Transcript Stevens Environmental Entrepreneurship Program Stevens Institute of Technology / Polytechnic Institute of NYU PI: Lex McCusker Co PI’s: Kurt Becker, Christos Christodoulatos, Thomas.

Stevens Environmental
Entrepreneurship Program
Stevens Institute of Technology / Polytechnic Institute of NYU
PI: Lex McCusker Co PI’s: Kurt Becker, Christos Christodoulatos, Thomas Lechler
NSF Award #IIP- 0840623
3 Year Award
Start Date: 16 March 2007
Key Attributes of our
Innovation Ecosystem:
Questioning & Curiosity:
E2 Lab Website – www.stevens.edu/entrepreneurship/e2lab
Thomas Lechler, Lex McCusker, Christos Christodoulatos
Brief Project Overview:
The Environmental Entrepreneurship Lab (E2 Lab) is a project to
transform the structure, policies, processes and culture of a
research-intensive university to dramatically improve the rate of
transfer of new technologies into marketplace ventures. The
effort is focused on elevating business awareness among
faculty and students and introducing entrepreneurial behavior
by implementing several innovative educational initiatives aimed
at enabling the integration of technological and market
knowledge into the academic culture.
Top Challenges:
1. Motivating faculty to participate in entrepreneurial
activities.
2. Underestimated the effort to create networks that are
able to give effective feedback to research faculty.
3. Workshops were spaced too closely to allow for
sufficient progress between successive workshops.
Program Activities:
E2
Lab Events
Workshops
05/20/2008 Drinking Water Quality Workshop
09/23/2008 Stormwater Quality Management Workshop
01/15/2009 Green Roof Design Workshop
06/02/2009 Alternative Energy Workshop
09/29/2009 Water Quality Workshop
Office of Academic Entrepreneurship – Stevens
Conferences
Research & Entrepreneurship Newsletter Jan 2010
12/07/2009 Energy Technology Conference
Internal Policies
03/22/2010 Sensing Technology Conference
Pre-IP Process
Stevens Entrepreneurs Network Events
Case Study: X-Rid
04/01/2010 - The Role of Attorneys
Incentive Program for Generating IP
05/06/2010 - Writing Effective Business Plans
IP Training Seminars
Academics
AE Survey
Stevens Institute of Technology
Research & Entrepreneurship Day (Annually)
Entrepreneurship Minor
Student Elevator Pitch Competition
Ph.D. Seminar,
Start-up Company Presentations
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Doctoral Fellowship
NYU-Poly
Inno/Vention student idea competition
Partners:
The main thrust of our project is bringing market intelligence
to campus to guide and influence the research of faculty
toward attacking problems of interest to industry and
government. We have worked to expose faculty to a
somewhat different set of questions than those that are being
asked by colleagues in academia.
Risk Taking:
Redirecting research towards applications is a huge risk for
researchers. What if the application never comes to fruition?
Working towards patenting and commercialization as
opposed to publishing, is also a risk, especially for young
faculty. We are working to modify our promotion and tenure
policy and process to allow faculty who have created
valuable intellectual property to get proper recognition for that
accomplishment in their applications for promotion and
tenure.
Openness:
We have been changing the internal processes for
Intellectual Property at Stevens Institute of Technology. The
faculty incentive system has financial incentives at every
stage in the IP process. Incentives in the first phase, Pre-IP
consist of funding for research assistants for up to 3 months,
to investigate concepts and prepare prototypes. In the
second phase, Secure IP, inventions disclosed to the patent
committee, as well as received patents, are rewarded with a
monetary sum as well as with recognition awards. To date
over 80 people have received an incentive check for
submitting disclosures and patent applications.
Collaboration Across Fields:
SEED (Stevens Entrepreneur & Enterprise Development)
Program. The Office of Enterprise Development and
Licensing is having undergraduate students from both the
Schaefer School of Engineering and Science and the Howe
School of Technology Management cooperatively develop a
new startup company over an 18-month period. The SEED
program has established two new businesses where
students, under the direction of a professional CEO and the
Senior Design Advisor, are taking university-created
technology through the startup phase and into
commercialization. Students are responsible for everything
from market research and business plan development to
completing a commercializable product. In addition, they are
directly involved in raising capital to fund the startup.
Placing Partners in “New
Environments” & “Playgrounds”:
Top Contributions:
1. The E2 Lab has organized several events to help educate and encourage market-focused research in both faculty and
students. To date we have had 5 workshops and 2 conferences, with over 32 faculty members from 5 different universities
presenting. These workshops are a key element of our new prototype for the Pre-IP Process. As a result of these
workshops and our follow-up interviews with presenting faculty researchers, many new market focused research
projects have been established with specific application areas. We typically follow up with all presenters from Stevens at
the workshops, and approximately 1 per workshop goes on to establish a new research project based on feedback from the
workshop and from meeting with the E2 Lab.
2. A Case-Study: X-RID – treatment process to remove explosives (TNT, RDX, HMX, and other energetic materials)
• May 20, 2008 - Broad research in bimetal nano-particles was presented at the workshop
•Result: Stevens ARDEC/Picatinny Arsenal joint project enabled the researchers to focus the research to a specific
technology with an application area.
• October 2008 - a provisional patent application was filed (#61/106,641)
• May 2009 Business case analysis performed by an undergraduate business student, Daniel Riggle.
•Result: $20 million market for this project, and a recommendation that this technology should move to the next stage.
• September 2009 a preliminary application to New Jersey Corporation for Advanced Technology (NJCAT) for independent
technology verification was submitted
• October 19, 2009 - A non-provisional joint patent application (No. 12/581,480) was filed on in conjunction with Picatinny
Arsenal.
3. Establishment of the Office of Academic Entrepreneurship to foster and exploit technology-driven innovations that are
either adopted by the industry or serve as basis for creating new ventures, using the E 2 - Lab as a prototype. Dr.
Christodoulatos (Co-PI) was recently named the Associate Provost for Academic Entrepreneurship (AE) in the new office, and
Dr. Lechler (Co-PI) was named as the Director of AE Programs.
PFI
We ask our researchers to present their early stage research
at our workshops and conferences. The researchers then
receive feedback from industry and from investors that
understand the market. We are creating opportunities for our
research faculty to get out of the ivory tower and get direct
exposure to the needs of the marketplace.
Leading/Inspiring for Surprising
or Unexpected Results:
Dr. Henry Du was looking into sensor technologies and he
presented his research at our Stormwater Management
Workshop in Sept 2008. He found that he could measure
parts per trillion with his new technique for detecting
contaminates. In the breakout sessions at the workshop, the
industry participants told the researcher that the problem is
not the precision of measurement but how to detect
something in real-time (as opposed to bringing it back to the
lab for testing, etc.). In particular, on the NJ coast line, in the
summer, a big problem is detecting the e.coli bacteria in the
water to make sure the water is safe for swimmers. The E2
Lab project funded a research assistant to look into this
specific application over the summer and fall of 2009.
Professor Du has redirected his research into real-time
sensor technologies with market applications.
National Science Foundation Partnerships For Innovation
Grantee’s Meeting April 25-27, 2010
Arlington, VA
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