The Huntsville, AL, nonprofit business incubator BizTech and the University of Alabama in Huntsville have formed a partnership called the Technology Innovation and Commercialization Alliance. The collaboration will “provide a continuum of care for companies, entrepreneurs, faculty, and students” and “an outlet for intellectual properties developed at UAH,” says businessman David Karabinos, who chairs the BizTech board. Located adjacent to the university, BizTech focuses on assisting start-ups and small companies in information technology, energy, biotechnology, and health care by providing office space, mentoring, access to investors, training, and business support services. The three-year agreement will complement the university’s tech transfer mission by providing an incubator for IP commercialization, a “home” for the university’s spinoff companies, and a location for UAH students to gain real-world entrepreneurial experience. “The proximity was a factor,” says Kannan Grant, director of UAH’s Office of Technology Commercialization. “Students can cross the street to be interns for the spinoffs.” At the same time, BizTech will benefit from getting a number of highly qualified client prospects with varying degrees of developed IP. “A lot of ideas fall dead on the floor because they had no way to be realized,” Karabinos says. “We developed the outlet for them.”<\/p>\n