Technology Transfer Seminar in Canberra

Tom Hammond and Victor Pantano from the Office of Commercialisation will talk on Technology Transfer at the ANU, Canberra, 2pm 28 October 2008:

Technology Transfer at the ANU
Tom Hammond and Victor Pantano (The Office of Commercialisation, ANU)

DATE: 2008-10-28
TIME: 14:00:00 - 15:00:00
LOCATION: RSISE Seminar Room, ground floor, building 115, cnr. North and Daley Roads, ANU

ABSTRACT:
The Office of Commercialisation provides a number of technology transfer related services to the ANU, with the objective of finding paths beyond traditional sponsored research funding to support ANU research with commercial potential.

Members of the Office of Commercialisation Physical Sciences Team will present a short seminar on the support the Office provides in protecting and managing IP to facilitate research and commercial objectives; identifying and evaluating the commercial potential of research outcomes; and travelling the most appropriate path from research to technology transfer in the physical sciences. ...

From: Technology Transfer at the ANU, CECS, ANU

Dr Victor Pantano (Physical Science)

Before moving to the Office of Commercialisation in March 2006, Victor was based at the University of Warwick where he lead a number of projects associated with technology transfer into the UK automotive industry. Based at the International Automotive Research Centre in the West Midlands, his role involved facilitating the development of industry-based relationships with Centre researchers as an outlet for technology transfer. This included the formation of SME-based technology transfer clusters as a means to enhancing regional development. Prior to this, he completed his industry-based PhD with Ford Motor Company, based in various locations including Australia, India and the US. Victor holds a Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) and a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) from the ANU.

...

Dr Tom Hammond (Physical Science)

Tom comes to the Office of Commercialisation with academic experience in Zoology and Science Communication, and a career in the craft brewing sector.

After completing a BSc (Hons) in Zoology in 1998, Tom spent some time working in wildlife conservation in Western Australia, before completing a PhD in 2002, focusing on the acoustic behaviour of bushcrickets. An interest turned into a career in the craft brewing industry for several years, before Tom came to the ANU to study a Masters in Science Communication at the ANU. Tom brings a sound technical background, an appreciation of the processes of science communication, and an understanding of the requirements of industry to his role in the Office of Commercialisation. ...

From: Office Team, Office of Commercialisation, The Australian National University

Innovation ANU Final Round of Judging

The ANU has been running "Innovation ANU": an education program and competition to encourage researchers to commercialize their work. Six teams will present business plans a panel of judges for the finals this week. Interestingly some of the teams chose to develop not-for-profit projects, by adapting the business skills being shown. The projects range from very technical ones (fleets of miniature robot submarines) to ones involving the arts (encouraging music). The program started out with seminars on business issues and intellectual property and then moved on to fun presentations from the teams.

This Wednesday evening 23rd July will be the final evening of
InnovationANU 2008. After four months of hard work six teams will be
presenting their final business plans to our panel of judges and you are
all welcome to attend to see the impressive ideas that have emerged.

Date: Wednesday, 23rd July
Time: 5.30pm for 6.00pm start
Venue: Finkel Lecture Theatre, John Curtin School of Medical Research

Each team has been allocated ten minutes for their presentation, with
5-10 minutes for discussion with the judging panel following. For full
details about the talks and timing please see the attached agenda.

The InnovationANU program this year has been a success thanks to all of
you who got involved attending lectures, preparing and delivering
elevator pitches and finally preparing and submitting business plans.
From all the organisers we would like to extend our thanks to the over
100 participants who have been involved in InnovationANU in some
capacity this year. We hope this is the first of many years for this
program and we wish you all the very best in your future entrepreneurial
endeavours and hope to see you next year for InnovationANU 2009.

