Entrepreneurship in Capstone Design: Has the Pendulum Swung Too Far?

The author supports entrepreneurial education for all interested students, but not at the expense of design education. He thinks we should develop business literacy among all of our students to prepare them for work in start-ups and established medical device companies, and provide opportunities for interested students to add entrepreneurial literacy to better prepare them to create new companies, either upon graduation or later in their careers. Capstone design courses should focus on helping students develop solid design skills and providing opportunities to apply the analytical tools learned in previous courses. Students should be encouraged, not required, to consider commercializing the results of their capstone projects, and interested students should be provided with support for doing so

Role of regional policies in promoting networking and innovation activity of firms

The success of firms and regions is increasingly defined by their innovation and learning capabilities. It has been emphasized in several studies that a local operational environment may have a positive impact on innovation activity of firms. From policy point of view, the relationship between firms and their local environment is an important research topic. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether there is a demand for regional policy makers in promoting innovative and networking activity of firms, and what are the appropriate strategies in this regard. The concept of innovative milieu provides a theoretical base for this study. The data used is based on personal interviews representing 30 high tech firms located in Jyväskylä Science Park in Finland. The results show that the firms appreciate an individual-level approach by policy makers which enables them to take the real needs of firms into consideration. A developed service structure, that is planned to meet the demand of new and established firms as well as possible, is an essential part of the well functioning operational environment. Supporting contacts with service providers and experts from different fields and organizing collective meetings for firms are important targets for the policy makers. In the innovation process, a commercial view of external part is considered very crucial. The small advances which alternate between the development of the innovation process and networks among firms and their interest groups could form a favourable path towards an operational environment with efficient innovative networks.

Commercialisation of research results – cooperation between science and business

When analysing the term commercialisation one should answer the crucial question: what mechanisms govern commercialisation of knowledge and technology as well as which resources and sources determine it. The article presents a theoretical deliberation concerning the development of issues related to the commercialisation of research results in the last century. A review of literature precedes the section on sources for the commercialisation of knowledge and technologies when considering research results and technology providers. The author claims that analysis of technological resources also determines the possibilities for the cooperation between science and business. It is important for the selection of the commercialisation strategy to describe technological resources and their complementarity. Strong technological resources and their market availability ensures independent technological development. However, a lack of technological resources or the chance to acquire them encourages an innovative organisation to pass know-how or technologies to another, capable organisation which is willing to commercialise this knowledge on the market. Frequently however when commercialising research results, organisations establish cooperation on the market in order to build resources to implement research results. This article, ‘Commercialisation of research results – cooperation between science and business’, is concluded with an example depicting the cooperation between scientists and business people in a new spin-off company set up in order to build technological resources and the market implementation of a device for measuring the structure of soft material surfaces.Article has been prepared based on Polish National Scientific Agency project - DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/05200. (Powstanie artykuł zostało sfinansowane ze środków Narodowego Centrum Nauki przyznanych na podstawie decyzji numer DEC-2011/01/B/HS4/05200”) Preparation and printing funded by the National Agency for Research and Development under project “Kreator Innowacyjności – wparcie dla Przedsiębiorczości akademickiej

Commercial potential of remote sensing data from the Earth observing system

The purpose was to assess the market potential of remote sensing value-added products from the Earth Observing System (EOS) platform. Sensors on the EOS platform were evaluated to determine which qualities and capabilities could be useful to the commercial user. The approach was to investigate past and future satellite data distribution programs. A questionnaire was developed for use in a telephone survey. Based on the results of the survey of companies that add value to remotely sensed data, conversations with the principal investigators in charge of each EOS sensor, a study of past commercial satellite data ventures, and reading from the commercial remote sensing industry literature, three recommendations were developed: develop a strategic plan for commercialization of EOS data, define a procedure for commercial users within the EOS data stream, and develop an Earth Observations Commercial Applications Program-like demonstration program within NASA using EOS simulated data

Sustainability in the product design: A review of recent development based on LCA

In order to achieve sustainable product design process, aspects such of environmental, economic and social should be balanced. This paper discussed on sustainability of product design, conceptual basis of life cycle assessment (LCA), review of LCA at several product design, methodology of proposed framework and discussion on strengths and limitations of LCA. This paper proposed to develop a framework for improving the product design process based on LCA tool. The aims is to calculate potential impact of environment, eco-nomic and social aspects during product design process. For environmental aspects, LCA tool will be used. For economic and social considerations, life cycle costing (LCC) and social life cycle assessment will be applied respectively. At the end, proposed framework are able to help designers to improve product design by considering all sustainability aspects

Current commercialization status of electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) digital microfluidics.

The emergence of electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) in the early 2000s made the once-obscure electrowetting phenomenon practical and led to numerous activities over the last two decades. As an eloquent microscale liquid handling technology that gave birth to digital microfluidics, EWOD has served as the basis for many commercial products over two major application areas: optical, such as liquid lenses and reflective displays, and biomedical, such as DNA library preparation and molecular diagnostics. A number of research or start-up companies (e.g., Phillips Research, Varioptic, Liquavista, and Advanced Liquid Logic) led the early commercialization efforts and eventually attracted major companies from various industry sectors (e.g., Corning, Amazon, and Illumina). Although not all of the pioneering products became an instant success, the persistent growth of liquid lenses and the recent FDA approvals of biomedical analyzers proved that EWOD is a powerful tool that deserves a wider recognition and more aggressive exploration. This review presents the history around major EWOD products that hit the market to show their winding paths to commercialization and summarizes the current state of product development to peek into the future. In providing the readers with a big picture of commercializing EWOD and digital microfluidics technology, our goal is to inspire further research exploration and new entrepreneurial adventures

Valuing Strategic Alliances in the Pharmaceutical/Biotechnology Industry

In an era of rapid and changing technological advances, a firm's survival and growth depends on its' ability to introduce products to the market. Since a firm's growth and survival depends on its' ability to develop products and services over time (Penrose, 1959), the question posed by this study is what determines a firm's ability to introduce products to market? In this study, a firm's ability to introduce product to markets are influenced by its' "absorptive capacity" to identify and internalize the resource benefits of its' alliance partners. Such an integrated view is absent in firm level and strategic alliance studies of product development. A conceptual model of firm product introductions is developed and empirically tested. Results generally support the hypotheses of this study.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

A farmers’ company for better price: The case of Chandrika Wewa Farmer Company, Sri Lanka

Farmers associationsCollective actionInstitutionsIrrigation programsMarketingCreditFertilizers