Mar 23 2010
The Boulder Innovation Center (BIC), one of America's premier entrepreneurial support organizations, will expand and share its CU-Boulder-based research commercialization program with the Colorado School of Mines Office of Technology Transfer in Golden.
For two years, the BIC has been a commercialization partner to 60 research teams through its partnership with the University of Colorado's Technology Transfer Office, considered as among the top programs in the country. The BIC will now take this same proven process to the Colorado School of Mines Technology Transfer program.
“The 1980 federal Bayh-Dole Act and subsequent university policies affords universities like CU and Mines intellectual property ownership of inventions created by their faculty,” said Tim Bour, executive director of the BIC. “The process has traditionally been about securing patents, executing licenses and in select cases the awarding of Proof of Concept grants. The relationship with the BIC increases the chances of commercialization – by providing business mentorship, company formation, and risk capital financing. This is the next step in technology transfer that the BIC now brings to the table.”
Perhaps the most important piece to the commercialization puzzle is the BIC's ability to connect university inventors with the BIC's core group of 150 local and national angel investors and its 750 mentors and advisors.
The BIC has already been working with Mines faculty on a number of projects including technologies based around a nuclear battery for space applications, a nano thread for armor applications, and a process to convert CO2 to methanol.
“Our mission is to help inventors and researchers at CU and Mines think about creating businesses based on their research and to introduce them to advisors with a proven track record in commercialization and potential investors,” said Bour. “Our approach defines and identifies the critical steps in the process of commercializing and funding innovations, and creates a support network complementary to Tech Transfer Office initiatives.”
“The BIC brings a new approach to accelerate university innovation to commercial success,” said William Vaughan, director of the Mines Tech Transfer Office. “Our faculty and the research being done here – from aerospace to nanotechnology – are on the cutting edge of global innovation. Commercializing that research with the help of the BIC is the next step in bringing that technology from the lab to the marketplace.”
As part of the partnership, the BIC will identify promising commercial applications taking place at Mines, and match Mines faculty and inventions with BIC mentors and advisors who will assist in Proof-of-Concept Proposal development, feasibility studies and business planning, and capital formation strategies.