Valuable ideas sometimes languish in a lab for lack of an available entrepreneurial scientist to take it further. To help overcome that gap, a number of universities are creating commercialization fellowship programs. One best-in-show example is The University of Memphis’ Patents2Products program.
The university and Epicenter partnered to create this unique program that creates a funded employment position for researcher entrepreneurs, who utilize patented “deep tech” IP to turn great ideas into successful companies.
Patents2Products provides these postdoc fellows with all the necessary tools for launching a successful start-up. Fellows are hired in a university position with the UofM and provided with a salary and benefits, plus funds for initial start-up costs, as well as licensing rights to intellectual property. It’s a win-win for the fellows and for the university.
So you can learn from and adapt the program’s successes and lessons learned, and implement or improve your own fellowship initiative, Tech Transfer Central’s Distance Learning Division has scheduled this detailed, practical program:
Join our team of presenters from the University of Memphis: Dr. Hai Trieu, Director of Technology Commercialization with the FedEx Institute of Technology, and Mike Hoffmeyer, Director of the Crews Center for Entrepreneurship, for an in-depth, case-study style session that will give you clear insight into the concept, history and workings of the P2P program while revealing lessons learned from cohort one and the plans for cohort two.
Here’s a brief look at the program agenda:
- Background of the Patents-to-Products (P2P) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
- P2P participants, processes, and activities
- Challenges and accomplishments
- Lessons learned for the next cohort
- Revisiting the structure of the P2P Program
- Entrepreneurship development programming highlights
- Entrepreneur support highlights
- Facility/physical environment
- Expected outcomes and metrics
Meet your presenters:
Hai H. Trieu, PhD
Director, Technology Commercialization
The University of Memphis
Dr. Hai Trieu is Director of Technology Commercialization and an adjunct faculty member in the departments of biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering, physics and materials science, and chemistry at the University of Memphis. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and was a member of the Orthopedic Research Society and the Society for Biomaterials. Dr. Trieu himself is a prolific inventor and currently holds 130 U.S. patents and 79 foreign patents in various areas including medical devices, biomaterials, spinal surgery, and obstetrics. His inventions also helped launch three start-ups, two of which he co-founded. Dr. Trieu is the two-time recipient of the Medtronic Inventorship Award.
Mike Hoffmeyer
Director, Crews Center for Entrepreneurship
University of Memphis
Mike Hoffmeyer has been the director of the Crews Center for Entrepreneurship since it opened its doors in 2013, advising and mentoring hundreds of student entrepreneurs in that time while continually evolving programs and designing new programs to meet the ever-changing needs of aspiring entrepreneurs.
