HCC Students Speed Innovation to the Marketplace

By Lev Volynskiy

Milton Berle is quoted as saying, "If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." Entrepreneurial students at Howard Community College (HCC) have learned how to build doors for technology, and how to walk through them to commercial success.
Students enrolled in HCC's "Technology Transfer From Invention to Marketplace" classes learn how to get technology innovations out of the laboratory and into use. This is the second year that this experiential course, funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology Assessment Program (TAP) grant, has allowed students to become a bridge between the academic, scientific and business communities to evaluate and report on the commercial viability of new inventions.

Win-Win-Win
The NSF-TAP grant is based on the belief that the future of invention in America begins with encouraging a passion for science and technology in today's students. The course has become a win-win situation for all involved. Partnering research labs, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU/APL), and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), gain additional resources for evaluating technologies and assessing markets. The private sector gains enhanced access to government-funded innovations that have potential for licensing and/or business development. Students get hands-on experience in tech transfer as well as develop teamwork, critical thinking and decision-making skills.
The course content explains licensing, royalties, joint ventures and cooperative research and development. Small teams of students, with mentorship and guidance from volunteer scientists and tech transfer specialists, each conduct a market analysis of an invention from a participating research lab and prepare a written technology assessment report.
There are no prerequisites for the course, which is designed for high school as well as college students, for those seeking a degree or continuing education, and for those interested in either the technology or the marketing side of innovation enterprise.

A Broad Spectrum
Inventions come from a broad spectrum of technology, including optical sensors and chemical, mechanical, aeronautical, software and electronic devices. In the inaugural class of fall 2006, four student teams successfully completed their course and have gone on to realize commercial success. The team Batter Up worked with USDA to assess a healthier frying batter, and went on to form a new company, Crisp Tek LLC, with a product license currently pending. The Med-E-Tag team, working with JHU/APL, already has an exclusive option agreement on electronic patient medical tags.
Two additional student teams have actively marketed their assessments: the Space Temp team with an invention of micro devices for temperature control in space, and the Term-A-Mite team with an invention for natural biological termite control.
In the spring 2007 semester, TimeCapps evaluated new technology to help people track their last dosage of medication; Momsense assessed fiber optic sensor instrumentation to detect bilirubin levels in newborns; and TameFlame focused on a technology to inhibit burning in fabrics.
At the end of each semester, students present their findings to a juried panel and audience of entrepreneurs, technology transfer specialists and venture capitalists at HCC's "Entrepreneurial Celebration." Last spring, more than 150 college and business community members attended.
For budding entrepreneurs that hear opportunity knocking, registration is currently underway for the spring 2008 ENTR-215 Technology Transfer course, with two sections to choose from, either Tuesday or Wednesday nights from 7-10 p.m.

Lev Volynskiy is HCC's associate project manager for the NSF-TAP program grant, in the college's Business & Computer Systems division. He can be reached at lvolynskiy@howardcc.edu or 410-772-4431.