Conference attempts to foster innovation among universities
BYLINE: By DAVE SKRETTA, Associated Press Writer
One day a company called KCBioMedix could produce technology that helps teach babies to nurse. Another, called ImmunoGenetix Therapeutics, could develop an HIV vaccine.
The challenge for both will be figuring out a way to tap into grant money, build a promising idea into a viable company, and catch the attention of investors who can provide the economic means to take their innovations to market.
That's the purpose of the Big 12 Innovation and Capital Formation Conference on Thursday at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. It will bring together administrators and researchers from the colleges within the athletic conference and pair them with industry experts and venture capitalists, providing a venue to exchange ideas and build working relationships.
"The big deal is about opportunity," said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of the Kauffman Foundation. "We're taking the idea of branding from the Big 12 and thinking about it in a context of collaboration."
The conference, which is part of national Entrepreneurship Week USA, is the first major event for the Big 12 Center for Economic Development, Innovation and Commercialization, an organization founded by Texas-based entrepreneurs Pike Powers and Ron Kessler. Its purpose is to promote university research as a means of spurring economic development in the Midwest.
"The root of it is grounded in the Big 12's own motto, 'Together We're Better,'" said Powers, an Austin, Texas-based attorney and chair of the Texas Technology Initiative. "We want to capitalize on that and take it to a different place."
That might mean researchers at Iowa State, Nebraska and Kansas State would collaborate in developing cellulosic ethanol. Researchers at Texas A&M might have part of the answer to mad cow disease, while scientists at Iowa State have another part. The University of Oklahoma and University of Texas might work together in developing new navigation systems.
Conference topics will focus on clean energy, information technology, animal health and food safety, wireless communications, biotechnology and life sciences, and medical devices.
"Right now, every idea is operating in a vacuum," said former U.S. Rep. Tom Osborne, who will deliver the keynote address. "Sometimes universities don't have a very clear idea as to what their research is worth."
Osborne, the former University of Nebraska football coach, said the Midwest is at an economic disadvantage when it comes to fostering new ideas. Most venture capital is in California's Silicon Valley, an area around Boston, and the research triangle in North Carolina.
Those areas prey upon technology and ideas that come from Big 12 universities, luring them away with the resources to develop and market the innovations, Osborne said.
"I saw a map recently that indicated venture capital in millions of dollars and Nebraska was blank," Osborne said. "Apparently we didn't even have more than a million dollars, and Iowa, Kansas, and some degree Missouri and Oklahoma, are really in that same boat.
"What that means is a lot of people with really great ideas and some innovative technologies tend to gravitate toward the coasts."
Besides panels and round-table discussions, 36 startups will have 30 minutes to pitch their ideas and receive feedback from venture capitalists and industry experts. KCBioMedix and ImmunoGenetix, both formed by researchers at the University of Kansas, are two of them.
"Those are prime examples that could leave the area, go to the coast, and find prime investors," said Mike Peck, a general partner in Illinois-based Open Prairie Ventures.
"We're seeing a lot of really interesting university technology coming out of all the Big 12 schools," Peck said. "This forum is a great opportunity to bring all these together in one building. As an investor, it's a great opportunity to have things come to us."
On the Net:
Big 12 Center for Economic Development, Innovation and Commercialization: http://www.big12cedic.com/