in the audience whose “market” is the government, let’s define “market" as the audience you wish to adopt your idea.) Whether you plan to start a company, license to a third party, or... More

The Journey to Impact: Researching the Power of Molecules to Drive Life

Many of our researchers and faculty at BU are doing work to make real change in the world. As part of our series of discussions with faculty innovators, I speak with Professor Ji-Xin Cheng, Moustakas Chair Professor in Photonics and Optoelectronics and Professor of Biomedical Engineering (ENG). Professor Cheng's research pursues a... More

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