Looking Forward to #AUTM2019 in Austin

The next few days will see technology transfer professionals from across the United States and around the world travel to Austin, Texas, for the AUTM 2019 national meeting. Fuentek will be there, and today’s post gives you a sneak preview of the two sessions we’ll be leading. I’m also including links to more information if you want to do a little extra reading in advance.

(left to right) Fuentek’s Becky Stoughton, Laura Schoppe, and Danielle McCulloch. Find them at Booth #206 at AUTM 2019.

Because they know their technology better than anyone, researchers can be your greatest asset when pitching to prospective licensees/partners. Ironically, this in-depth knowledge can also make inventors a bit of a liability in your marketing interactions. This session will help you give researchers the skills they need to stay on the asset side of your technology marketing balance sheet.

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.”

The similarities between academic and government technology transfer programs are well recognized. Led by Fuentek founder and president Laura A. Schoppe, this session will feature three federal technology transfer officials presenting successful, cutting-edge approaches that can be easily adopted by university TTOs. For example:

• 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.

Daniel Lockney manages NASA’s technology transfer program.