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Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The University of Pittsburgh is a city campus complete with a 4-year accredited undergraduate program, which is complemented by numerous prestigious graduate programs such as the School of Medicine, School of Law, School of Pharmacy, and School of Business. The University of Pittsburgh received $759 million dollars 2013 to fund its various research endeavors. These research dollars have cultivated an environment that has fostered the growth of an incredibly young yet impressive entrepreneurial landscape. Pitt is a giant in life science innovation, partnering its engineering and business programs with the international conglomerate UPMC has yielded a plethora medical device inventions and innovations in addition to numerous patents, start-ups, and licensing opportunities. This success is trickling down through the ranks allowing students to become instrumental in large entrepreneurial pursuits. Programs such as the Coulter Program and CMI fund medical innovation and are beginning to recognize the untapped potential of undergraduate innovators. In addition opportunities like the Randall Family Big Idea Competition help support any venture at the university .Through special project funds and micro grants these programs are giving students a chance to contribute to Pitt’s entrepreneurial success. Undergraduate funding is an incredibly new standard for our entrepreneurial faculty and the overwhelming success of the pilot groups of undergraduate teams has ensured the sustainability of undergraduate funding for years to come.
Faculty Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Since 1996 Pitt has seen 98 start-up companies emerge, nine of which began in 2013. Many of these start-up companies emerge from life science research conducted by faculty members at Pitt. The faculty research is often funded by large government grants such as the NIH or NSF. However, that funding does not provide a viable means for launching a potential business from a research facility. The University has turned to Coulter program and CMI to facilitate the transition of these ideas to the marketplace. The University of Pittsburgh received $3.54 million from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation in 2011 to fund translational research to be supplemented by $1.5 million dollars from the schools of Medicine and Engineering respectively. The grant covers five years of funding and was awarded to only six universities nationally. The goal of the Coulter program grant is to accelerate the introduction of new technologies to address current clinical deficiencies. CMI (Center for Medical Innovation) is an initiative that is similar to the Coulter program however, is Pitt-specific. CMI was started through the Coulter initiative and is intended to be the perpetual seeding program after the Coulter grant has finished. With these programs Pitt faculty has been overwhelming successful in moving their innovative technologies into the marketplace.
University Technology Transfer Function
The Office of Technology and Management at the University of Pittsburgh is responsible for disclosing and managing all innovations and inventions. The process one follows to acquire intellectual property is as follows:
- Meet with a group interested in pursuing a project
- Define the parameters of the project within the scientific group including:
- Product specifications
- Necessary collaborators
- Proposed budget
- Meet with the Office of Technology and Management to conduct relevant patent searches
- Determine whether the product is worth pursuing
- Acquire funding for approved product
- Design and build a prototype
- Bring prototype to TTC committee (group of legal experts)
- TTC committee makes a ruling on whether or not prototype is fit to patent
- Submit patent application
At this point Pitt is new to the entrepreneurial world so the majority of effort in patenting the life science innovations and inventions has been through CMI and Coulter. However, CMI and Coulter are looking to from more concrete relations between the OTM, research laboratories, and the department of Bioengineering. We hope to cultivate a perpetual seed funding program to drive future life science innovation and invention.
University-Industry Collaboration
The University of Pittsburgh, at this point, does not have strong ties with large industry to provide students an arena in which to practice entrepreneurship. Rather, Pitt looks to build companies and fund small ventures giving students a more hands on experience. The reasoning for this is quite simple; the University of Pittsburgh has at its disposal UPMC and millions of dollars in research funding. This contributes to a gold mine of market needs and clinical deficiencies. Pitt’s major downfall is its lack of collaboration, until recently the departments did not work together to take advantage of these potential products and businesses. The new age of student-driven entrepreneurship is changing that. Student organizations, like Design Hub, pair student composed design teams with physicians at UPMC to help prototype products that physicians see a need for.Students are working hands-on with clinicians and are bringing small ideas to life, which are leading to larger successes down the road. Many of these ideas start as small projects but turn into start-up companies and small businesses. The bottom line is industry collaboration is not necessary to make entrepreneurs at Pitt successful, better collaboration between departments will lead to a booming age of entrepreneurial partnership between UPMC and the rest of the university.
Regional and Local Economic Development Efforts
The City of Pittsburgh is, perhaps, one of the quickest and most vibrantly emerging entrepreneurial landscapes in the country. Pittsburgh is well known for low labor costs and having strong student graduates (36,000 annually from 36 colleges and universities). Further $3 billion is invested in R&D per year and Pittsburgh is located within 500 miles of half of U.S. power buyers. Fun fact: the Economist recently named Pittsburgh “Most Livable Place in the Continental U.S.” [1]
Important entrepreneurial developments in Pittsburgh include:
The recent opening of a local “Tech Shop” branch. This “Tech Shop” houses machine shops and electronic labs for design and is posed to become a design hub.
Thrill Mill- a non-profit organization that hosts business plan competitions an incubator space, and great networking opportunities for budding entrepreneurs.
Startup Weekend Pittsburgh (October 18th- 21st) will follow the national movement, allowing anyone to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers.
Overall, it is evident that Pittsburgh startups are beginning to take off. Companies like Astrobotic (set to be the next to reach the moon with their lunar rover and win the Google XPrize) are budding and national entrepreneurial organizations like Venture for America are taking note. No doubt, Pittsburgh has the potential to be a startup machine in the next few years.
Landscape Canvas
Other
Karuna Relwani's Landscape Analysis (Presentation Summary)
Student Initiatives
- Opportunities for clubs to come up with products and seek patents
School Resources
- Primary entrepreneurship focus in School of Engineering, School of Business with target towards graduate students
- Support for funding and collaboration:
- Office of Enterprise Development
- Office of Technology Management
- Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence
- Big Idea Competition
- Center for Product Innovation
- Entrepreneurial Scholars Award
Welcome to the University of Pittsburgh's encyclopedia account of entrepreneurship (E) and innovation (I) opportunities on and around campus.
University Innovation Fellow: Karuna Relwani
Where to find What E&I-related in Pittsburgh