Looking Forward to #AUTM2019 in Austin

(left to right) Fuentek’s Becky Stoughton, Laura Schoppe, and Danielle McCulloch. Find them at Booth #206 at AUTM 2019.
Tuesday, Feb. 12 • 2PM • Be a Pitching Coach: Teaching Researchers How to Communicate about Technology Effectively
Led by Fuentek VPs Danielle McCulloch and Becky Stoughton, the presentation will give you the nuts and bolts of coaching inventors to pitch their technologies, including:
- Understanding the innovation-to-commercialization cycle
- Transforming technology features into benefits/value statements
- Understanding and soliciting input on an invention’s viability in the market
- Developing a clear, concise, audience-appropriate elevator pitch
- Walking the line between sharing technical details and protecting intellectual property
They will also provide insights about effective techniques in coaching researchers, such as practice exercises and rehearsals, prepping for specific licensing targets, and training frequency and follow-up.
Danielle and Becky have trained hundreds of researchers in these skills, so this is sure to be an excellent train-the-trainer session that gives you helpful tools that you can use immediately when you return to your TTO. Don’t miss it!

Get a head-start on the “Be a Pitching Coach” session by watching Fuentek’s webinar with practical advice to innovators on how to talk about their technologies. Click here to watch “Pitching for Innovators: Communicate at the Right Level for Any Audience.”
Wednesday, Feb. 13 • 2PM • Innovative Programs from Government Tech Transfer Offices
- The Department of Homeland Security’s Transition to Practice program for federal cybersecurity technologies actively engages researchers and allows companies to test and further develop the innovations. The program has achieved remarkable success since it launched in 2012.
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory used an aggressive marketing campaign, a webinar briefing and facility tours, a competitive evaluation process involving a team of internal and external reviewers, and semi-exclusive agreements to successfully secure four licenses for the same technology. This effort received an Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer from the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer in 2018.
- NASA has achieved a 155% increase in patent licensing over 4 years via several innovative efforts, including the Automated Technology Licensing Application System (ATLAS) to expedite patent licensing; evaluation licenses; the NASA Software Catalog, which provides a single agency repository for free public access to code; and the Startup NASA program.
If you’ll be at the AUTM meeting, we at Fuentek hope you will join us at one—or both—of these sessions. Or swing by Booth #206 to learn more about us and how our services help technology transfer offices be more proactive, efficient, and effective.

Nadia Carlsten leads the Transition to Practice program in the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Cyber Security Division.

Eugene Cochran is a senior commercialization manager with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
