If you’re looking to network with thousands of technology transfer professionals, enhance your knowledge, or for opportunities to give back to the AUTM community, the AUTM Annual Meeting in Austin is the place to be in one week's time! Today’s guest is Ian McClure, Chair of the AUTM Board, who is here to share what you can expect from both the in-person and hybrid versions of this highly anticipated event. In This Episode: [01:22] The size of the upcoming AUTM Annual Meeting. [01:38] What to exp...
Feb 15, 2023•10 min
“Demographically diverse teams outperform non-diverse teams in terms of innovation, creativity, and complex problem-solving.” To promote and assist in the development of a more inclusive innovation ecosystem, Karen Maples and the rest of AUTM’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee created a powerful resource in the form of an AUTM EDI Toolkit. During this episode, Karen provides an overview of the four core components that are explored in depth in the Toolkit (understanding biases, me...
Feb 08, 2023•18 min
AUTM’s Better World Project recognizes and honors innovative technologies that have the potential to make a significant positive impact on society. In this episode, I speak with the three finalists for the Better Word Project Award. The first nomination is a novel protein sub-unit vaccine that has overcome issues relating to the cost, scalability, and storage of other vaccines. Nomination number two is the iStent ocular tube which treats glaucoma, an eye condition that is the leading cause of bl...
Feb 01, 2023•36 min
“Don’t underestimate the impact you can bring to the innovation ecosystem.” Culture shapes almost all aspects of society, including the innovation ecosystem. In today’s episode, we have our first guest from Singapore, Dr. Hui Ying Ang, who is here to provide us with a better understanding of the technology transfer field in her country. Hui Ying is an associate director with the Industry Liaison Office (ILO) from the National University of Singapore, and in this episode she explains how she firs...
Jan 25, 2023•19 min
Every year, hundreds of institutions take part in the AUTM Annual Licensing Activity Survey, and John Miner, as the Chair of the AUTM Metrics and Surveys Portfolio, plays an integral role in the production and dissemination of this very powerful tool. Since the early ‘90s, the AUTM Licensing Survey has been collecting data from universities, federal laboratories, and other research institutions with the aim of providing a holistic view of the trends in the technology transfer industry. In today’...
Jan 18, 2023•30 min
Historically marginalized population groups face unique barriers in the workforce. Today’s guest, Patricia (Pattie) Cullum, has experienced these barriers firsthand and is on a mission to eliminate them. Pattie is a Regional Technology Transfer Specialist at the US Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Technology Transfer Program. Pattie was chosen as Technology Transfer Rookie of the Year for her success in addressing educational gaps in the VA technology transfer p...
Jan 11, 2023•19 min
After working as an interrogator for the US Army and running a scuba shop (among other things), Trina spent 15 years working in technology transfer departments at educational institutions before moving to the Portland VA Medical Center, where she is currently a Technology Transfer Specialist (and the only VA technology transfer professional in the state of Oregon). Although her title contains the word specialist, her very diverse educational and career background makes her more of a generalist a...
Jan 04, 2023•19 min
For the last episode of the year, we are doing a deep dive into what AUTM’s 2022 advocacy activities have consisted of. It was a fruitful and energizing year for AUTM (though not without its fair share of challenges), and there is nobody better than today’s guest, Mike Waring, to share this overview with us. Mike has been involved in Washington politics for over 40 years and is currently a consultant to AUTM on advocacy issues and chair of AUTM’s Public Policy Advisory Committee. In this informa...
Dec 21, 2022•32 min
With a PhD and 20 years of experience working in the semiconductor field, Dr. Victor Lau makes for the perfect middleman between industry and academia. Today, he is the Associate Director of the Knowledge Transfer Office at the City University of Hong Kong. In this episode, Victor gives us insight into what technology transfer looks like in Hong Kong, how his office supports inventors and entrepreneurs, and some of the biggest challenges they face. International perspectives offer a valuable lea...
Dec 14, 2022•22 min
There is a common and dangerous misconception that IP rights merely serve as a way for big companies in wealthy countries to acquire more wealth. This is one of the key drivers behind the movement to expand the TRIPS waiver. During this episode, the Senior Vice President of the US Chamber of Commerce's Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC), Patrick Kilbride, explains why the TRIPS Agreement came into being in the first place, why the current TRIPS waiver is unnecessary, and why the proposed exp...
