Translating Research Ideas to Business Models

Scientists and engineers who attended a joint ICTP-TWAS workshop seem to have caught the entrepreneurship bug. The intensive one-week workshop  titled "Entrepreneurship for Physicists and Engineers from Developing Countries" ran from 23 to 27 April 2012 and trained 38 participants from 20 developing countries.

Participants said that the workshop did more than just introduce them to the concepts of  innovation, intellectual property, technology transfer and commercialization. "It helped us change our mindset about approaching a research project," says Chandana Gamage, senior lecturer at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanaka. "The concept of deriving a sustainable business idea from research  is now clearer to me," he says.

Lare Yendoube who is a lecturer at Universite de Lome, Togo agrees. "I work in the field of photovoltaics that has a lot of commercialization potential, and yet many important aspects such as safeguarding intellectual property rights are not obvious to researchers like me who work in developing countries. We are in need of such training."

One of the workshop activities had the participants divided into teams and create a mock-ups of  business models based on a scientific innovation, which they presented to a panel. Judges on the panel (who were also speakers at the workshop) were impressed by the quality of the work presented. Gamage, who on the winning team, said that the activity not only help consolidate the concepts learnt through the week but also connect with other researchers with whom he hopes to collaborate and develop marketable research ideas.

"The workshop underlined the importance of building bridges between academia, industry, and investors," says Oluwale Billy Adegbola, African Institute for Science Policy and Innovation, Nigeria. "I understand that even if I am not an inventor I have an important role as an academic to connect with the industry," he adds.

Another Nigerian, Akinlade Bidemi Idayat from University College Hospital, Ibadan, concurs. "While we understand that every research idea cannot become a business idea, understanding how collaboration with industry works is important ," she says. " It might lead to marketable products but it might  also result in investments in research and obtaining grants."

The workshop was cosponsored by the American Physical Society (USA), Area Science Park (Italy), and the Institute of Physics (UK). The complete details of the activity can be found on the activity website.