To create a company around a new technology requires both business acumen and technological knowhow. Entrepreneurs must know how to talk about science to scientists while scientists must learn how to explain a highly technical product or process to business audiences. That was one of the lessons learned for Ryan Goodnight, a member of the winning team of the 2010 Mays MBA Tech Transfer Challenge (TTC) hosted by the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship (CNVE) at Texas A&M University. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering, Goodnight had to learn how to explain technical details without overwhelming an audience that might have difficulty even pronouncing the name of the technology (”connection methodologies for interstitially insulated coaxial pipe”), let alone understanding its function and place in the market. Goodnight describes his team’s technology as a tube within a tube that uses wire mesh, Mylar film, and air as insulation between the two tubes.
The annual contest assigns a group of four to five first-year MBA students to a technology created at A&M and asks them to assess the product’s marketability. The process is a learning experience for the students and provides business insight to campus inventors who are working to commercialize their ideas. Past TTC technologies that are currently on the market or in final stages of testing including MacuCLEAR of Plano, TX, which is developing eye drops to combat leading causes of blindness and vision impairment such as dry age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, and CorInnova of College Station, TX, a medical device company that is developing minimally invasive technologies to enhance heart recovery.
Source: Mays Business Online