Dec 07, 2022•27 min
In the period following World War 2, government policy stipulated that whenever anything was invented using government funding, it would be put into the public domain. This may sound like an honorable idea, but the problem was that nothing was being commercialized because there was no incentive to do so. Since 1980, thanks to the Bayh-Dole Act, the commercialization of inventions has been in the hands of the inventors, and this has led the United States to become one of the most innovative natio...
Nov 30, 2022•31 min
Tribal communities comprise 4.3% of the Arizona population, but less than 1% of businesses in the state are Native American owned. Through the Native FORGE program, Brian Ellerman’s goal is to change that. They only received funding for the first time in September 2022, but through the success of the Native FORGE conference, the positive responses they have received from indigenous communities so far, and their commitment to professional development, Brian and his team have already begun to demo...
Nov 16, 2022•29 min
The Czech Republic may be a small country, but they are certainly not a small player in the technology transfer field. And that is largely thanks to today’s guest, Růžena Štemberková. Růžena is the Head of the TTO at the University of South Bohemia, the vice chair of Transfera.cz, and a member of a number of well-established technology transfer organizations. During our conversation, Růžena talks about the challenging leap she took into the world of technology transfer, how she has been working ...
Nov 09, 2022•25 min
Technology transfer has the ability to bring about enormous positive benefits for the world, and with the multitude of issues that we are currently facing, we need technology transfer professionals more than ever. The Director of Technology Management and Innovation at Khalifa University is Dr. Sami Bashir, our guest on today’s episode. During our conversation, Sami shares how his passion for R&D led him to the field of technology transfer and provides an overview of his experiences working ...
Nov 02, 2022•30 min
For the past 30 years, Matthew Bryan has played an integral role in the growth and innovation that has taken place at WIPO. Since he joined the organization as a young IP lawyer, it has grown from around 50 member states to 156! Matthew is the Director of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Legal and User Relations Division, heading up a 30-person strong team who hail from countries from Morocco to Japan. During this episode, he explains why the PCT process is a lot less complex than you may thi...
Oct 26, 2022•46 min
Out of 65 applicants across seven countries, the winner of the 2022 Better World Project was a lithium-ion battery recycling process that was invented by Yan Wang and commercialized by Todd Keiller and his Technology Commercialization team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). When the invention came across his desk, Todd’s first thought was, “Boy, this looks dangerous,” but when he began to understand its potential, he became fully invested in its world-changing capabilities. Tune in today ...
Oct 19, 2022•16 min
In honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, I'm speaking with David Petite, a proud Native American and a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa tribe. He is also a founder of the Native American Intellectual Property Enterprise Council, a non-profit organization helping Native American inventors and communities. He's also a technology pioneer. He was a co-founder of StatSignal Systems, Inc., the first business to patent and launch wireless mesh technology in the late 1990s. He is als...
Oct 12, 2022•25 min
Welcome to the first episode of AUTM on the Air. This episode is brought to you by Wellspring, a leading provider of Innovation Ops software. I’m excited to be talking to Bethany Loftin, an Interagency Policy & iEdison Specialist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). We’ll be talking about the recent redesign of iEdison, the online platform used to report taxpayer-funded innovations. Organizations use iEdison to request extensions and waivers, report progress, and not...
Oct 05, 2022•19 min
Today we have the pleasure of hearing from Theo Edmonds, JD, MHA, MFA. Theo is a co-founder of CU Denver’s Imaginator Academy, a cultural analytics strategy and futurist innovation hub. Theo is a skilled, energetic, culture futurist, and innovator with 25 years of senior level strategic national and international leadership experience, spent in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. As directing co-founder of CU Denver’s Imaginator Academy, Theo is a weaver of ideas who scouts global netwo...
Sep 28, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Today’s guest hails from a small country in the heart of Europe which most people know little about. Luxembourg’s economy was once based on agriculture and coal mining, but central to its success today is its thriving innovation ecosystem that is geared towards the creation and transfer of knowledge. Christophe Haunold is the Head of Partnership, Knowledge, and Technology Transfer at the University of Luxembourg, and the recently appointed President of ASTP. He believes that knowledge transfer i...
