News

Center to link academic research, markets

Are the state’s colleges and universities leaving marketable research and technologies sitting on shelves gathering dust?

Kenan Sahin, one of the serial entrepreneurs who have enriched Massachusetts, thinks so. At his latest company, Tiax LLC in Cambridge, he has been focusing not simply on innovations but on the implementation of innovations — whether they come from Tiax’s laboratories or from the labs of its commercial and academic partners.

Now he wants to get educational institutions thinking along the same lines. So next month Tiax will open an Innovation Implementation Center at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst to introduce a culture of ”upstream implementation" in academic research labs.

Sahin defines upstream implementation as a process in which innovators and market strategists identify the highest value applications for new technologies and build prototypes of products. He sees this as the most promising and viable future model for the state’s technology businesses, supplanting the old mass production model.

”Upstream is high-value added and requires lots of cerebral power," he said, suggesting products could be designed and developed here and then licensed to low-cost producers elsewhere. ”Academics are superb at starting things, lousy in finishing them. Our contention is that if Massachusetts focused on creating this upstream implementation, we could create new industries and keep a lot of value in the state."

By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff

Full Story: http://www.boston.com/business/markets/articles/2005/08/21/center_to_link_academic_research_markets/

Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.