| Outcome/accomplishment:
NSF's Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM)
Systems Engineering Research Center (ERC), based at North Carolina State
University (NCSU), has a new regime for preparing academic researchers
to deploy new technologies into industry. In conjunction with representatives
from North Carolina’s Small Business and Technology Development Center
(SBTDC), FREEDM held an “Innovation Bootcamp” for students, faculty, and
small business leaders with the goal of providing information that will
help parties on both sides get research innovations to the marketplace.
Impact/benefits:
The camp fulfills a goal of the ERCs, which is to create an “innovation
ecosystem” in engineering research that links discovery to technological
innovation. The camp provides information that helps engineering
researchers transition R&D (research and development) to realizing
new profitable opportunities. For too long, the culture of academic
research has focused on discovery while many young researchers lose sight
of the potential innovative and commercial applications of their discoveries.
Explanation/ background:
The Innovation Bootcamp was a day-long meeting held at NCSU. The take-home
message was “You don’t have to be a savvy business person to be an innovator.”
Ewan Pritchard, the Innovation Bootcamp coordinator and FREEDM’s Director
of Industry and Innovation, reinforced this message by saying, “What we
need is a culture of harvesting innovation and finding some methods for
doing so.”
More than 100 participants
packed a classroom to hear several presentations including researchers’
roles in the commercialization process, fundamentals of assessing market
opportunities, and intellectual property—defining patents, copyright laws,
trademarks and trade secrets. Eric Green, a student in FREEDM’s research
experiences for undergraduates (REU) program, noted that the seminar taught
him where to find answers to marketing and business-related questions.
Saman Babaei, a Ph.D. student, said, “If I want to start my own company
or run a business I will use the methods I learned here.” The
Innovation Bootcamp concluded with presentations from Dr. Jay Baliga, an
NCSU researcher with a large number of profitable patents who is also the
leader of FREEDM’s research thrust on Post-Silicon Devices, and Pritchard,
who addressed FREEDM’s innovation process. Baliga brought the earlier
classroom lessons to life with a sweeping retrospective of his extensive
experiences as a corporate researcher, innovator, entrepreneur, and businessman—a
talk that was peppered with his sharp wit, keen insights, and hard lessons
learned.
The mission of the FREEDM
ERC is to provide fundamental breakthrough technology in energy storage
and power semiconductor devices. At the end of the ten years of NSF
support, the Center hopes to provide breakthrough improvements in the areas
of post-silicon power semiconductor devices, solid state transformers,
energy storage devices, and distributed smart grid control to the public.
The Innovation Bootcamp was designed to help meet this goal. |
