Looking forward to checking out the Minnebar on Saturday! Would love to add my name at the end of the list, but I don’t know how to request a wiki login.

Karin

http://www.tcbmag.com/dailydevelopments/dailydevelopments/98776p1.aspx
University of Minnesota Researchers Publish New Nervous System Discoveries – Two researchers hope their findings can lead to a breakthrough in Parkinson’s and spinal cord treatment

The MN Cup does indeed remind us every year that U of M graduates continue to start up great companies, keep them here, and create jobs in our state.

There has been much written lately and personally, I think some key points that we all need to think about :

– The U is critical to the eco-system of the state and our economy through the IP it generates. So much IP, whether it is commercialized at the U or as has been more common in the past – inspired through research at the U and then finds it’s way into the commercial environment years later – we are all great beneficiaries of the talent that comes from the U, the technology and the economic improvement that it generates.

– Tech Commercialization is a long term game. You don’t turn on the switch and watch royalties poor in tomorrow. Tim Mulcahy and people like Doug Johnson, Jessica Zeaske, Dick Sommerstand and others have been working for a couple of years to put in place a more robust infrastructure to support commercialization and we likely won’t see the true dividends of that work for years as it takes so long for products to go from the lab to the end customer.

When people look with alarm at the rapidly declining revenue stream of royalties to the U – there are real world issues about lost revenue to the U that it’s come to depend on. This is a lot of money with no replacement. Further, expectations for how long it will take to replace that revenue need to be realistic.

– While much is being done today at the U to make it a better environment for commercialization, there is one change to my knowledge that is yet to take place. In an environment where the norm is “publish or perish”, the pursuit of tech commercialization is not though of as a noble pursuit or one that will bolster the resume of a professor or researcher. This attitude does need to change as we may find more professors / researchers working on interesting technology go to the next step and explore personalization if it wasn’t a career dead end for them personally.

At the MN Cup (http:www.minnesotacup.org), we see a great many entries each year that come from University Alumns and active U of M researchers where we see some pretty amazing thinking that includes the results of tech commercialization.

We hope to see this trend continue and far more importantly, we believe that we all need to support this area of Tech Commercialization as it benefits entrepreneurs and the business environment around us all.