Innovation Institute to support student inventors

Drew Haley, a senior majoring in finance, said student inventors must consider the cost-effectiveness of their creations.

“I think it’s helpful for [students] to make an invention that’s going to have a strong impact,” Haley said. “Students need to understand how processes work to come up with an invention that’s cost-effective, number one.”

A new consolidation of creative and money-minded efforts could help budding inventors receive a kickback in the marketplace. 

Patricia Beeson, provost and senior vice chancellor, announced in November the launch of Pitt’s Innovation Institute, which is an ongoing collaboration between the Office of Technology Management, Office of Enterprise Development and Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence. According to its coordinators, the institute will consolidate the three departments’ efforts to better support students developing and marketing their ideas on campus and throughout the region.

The expansion of the Innovation Institute will span several years. 

“Forming this comprehensive institute will allow previously separate units to integrate their resources and avoid duplication of services,” Beeson said in a statement. 

Haley agreed that the combination of talents will enhance innovational success. 

“I think the [Innovation] Institute will help those that come up with an invention,” Haley said. “Where people in business come in is they’ll be the ones that, after the invention is made, will help move it to that commercialized product.”

Marc Malandro, the Office of Technology Management director and the Innovation Institute interim director, said the Innovation Institute is currently addressing administrative tasks to merge the three offices. He said he predicts the institute’s development will take at least two to three years, and it will need about five additional years to reach culmination.

Over the next several years, the merging advisors, faculty and consulting students will work together to “get the wheels rolling” on the Innovation Institute, according to Malandro. The institute will hire new employees and plan events leading to its full development.

According to Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence founder Ann Dugan, the Gardner Steel Conference Center, located at the intersection of Thackeray Avenue and O’Hara Street, will house the new institute. The space will undergo renovation this semester, and it should be completed next spring.

Dugan said the Office of Technology Management focuses more on working with students and faculty on commercializing their inventions, whereas the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence interacts more with businesses in the community. 

“We could do better with moving our technologies and communications within the business communities,” Dugan said. “It’s not combining them, but it’s more of a collaboration under an innovation umbrella.” 

Advancing the groundwork

The Innovation Institute will build upon educational courses and presentations already in place by the merging offices, according to Malandro.

 According to the Office of Technology Management’ 2013 annual report, the office offered courses that provided tips for scientists and inventors considering the commercialization of their innovations. 

The report also said the Office of Technology Management and the Office of Enterprise Development offered presentations and workshops through the Office of Human Resources’ Faculty and Staff Development Program, which encouraged researchers to pursue commercialization.

Coordinators also plan to incorporate the voices of students who work in the merging offices. 

About 20 students work at the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence. Student interns from the law, business and engineering schools work at the Office of Technology Management. The students that work with these offices provide consulting services to the business owners within the region, according to Dugan.

The students work with one of the professional full-time consultants from the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence, and together they work on real-world business tactics — including market research, business plan writing, financial forecasting or information technology use and analysis — for the local business community. 

“We need to really get the students’ input in terms of how we’re going to make [the Innovation Institute] better,” Malandro said. “We see students as an integral part.”

Pitt’s leadership in the field of innovation has already seen success.

Pitt received more than $6.5 million in total revenue from its commercialization activities — including startup companies and product sales — during the 2013 fiscal year. The revenue included $4.1 million in licensing revenue and $2.4 million in patent expense reimbursement from licensees, according to the Office of Technology Management report. 

Malandro explained that when inventions become commercialized, after all expenses are recovered, the Office of Technology Management allocates revenues to respective parties. The allocation of revenues include 30 percent to the inventor, 30 percent to the Patent Rights Fund, 15 percent to the department of that inventor, 10 percent to the University Development Fund to provide academic resources and 15 percent to the Office of Technology Management.

For student inventors, the new Institute could streamline the process between idea and monetary return.

“For our faculty and students who have innovations that they’d like to get out into the marketplace, there will be a much more consistent pathway to reach out to the business community,” Dugan said.

Opportunities for idea growth 

The Innovation Institute will host a number of events throughout the semester.

Startup Weekend will take place from Jan. 24 at 5 p.m. to Jan. 26 at 2:30 p.m. in the William Pitt Union Ballroom. Startup Weekend is a hands-on event that occurs globally and connects entrepreneurs with aspiring entrepreneurs to experiment with startup ideas, according to its website.

Babs Carryer, an entrepreneurship professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Pitt, and Mark Visco, a Pitt student, marketer and entrepreneur, organize the event at Pitt. 

Over the weekend, participants will work as teams to organize a company proposal around a startup idea that they are given. 

“Teams organically form around the top ideas, and then it’s a 54-hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, developing and market validation,” Visco said in an email.

Visco said participants present their projects in front of local entrepreneurial leaders to gain critical feedback at the end of the weekend. 

In addition to Startup Weekend, the Innovation Institute will host the Randall Family Big Idea Competition through a series of elimination rounds that begin on Feb. 8 and conclude on April 10.

The Randall Family Big Idea Competition, which is held each spring, has hosted up to 60 teams of aspiring entrepreneurs who compete for the funds and resources to launch their own business and actualize their hopes and dreams.

Last year, Pitt’s David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership hosted the competition. The event was previously hosted by Pitt’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence from 2009 through 2012. 

The top five teams that participated in last year’s competition received a total of $85,000. 

Four grand prizes, each worth $20,000, will incite this year’s teams to market their ideas. A winning team from an additional “wild-card” category will receive $5,000.

“Not only will [the participants] be able to have much more support and assistance, but it always takes money to commercialize something, so there’s a nice price on it,” Dugan said. 

Carryer, who will also organize the competition, said the visibility provided by the Innovation Institute will bring the competition “much more to the fore for students and faculty.” 

Malandro echoed her confidence. 

“It’s the first time we’ve offered a number of different programs from different schools,” Malandro said. “You’ll walk out with a business opportunity.”

The business sector 

Dugan said Pitt’s business community will also reap rewards from the Innovation Institute.

“I think the business community will benefit, because they’ll have access to innovations they didn’t before,” Dugan said. 

According to the Office of Technology Management’s annual report, Pitt faculty members, staff members and students submitted 254 invention disclosures, or confidential reports of ideas, to the office. These disclosures included plans for software, medical devices, processor inventions and coding.  

Dugan said the market ultimately determines the financial worth of the inventions, based on its interest in the product. For instance, Dugan used Gatorade’s commercialization through sports as a way to increase value. 

Faculty within the business school agree that the institute will provide concrete resources for aspiring entrepreneurs.

James Craft, a professor of business administration, said students’ applications of ideas within a real-world context is critical to their commercial success.

“The new Innovation Institute at the University is an important step forward as an integrative effort to encourage and stimulate the development of new ideas, services and products,” Craft said in an email.

Brett Crawford, a clinical assistant professor of business administration, said the Innovation Institute provides a tangible space for students and faculty across campus and throughout the community to work together.  

“This allows the University to structure resources and knowledge throughout the various departments in concert to improve economic growth, regional sustainability and the commercialization of ideas that solve problems and address opportunities,” Crawford said in an email.