Inventors work with students to create new business plans

U researchers developing companies from new technology can start from scratch and learn the inner workings of business and marketing plans, or let students do it for them.

The Lassonde New Venture Development Center, which the U launched in 2002, has been creating a collaboration between students and companies to create new businesses.

“Twenty-five companies we helped are still in business,” said Michael Garff, student director of the program.

The center filters through hundreds of invention ideas sent from the Technology Commercialization Office of the U every year and, under the guidance of Center Director Troy D’Ambrosio, they choose 10 of the inventions they feel have educational value and commercialization possibilities.

The team of 20 students is separated into groups of three to four and works with an inventor to write a business plan, obtain grants and find strategic partners to commercialize the product.

D’Ambrosio said students receive a scholarship and work more than 20 hours a week, as if it were a job. They work with inventors on products ranging from medical devices to energy software.

“One invention we worked with measures eye movement and can be used as a lie detector,” Garff said.

New Venture also assisted Headwaters Clean Carbon Services, the first U start-up company. With help from the U’s center, the company recently entered into a joint venture with Brian McPherson, a civil and environmental engineering professor hired by the U as part of the Utah Science Technology and Research initiative, to work on a project to push carbon dioxide underground and reduce harmful gasses from the air.

Dorthy Isackson, a doctoral bioengineering student, said this is her first year with the center and she hopes to gain more experience with business plan development and market research.

“My mentorship with Troy is priceless,” Isackson said. “He has experience, knowledge and expertise. He knows everything.”

The center is now accepting applications for the 2009-2010 school year from graduate students in business or engineering. Applicants must be able to work 10 hours a week if accepted and attend a meeting every Friday morning for three hours the first month of the semester.

“Students get great experience working with actual companies and not just theoretically,” D’Ambrosio said.

Garff said that applicants should also be passionate about market research and interested in becoming an entrepreneur.

“They should be excited to get their hands dirty and go to work,” he said.

Interested students can apply at the center’s Web site, www.lassonde.utah.edu.

“This has been the most valuable piece to my education, and I recommend it to anyone,” Garff said.

k.starker@chronicle.utah.edu

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