The Lab to Market Transition: Lessons from Faculty, Students, and Research Staff
In February, the Office of Research hosted an event called The Lab to Market Transition: Lessons from Faculty, Students, and Other Research Staff. The event highlighted scenarios in which post grads spun out companies with the technology they worked on in their PI’s lab. We had four spinout guests, at different stages of maturity, with […]
Technology Disclosure Form
Share an Idea Don’t have time to submit a full disclosure? Not quite ready to take that step? Share an idea or reach out to our office using our quick form. Submit a Disclosure BU inventors are encouraged to submit a Technology Disclosure Form for each of their proprietary ideas or technologies. Completing this short […]
Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) Request: Outgoing MTAs
First time here? Learn more about MTAs and how to use this form. Download Form DOWNLOAD FORM Please download the zip file above and open on your computer to “unzip” the file. This form is a fillable PDF.
Journey to Impact: Advice and Entrepreneurship
An entrepreneur friend called me recently to ask for my advice. She started a company two years ago, on her own. It’s growing, fast. She needs cash to meet demand. She found a group of Angel investors, knowledgeable in her field and wanting to invest $XXX,000. They want YY% of the company, but she wants to give away only ZZ% of the company (where Z
The Journey to Impact: Equity Investors and Updates
This fall we launched a new program titled “Invasion of the Equity Investors.” I specifically named the investors “equity investors” to ensure there’s no mistake about the nature of the transaction in the offing. Equity investors (Angels and venture capitalists) purchase shares in your company in return for cash. The ‘”invasion” was chosen to attract attention, or perhaps make you smile. They are one source of funding. There are many, many additional and alternative forms of funding besides equity (click here for a posted presentation on the subject), but that’s a conversation for another day. We had three investors scheduled thus far this semester. One more will listen to pitches on November 4. We’ll be inviting more next semester.
Journey to Impact: New Resources, Events, and Opportunities
Here’s a misunderstood word: commercialization. The University of Pittsburgh offers a straightforward definition: “Commercialization is the process by which a new product or service is introduced into the general market.” That’s it. Too often, commercialization is misunderstood to mean “sales and marketing.” Those tasks are components of commercialization; they are not synonymous with the word. I suppose it’s because commerce is the root of commercialization so people’s minds go right to the transaction side of business (sales and marketing).
Want Wider Recognition for Your Idea? Ignition Awards Offer More Than Funding
Let’s start by making one thing clear: the Ignition Awards are not your average grant awards. In fact, we don’t even think of them as grants. Why not? Well, traditional grants provide funding; not funding in addition to training workshops, network-building, and practitioner feedback. Other grants are given to recipients to help finance promising ideas, but with little or no interaction with experts in the very fields where those ideas could take hold! And more conventional grants may help pay for your research, but they don’t get you any closer to understanding how your idea can make an impact in the world; how it might be commercialized.
The Journey to Impact: Collaborating with a Corporate Sponsor on Early Detection of Lung Cancer
A central goal for us here at BU’s Technology Development office is to equip our faculty and research community with the information you need when thinking about bringing research to market. As such, we aim to share the variety of pathways that can be taken to secure backing and support to turn ideas into reality; […]
Announcing the 2021 Ignition Award Winners
Technology Development is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Ignition Award. The Ignition program awards $75K and $25K, one-year grants to Boston University faculty to help launch promising new technologies into the marketplace. Congratulations to this year’s winners, listed below. Members of the BU research community can reach out to Rana K. Gupta, […]
Tackling Substandard Healthcare in Underserved Communities
Today we feature the work of Dr. Muhammad Zaman, professor of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Boston University’s College of Engineering, and his team.