Kindest Regards,

The InnovationANU Organisers

Business Development Program
Team Presentations
Wednesday, 23rd July 2008
5:30pm
Finkel Lecture Theatre
John Curtin School of Medical Research

Agenda

5.30pm Drinks
6.00pm Welcome and Opening Remarks
6.15pm Presentation 1: One Corp - Generation Y Receipt Storage
6.40pm Presentation 2: Fault Technology - Blind minerals exploration
7.05pm Presentation 3: Photos Inkorporated - Online community photo-sharing and printing
7.30pm Break
7.45pm Presentation 4: Harp Centre Australia - A Centre for Harp in the Nation’s Capital
8.10pm Presentation 5: Cardishield - Cardiac protection
8.35pm Presentation 6: Serafina - Swarms of submarines
9.00pm Closing Remarks

How to Write a Business or Commercialisation Plan

The ANU's InnovationANU unit will be having a free seminar on "How to Write a Business or Commercialisation Plan" , Wednesday, 4th June The seminar is by
Cindy Reese, from Epicorp Pty Ltd. and is in Finkel Lecture Theatre in The John Curtin School of Medical Research. This is the same venue as previous events. The evening will commence at 6pm with refreshments before the seminar begins at 6.30pm. Please RSVP for catering purposes: InnovationANU (a) anu.edu.au

Innovation ANU Elevator Pitches

Greetings from the Innovation ANU Elevator Pitches in Canberra. This is the culmination of a series of evening courses to educate university people in how to turn an idea into a product. Earlier each person with an idea presented and then formed teams. About a dozen of those teams now get two minutes each to present their idea. Two judges, from the venture capital industry, select the best for an award and then for development.

The presentations are entertaining. It is remarkably difficult present an idea in two minutes. One part I found surprising was that few of the teams used props for presentations. Most presentations were someone standing at a lectern talking. This makes me appreciate the quality of the presentations which the ANU software engineering present.

Topics of the presentations were aids for home finance, puzzles, teaching English, B2C, photo printing, fast food catering. At that point the next presenter, Felix Schill woke me up by pulling a miniature robot submarine out of their backpack and said these would cost $15,000 each. This is the Serafina, developed by ANU (sort of an underwater Aerosonde).

The next presentation was the EtherDVB", video over Ethernet product. That was followed by the BushLAN system for long distance broadband (might be useful for the last few percent of the population with the government's broadband system). This was followed by a proposal for electronic medical records. Then gold prospecting.

At that point the presentations changed outlook to one with a "non-profit" proposal. The first was about reconciliation and learning about indigenous culture.

When then flipped back to a proposal for keeping track of receipts. There was then a second food proposal. One of the few medical proposals was for a drug to reduce deaths due to heart disease. We then had a proposal for bio-gas for developing nations using cow manure for cooking. There was then a second proposal for e-health records. A less usual proposal was for a low cost harp to be sold online (bit like the OLPC, but for music). The last presentation was for asthma treatment: a counter for dispensers and a test kit to check the medicine is present. It was claimed that these are already protected by patents.

The one hour of elevation pitches went very quickly. The judges are now considering their decision.

... first round of judging and awards and will require teams to submit a two page executive summary and a 2 minute (maximum) elevator pitch. Details about both of these submissions are outlined below. Executive Summary submission will be by midday, Tuesday 22nd April (the day before the judging evening), to give the judges plenty of time to read the executive summaries. The elevator pitch will be conducted on the evening and the order of the teams will be selected randomly on the evening. Both the page and time limits are fixed and teams will be asked to strictly abide by these.

The elevator pitch is a two minute pitch to sell your vision/idea of a product, service or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride. The elevator pitch should be delivered without visual aids (pictures, powerpoint presentations, etc.) and within the required time limit, after which the team will be asked to stop immediately.

Investors will often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of a short pitch such as this as any weaknesses are often easily exposed in this process. An effective elevator pitch is designed to give the audience just enough information that they will have a sense of what you are talking about and want to know more. Second, and just as importantly, it is designed to not give the audience so much information so that they feel overwhelmed (and tune you out). There is an overview of the requirements for the elevator pitch on the resources page of the Innovation ANU Website (www.anu.edu.au/InnovationANU). There is also a good overview of an elevator pitch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq0tan49rmc.

An executive summary is similar to a written version of the elevator pitch and outlines many of the relevant elements of your concept and idea and why it will be a success. This should be a two page document without images or other visual elements. There is an overview of the requirements for the executive summary on the resources page of the Innovation ANU Website (www.anu.edu.au/InnovationANU). The executive summary should be submitted in word (.doc) or pdf formats by midday, Tuesday 22nd April. Late submission will rule participants ineligible for this award.

