Ignite Short Course – Commercializing Academic Technologies

February 5-28, 2022

Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

Boston, MA, USA

Ignite Short Course – Commercializing Academic Technologies

This short course uses a series of case studies to illustrate how to take a new, research-based, technology to market. The course is based on the instructor’s own experience of co-founding many academic spin-outs and draws heavily on the ‘lean’ approach to new venture creation.

Who Should Attend?

Academic and other researchers who wish to commercialize their own technologies
Academic technology transfer managers who advise them
Commercial managers of early stage, technology-based ventures
Managers within technology-based businesses who wish they were better at mentoring their own researchers

Course Benefits

Understand the ‘lean’ approach to new venture creation in the context of academic research commercialization
Learn about the elements of a commercial strategy and how this evolves over time
Gain the knowledge of how to frame any venture idea as a hypothesis and know how to test and refine that hypothesis
Learn how to take a ‘customer-centric’ view of a technology, whether that customer be a user, partner or investor

Course Topics

Five Elements of a Commercial Strategy
Making Commercial Choices: Proceeding by Experiment or Research?
The Importance of a Precise ‘Plan A’ Commercial Hypothesis as a Starting Point
Testing your Hypothesis on Users, Partners and Investors
The Use and Abuse of Early Stage ‘Seed’ and Other Soft-Funding

Instructor

Jeff Skinner
Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Jeff Skinner is the Executive Director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at LBS and a Teaching Fellow in Strategy & Entrepreneurship. He directs entrepreneurship programs and advises dozens of new student and academic ventures.

Prior to his current position, Jeff was Commercial Director at University College London (UCL), where he built the Technology Transfer Division, including the creation of two seed-funds. Working alongside senior academics, he co-founded more than 30 technology-based spin outs that collectively raised more than £30 million in first round capital.

Jeff remains deeply involved in technology commercialization through teaching, consulting and speaking around the world. He chairs the Review Committee of the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals – the global technology transfer professional body – and is past president of the leading U.K. and European Technology Transfer Associations (PraxisAuril and ASTP). He is author of the Leadership Foundation’s publication Commercialisation Skills for Academics and Researchers and has written more than 20 teaching case studies, covering many aspects of university technology transfer. Jeff has also spoken at TEDx.

Before joining UCL, Jeff led technology commercialization at Hoechst Celanese Photonics in New Jersey and was previously photonics research manager at General Electric. His first degree was in physics, and he holds a Ph.D. in thin film photonics from UCL and a M.B.A. from LBS.