About 3 weeks ago I sat together with Andy Zynga, CEO Europe of NineSigma. For those that may not know the company: NineSigma is an open innovation intermediary that matches the technology needs and questions from companies (referred to as Innovation Seekers) with the possible solutions from a huge network of scientists, university researchers and technology incubators (referred to as Solution Providers). As such they directly compete with other intermediaries like Innocentive, TekScout and YourEncore. NineSigma claims to have the largest amount of Requests For Proposals (RFPs) on its platform and thus to be the market leader. Their clients include companies like P&G, Xerox, Kimberly-Clark and DuPont.

I had a very nice chat with Andy Zynga about their expansion strategy in Europe (NineSigma is headquartered in the US and has already expanded to Japan with a local office there). In order to broaden the current client base in Europe, they are now building up a European Office in the area of Louvain (Belgium). On average NineSigma plans to double its business year by year as more and more companies are adopting this kind of open innovation initiatives. If you are interested in their services or just want to know more, references to the newly founded European Office can be found here.

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After attending the National Council for Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2) Conference last week in Washington DC, it is clear that universities are stuck while the world is moving quickly past them. Closed, entrenched processes are restricting universities from adopting open innovation. The question the conference was trying to answer was, “How do we utilize our campuses, tech transfer offices, and discoveries for entrepreneurship?”

Today, university tech transfer offices operate like a filter, only promoting works they deem financial viable. If it has some value in their eyes, then they get to work patenting the discovery, advising that faculty member to incorporate, or trying to license the work. This process is one giant disservice to the university as it restricts what works get into the public domain for the world’s benefit. The Bayh Dole Act of 1980 said that universities can take ownership of works that are funded by the federal government. By filtering the works that make it out of universities, tech transfer offices are only shooting themselves in the foot by limiting potential, financial returns. The more open a university is with its works, then clearly the higher the chance someone will try to utilize that work. Welcome Open Innovation!

For universities to spur entrepreneurship, they must welcome open innovation in a dramatic fashion. Pushing faculty to start businesses, I believe, is not the correct route; welcoming entrepreneurs and companies to utilize their works is. To help this, the Kauffman Foundation and Science Commons are working to create a streamlined, open tech transfer environment with:

The iBridge Network, out of the non-profit Kauffman Foundation, allows university faculty and administrators to post innovations for others to find and utilize. iBridge allows universities the public venue to promote their works. So instead of acting as a lens, tech transfer offices should instantly post works in iBridge (think of it as an online store for university innovation). Science Commons aims to write generic license agreements for universities to utilize. The whole processes today is crazy, to write a new agreement every time a technology is licensed. Science Commons, a subsidiary of Creative Commons, is streamlining the last kink in the chain.

For universities to spur entrepreneurship, adopting iBridge and standard licenses is a must. Open Innovation is knocking on their door and its time to let it in!

Emile Petrone

epetrone (at) knowble.net