Innovation ANU Elevator Pitch Awards Evening

The Australian National Unviersity is having an evening of "elevator pitches" by budding entrepreneurs on Wednesday in Canberra. This is part of a program to educate university people in how to turn an idea into a product.

The first awards evening is upon us this week and we are in for a very exciting evening. The evening will commence at 6pm in the foyer and later in The Finkel Lecture Theatre of The John Curtin School of Medical Research this Wednesday 23rd April.

The first elevator pitch will commence at 6.30pm and the order of teams will be randomly chosen on the evening. Refreshments will be served all evening. Each elevator pitch will be followed by a short question and answer time. At the conclusion of all the pitches the judges will award the winners of both the elevator pitch and executive summaries with their awards.

Failure to submit an executive summary or elevator pitch may make participants ineligible for the major awards at the conclusion of the program. The following details were sent out last week and are included as a reminder of what is required this week.

* Please note the deadline of the executive summary submission is midday, Tuesday 22nd April, which is the day before the awards evening this week.

* If any more information is required please contact us, otherwise we look forward to seeing you all there.


Regards
The Innovation ANU Organisers


Next week will be the first round of judging and awards and will require teams to submit a two page executive summary and a 2 minute (maximum) elevator pitch. Details about both of these submissions are outlined below. Executive Summary submission will be by midday, Tuesday 22nd April (the day before the judging evening), to give the judges plenty of time to read the executive summaries. The elevator pitch will be conducted on the evening and the order of the teams will be selected randomly on the evening. Both the page and time limits are fixed and teams will be asked to strictly abide by these.

The elevator pitch is a two minute pitch to sell your vision/idea of a product, service or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride. The elevator pitch should be delivered without visual aids (pictures, powerpoint presentations, etc.) and within the required time limit, after which the team will be asked to stop immediately.

Investors will often judge the quality of an idea and team on the basis of the quality of a short pitch such as this as any weaknesses are often easily exposed in this process. An effective elevator pitch is designed to give the audience just enough information that they will have a sense of what you are talking about and want to know more. Second, and just as importantly, it is designed to not give the audience so much information so that they feel overwhelmed (and tune you out). There is an overview of the requirements for the elevator pitch on the resources page of the Innovation ANU Website (www.anu.edu.au/InnovationANU). There is also a good overview of an elevator pitch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq0tan49rmc.

An executive summary is similar to a written version of the elevator pitch and outlines many of the relevant elements of your concept and idea and why it will be a success. This should be a two page document without images or other visual elements. There is an overview of the requirements for the executive summary on the resources page of the Innovation ANU Website (www.anu.edu.au/InnovationANU). The executive summary should be submitted in word (.doc) or pdf formats by midday, Tuesday 22nd April. Late submission will rule participants ineligible for this award.

Product and Market Definition for Innovation

Greetings from the Product and Market Definition seminar by John Hemphill from Pyksis. This is one of a series by ANU Innovation to encourage staff and students to innovate:

This seminar will focus on the difference between an idea and a product and going from an idea to the product. It will then focus on the right market to target, market segmentation and the right approach to market analysis and validation.

Last week's seminar was replaced by a "speed dating" event, where budding innovators presented their ideas and then invited others to join there team. This was entertaining, as well as informative.

As well as the educational content of these events, there is excellent catering from "The Vanilla Bean" cafe. One extra source of entertainment this week is that four people were working on the electronic information sign in the foyer, next to the Jackie Chan Research Center. The people had the front of the electronic sign open and were working on the display.

This week's seminar was a conventional format with slides and talk by John Hemphill. This went through the process of working out if an invention is a good idea: what problem does it solve? Who has done it before? Will people pay for it? My favourite comments from the evening, was a quote from motoring writer Jeremy Clarkson on the topic of Tata India buying Range Rover: "What would Ghandi say?".

Also mentioned:

• Presentation by John Hemphill

• Market size estimator by John Hemphill

• The InnovationXchange (IXC)
• Nine Sigma