Tony's involvement:
- Governance, Strategy building, Innovation management, Commercialisation of technology, Business growth.
- Phitek, Senztek, Auckland UniServices, Auckland materials accelerator, FRST, Vesper Marine, BEP Marine, SiFE.
Universities:
- Driven by knowledge, not financial success.
- Science led research has long lead times to completion (esp biotech).
- Little knowledge of market and competition.
- Commercialising research:
- validates the quality and relevance of the research.
- builds status.
Companies seldom engage in fundamental research.
University technology transfer companies:
- UniServices: ~80% revenue through contract work.
- Viclink
- Otago Innovation
- Canterprise: works regionally within itself.
Good to go to the company's CEO and build a relationship there.
Good entrepreneurs delegating work to others. Bad entrepreneurs do all the work themselves.
Catch-22 with patent protection: Have to wait for patent to come through before product/service can be released; once you have the patent you need to be prepared to fight infringements - can be a stumbling block for start-ups since cash is limited.
If there's one idea, there must be another that goes with it?
