The University of Alaska Fairbanks has launched a new business incubator aimed at helping university scientists and inventors move their ideas from the laboratory into the private sector.
The UAF Center for Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship will augment existing public and private sector services to convert university inventions and intellectual property from concepts into fledgling businesses.
“There are lots of ways a university can benefit the state,” said Gwen Holdmann, director of the UAF Office of Intellectual Property and Commercialization, which will oversee the new center. “One of those ways is to push that intellectual property into the private sector.”
UAF has worked for many years to commercialize research discoveries. In 2012, it created the commercialization office, which works with researchers and other university entrepreneurs on early steps such as registering patents and making invention disclosures. Holdmann said ideas have stalled too often because they needed additional resources or specialized expertise. The new incubator will provide that targeted assistance, maturing new ideas generated by UAF research and licensing the products directly to the private sector or through new spinoff companies.
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Source: Alaska Business
UA Workforce Development News 