Beyond the Breakthrough with Thierry Heles

University of Calgary is the number one Canadian institution for startup creation, according to Autm’s 2020 ranking and it’s achieved that through a range of fascinating initiatives, like its clinical trial design programme. John Wilson, chief executive of Innovate Calgary, tells us more about that programme on this episode, and also delves into why Calgary, whose economy has been built on fossil...

Fred Farina is the chief innovation and corporate partnerships officer at California Institute of Technology (or Caltech) where his duties also include overseeing the technology transfer out of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He tells us what it was like to start his career in tech transfer by being hired by AUTM founder Larry Gilbert and what has kept him around Caltech for more than two decade...

Poonam Malik is a passionate advocate for investing in and supporting women-founded companies, a message she is able to spread both as the head of investments at University of Strathclyde and several other appointments, including a board position at government-owned economic development agency Scottish Enterprise. She joins us to discuss the importance of overcoming unconscious bias in investments...

Shiva Loccisano has been involved in technology transfer since 2007, a period that, he says, has seen a steep growth trajectory in commercialisation activities in Italy. He joins us to discuss the more than 15 years he spent at Politecnico di Torino as the head of technology transfer and industrial liaison department (a position he left last week, after this podcast was recorded, for a new job as...

Keith Marmer is the chief innovation and economic engagement officer at University of Utah and he joins us to discuss the greenhouse initiative that means the Pivot Center is anything but a traditional tech transfer office. He also muses why the popularity of hiking and fly-fishing in Utah is helpful and ponders what his recent promotion to a cabinet level position at the university will mean for...

We have partnered TenU, the collaboration between the tech transfer offices of University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, KU Leuven, University of Manchester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, Stanford University and University College London to bring you three panels recorded live in front of a select group of guests...

We have partnered TenU, the collaboration between the tech transfer offices of University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, KU Leuven, University of Manchester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, Stanford University and University College London to bring you three panels recorded live in front of a select group of guests...

We have partnered TenU, the collaboration between the tech transfer offices of University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, KU Leuven, University of Manchester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, Stanford University and University College London to bring you three panels recorded live in front of a select group of guests...

Diarmuid O’Brien has been chief executive of Cambridge Enterprise since August 2021, when he joined from Trinity College Dublin to take over from Tony Raven. He joins us on Talking Tech Transfer to reveal what attracted him to Cambridge Enterprise and what differences he sees between Ireland and the UK. He discusses his ambitious vision for Cambridge Enterprise to play a more active role in the re...

Anne Barnett is the chief executive of Wellington UniVentures, the tech transfer office of Victoria University of Wellington, and she joins us on Talking Tech Transfer to discuss her plans of turning the organisation into a social enterprise renowned throughout the world for the impact it generates. She ponders the importance of the Brandon BioCatalyst and NZ Innovation Booster funds, and examines...

Stephan Christgau is a founding partner of Eir Ventures, a €122m life sciences venture firm backed by six Swedish universities and, through a sidecar vehicle, University of Copenhagen. He joins us on Talking Tech Transfer to discuss the opportunities and challenges of investing across multiple countries, and ponders the unique strengths that the Nordics have in pharmaceutical. Christgau, who previ...

Sangeeta Bardhan Cook is the executive director, business innovation, at City of Hope. She joins us on Talking Tech Transfer to discuss the unique aspects of commercialisation at a hospital with a focus on cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases and what it means to be surrounded by patients who often have nowhere else left to turn. She discusses the importance of City of Hope having...

Kalpa Vithalani is the executive director of technology transfer at Marquette University and she joins us on Talking Tech Transfer to discuss what it means to help build a tech transfer office at a Catholic Jesuit institution and why it isn’t so much about standing out from other universities nearby as it is about collaborating with them. She tells us about Marquette’s externship programme for fac...

Amir Naiberg has been the associate vice-chancellor and CEO and president of UCLA Technology Development Group since 2016, when he moved from having led Yeda, the tech transfer arm of Weizmann Institute of Science. He joins us on Talking Tech Transfer to discuss the responsibilities of leading the tech transfer office of the US’s number one ranked public university and to ponder the intricacies of...

Mark Billingsley is the director of University of Alaska Fairbanks‘ Tech Transfer Office and Innovation Hub, having joined the profession in 2015 after first working as an engineer and then holding various legal jobs, such as assistant public defender. He joins Talking Tech Transfer to discuss how you do tech transfer when the US federal government’s definition of “rural communities” covers the wh...

Tony Hickson is the chief business officer of Cancer Research UK, where he leads the Commercial Partnerships team responsible for commercialisation. He joins us on the podcast to discuss taking a very long view of shifting culture towards more entrepreneurialism and the importance of transparency around ethnic diversity and inclusion. He also discusses the changes he has seen and the lessons he ha...

For the 50th episode of the podcast, I’m excited to bring you a discussion between Ian McClure, the associate vice-president for research, innovation and economic impact at University of Kentucky, the executive director of its commercialisation office UK Innovate and the incoming chairman of AUTM, and Orin Herskowitz, senior vice-president of intellectual property and tech transfer for Columbia Un...

Stanford may be a recognised world leader, but it must not rest on its laurels – sometimes that even means launching initiatives that others have long been doing. That is just one of the lessons Karin Immergluck, executive director of Stanford University’s Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), tells me on this episode. She also discusses what the US can learn from its international peers, why TenU...

Andy Shenk, chief executive of Auckland UniServices, the commercialisation subsidiary of the University of Auckland, joins us on Talking Tech Transfer to discuss how the office collaborates with the Māori people and why that matters, what the opportunities and challenges are around big data and AI, and why being a remote country is an asset for space tech. He also tells us why New Zealand is missi...

Alice Li is the executive director of the Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) at Cornell University and she joins us on Talking Tech Transfer to discuss how this Ivy League institution remains agile and open to experimentation, what questions the profession needs to ask today to be prepared for the future and what the challenges and opportunities are for a university with multiple campuses. She...

Albert Domingo is the director of technologies and digital areas at UPF Ventures, the spinout management arm of Pompeu Fabra University, and he joins me to discuss the opportunities and challenges of building an ecosystem in Barcelona. He also explains why UPF Ventures works with spinouts from other institutions and why Spanish bureaucracy is a particularly difficult matter to contend with for com...

Riam Kanso is the founder and CEO of Conception X, a non-profit organisation in the UK that helps PhD students develop their entrepreneurial skillsets and launch deeptech startups. She tells us about how Conception X grew out of a pilot programme at University College London, why not taking any equity in the portfolio companies is an advantage and how Conception X’s offering fits into the wider te...

Otomar Sláma is the chairman of Charles University Innovations Prague, the commercialisation subsidiary of Charles University, and he joins us today to talk about how his passion led him to become only the second person in the Czech Republic to gain RTTP accreditation and why it will take a societal culture shift to drive entrepreneurship in the country – and why that has led him to support a prog...

Rohan McDougall is the director of commercialisation at Curtin University and he joins us to discuss the challenges faced by a remote ecosystem such as Perth. We also talk about driving innovation in a region known for mining – which led to one of Curtin’s most prominent spinouts to date – and what the success of graphic design platform Canva means for the local venture capital scene. McDougall al...

Alexis Dormandy has been the chief executive of Oxford Science Enterprises, the investment company set up by University of Oxford, since January this year and he joins us to talk about the changes he has already enacted (which included rebranding the organisation from its original name of Oxford Sciences Innovation), what he plans to do next (such as surveying the portfolio to understand how to in...