Dean Clark, thank you very much for, for talking with me this morning about technology commercialization. I'd like to start with talking about the, this new team program, relatively new team program at Rochester. Why did it come about? >> Well I was, I've been involved in start ups myself over the years, and had a number of friends and colleagues who worked in the venture capital world. . . And, you know, the, the continuing message I always heard was that, If you go to a college campus, the, you typically see the business school and the engineering school competing, around entrepreneurship,for who owns it, if you will. And the point is, is that it, neither of them actually own it. They own it, they co-own it at best, and, so the advice I got was, you know, when you end up leading an engineering school make sure you develop a partnership with the business school around entrepreneurship in particular. And so when I came to the University of Rochester, that was one of my first goals was to really see if we could pull together a program that bridged the two schools. And so we've, we've been doing that for the past few years and, it's been growing at a pretty good pace, kind of on a doubling factor every year since we launched the program. >> How do the, how do the VCs and the how does the investment world view, or how should they view the changes that are going on to bring engineering and business together? >> I think, I mean the VC world has evolved pretty significantly itself. I think and, and, you know, I think that area that you hear a lot of discussion about is, you know, the early seed funding for companies. You know, for some of the venture capitalists, you know, who have a tremendous amount of capital to put to work, it's hard to manage many, many small companies, I mean, it just becomes impossible to keep track of things. So they tend to focus, many of them, on the larger investment opportunities. That doesn't mean they don't have a, you know, a dedicated effort, you know, for talent identification in the, in the seed world. You know, if you will, but, but you, you really have to be efficient in terms of how you manage those resources. Universities need to be far more outward-facing. You know, we've renamed our office here, and kind of redefined its mission. From a tech transfer office to UR ventures, and the concept is is that early on in the university, we need to think about ideas from a venture creation, perspective. And so, perhaps some of the ideas we can help. We have a technology development fund that provides seed funds, if you will, to move an idea forward so it's more attractive or more, or better ready to translate to the external community, whether it's for licensing or for a new venture creation. And to build stronger and deeper, relationships with, with corporate sector. So that we are well tied into them in terms of, talent placement, in terms of, you know, our efforts around research and licensing of intellectual property. And collaborating, essentially, because you know there's been a down sizing,you know, among major research corporations in the United States in terms of the research component or effort. So it's a natural, extension to leverage the research operations at universities, ins, but, you know, we tend not, we tend to be good, really good at the ARM, we do a little bit of R & D, but we really don't go to the market. >> Mm-hm. >> And so I think in the past, if you compared our efforts to a relay race, you know, where you had research, research and development, then, you know, market survey and sales. The reality is, is that we would do the R and we really weren't running the whole relay, we were trying to throw the baton way down the track and hope somebody caught it, you know? And so building this seamless handoff is really important, and for us, even going from R to R and D, the development side if you're going to focus on developing a prototype for example. You, it's back to that question, what market do you want to develop it for? The one with 30,000 customers or the one with 10 million, and if you don't have the expertise to identify those two markets, being partnered with a company who has that expertise, you know, would greatly help you focus and make sure that your technology commercialization is, is a success. So, so we've really focused on, you know, kind of restructuring our office from that perspective. >> Last question I have is, is around a technology commercialization revolution. If we look at the ability to translate out of research over the past 20 years, or 30 years, and then we have today, and then we look forward to the next 20 years, do you think, where do you think we are in the midst of a revolution? Do you think we are in a revolution? Where are we? >> I, yeah, I mean I think we absolutely are, and I think it's going to continue to evolve. I mean we've had, you know, in terms of code development, software, you know, that has been tremendous in terms of the, environment for sharing code, for collaborating on projects, for connecting people across the globe and the way they can work together. So, but we're going to, we're seeing the same thing in hardware now because you can manufacture on demand. You know with 3D printing, there a way to share hardware designs. So, you know, the interesting piece, you know, from that perspective is that, you know, perhaps you buy the design as opposed to the product, and you print the pieces at home, and you self assemble. I mean, you know we go to big box stores and a lot of the furniture things that you pick up, are things that you have to come home and assemble yourself. Well I'm not suggesting at the moment we, we print furniture, but there's certain things that you could print and assemble at home. That would mean you'd never actually have to go to the store to make the purchase. And so you begin to buy the idea or the design. The other interest area from, for that is that is that you can begin to work in markets that might not have the scale for a large company to pursue. You know, I had a student who had need for prosthetics at one time. And his goal was to create a community that would design prosthetics with specialized function. So if you actually built a device that had an exchangeable, if the adapting plate if you will to connect it were interchangeable, you could print different prosthetic limbs for different intended purposes. You might not have a market large enough for that, but you could, because of 3D printing and the, the change in the way we can manufacture, you can have a community address that market, sometimes share the design, sometimes for profit. But the reality is, I think we're going to see very different, market niches evolve as a result of the ability to manufacture, on demand. >> If, if we come back to this university in 20 years with this concept of technology commercialization, what do you think we're going to see that's different? >> I think you'll see a university that is even more connected to the local community and the community beyond, in the, in our nation. You'll see a university that's working more closely with the corporate sector, In terms of taking on projects that are, you know, of important to society. And I think you'll see a much more innovative spirit, I mean, we have innovative scientists and engineers and humanists, and, you know, there's a lot of innovation at the university, so I guess I shouldn't, I dont want to say that it doesn't exist currently, but I think the, the goal of taking those ideas and translating them more quickly to society from a commercial perspective, I think we'll see a lot more of that. Because I think, you know to be quite honest, if you look at the research and development portfolio of the U.S., the universities are really the engine behind that, and we have the dependence is, we have a growing dependence upon that in our nation, so it's our responsibility to make sure that happens.