Sep 21, 2022•33 min
The collaborations that were formed during the COVID-19 pandemic epitomize the value of technology transfer and intellectual property. In today’s episode, Jennifer Brant, the Executive Director of the Innovation Council and the co-author of Unprecedented: The Rapid Innovation Response to COVID-19 and the Role of Intellectual Property , joins us to explain why! After providing an overview of the diverse range of work being done by the Innovation Council (from tackling the IP gender gap to looking...
Sep 14, 2022•40 min
This episode is brought to you from the headquarters of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Julio Raffo and Elodie Carpentier, Head of the Innovation Economy Section of the Department for Economics and Data Analytics at WIPO, and postdoc research fellow at WIPO respectively, are my guests on the show today. Join us for a discussion around WIPO’s diverse range of projects, what their research has shown about the impacts of war, COVID, and climate change on ...
Sep 07, 2022•24 min
TTO Iceland is proof that when it comes to the ability to make an impact, size doesn’t matter! Prior to the founding of TTO Iceland at the end of 2018, technology transfer was non-existent in Iceland. But thanks to today’s guests, Einar Mantyla and Susan Christianen, the country’s scientists and entrepreneurs now have a much greater chance of impacting society both nationally and internationally. Einar and Susan make up half of the small powerhouse team at TTO Iceland, and during this episode, w...
Aug 31, 2022•55 min
August 9th, 2022 was a monumental day for technology transfer! On this day, President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science bill into law, allocating $3.1 billion to help research organizations strengthen their capacity for technology transfer. This is the first time that the US Federal Government has authorized funding of technology transfer staff, patent and licensing expenses, and the like. In today’s episode, I am joined by the chairman of the AUTM board and Associate Vice President for Researc...
Aug 24, 2022•36 min
Wageningen University and Research (WUR) is one of the key players in what has become known as the Silicon Valley of Food and Agriculture, or “Food Valley.” For seven years in a row, WUR has ranked number one for agricultural sciences, and it currently also holds the top spot in environmental science and food technology. Furthermore, it is the only institution in the world that combines fundamental research and education with applied research in the agricultural, food processing, and environment...
Aug 17, 2022•1 hr 14 min
Will Charles and Nicola Johnstone, Executive Director and Head of IP at UniServices respectively, join us on the podcast this week to discuss how New Zealand’s largest university is making waves in the technology transfer space (for the last 2 years it was ranked number one in Time’s Higher Education University Impact Ratings!). UniServices is the University of Auckland’s technology transfer office, but as you will hear today, it is so much more than just that! Their vision is ‘Idea to Impact’ a...
Aug 10, 2022•59 min
Social innovation refers to the creation of a new product, approach, program etc. that supports social change. Inclusive social innovation is social innovation that has diversity, equity, and inclusion principles at its core. Inclusive Social Innovation is fundamental to all of the impactful work being done by the Social Innovation Hub (SIH) at the University of Calgary, of which today’s guest, Jordana Armstrong, is the Director. During this episode, Jordana shares the meandering journey that le...
Aug 03, 2022•47 min
Heartland Forward isn’t just a think tank, it’s a think and do tank! After spending 20 years as Chief Research Officer at the Milken Institute, today’s guest, Ross DeVol, is Heartland Forward’s president and CEO. During this episode, Ross explains the mission of Heartland forward, its four focal areas, and some of the key players who are involved. Ross also shares an overview of the most recent research they have conducted around technology transfer achievements in universities across the United...
Jul 27, 2022•23 min
Haley Moss is Florida’s first documented openly autistic attorney. She is also an author, artist, and advocate for embracing neurodiversity in the legal profession. When Haley was diagnosed with autism in the late 1990s, there was very little awareness about the disability. Although there is a lot more understanding and support today, we still have a long way to go. During today’s episode, Haley shares examples of the disabilities that are encompassed by the neurodiverse umbrella, and the broad ...
Jul 20, 2022•42 min
As the Assistant Vice Principal of Partnerships and Innovation, Jim Banting plays an invaluable role in contributing to supporting research, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the ecosystem within and around Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. It’s not hard to see why he is certain he has the best job in the world! During this episode, Jim explains how his office works to advance research, partnerships, and knowledge mobilization to strengthen Queens University’s local, national and global ...
Jul 13, 2022•36 min
