Director of the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office to promote university’s startup program on webinar

University leaders developing programs to encourage faculty entrepreneurship and startup creation, which can strengthen economic development in a region or state as inventions are developed and taken to market, will learn about one of the best programs in the country during a webinar next week.

Dave Wilhite, director of the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office, will share the success of the university’s Spin Up program during a live webinar titled “Start Up in a Box,” on Aug. 30 from 1-2 p.m. Registration for the webinar can be completed online.

The webinar will focus on the inspiration to create Spin Up, how to attract and educate participants, and a review of support services — including legal advice, grant-writing assistance and accounting assistance — and how they are incorporated into the program.

“Startups launched by university faculty are important because they can help build momentum for a technology. Early technologies can be further developed, prototyped and even proven in a startup,” Wilhite said. “Successful startups can impact a region’s or state’s economic development, too, when the invention arrives on the market and jobs are created in order to meet the production demand.”

Companies that participate in IU’s Spin Up program have experienced success, including receiving school, state and federal funding. Since Spin Up began in 2011, startups have received more than $10 million. Three of those companies are Anagin, Allinaire Therapeutics and Arrhythmotech. Anagin develops therapies for psychiatric diseases like post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Allinaire Therapeutics develops methods to halt the progression of pulmonary diseases. Arrhythmotech is creating a device capable of detecting, on the skin, the nerve activity responsible for the body’s fight-or-flight response.

“The university’s Spin Up program is proven to strengthen faculty entrepreneurs’ ability to bring their laboratory discoveries to market where they can impact people’s lives around the world,” Wilhite said. “This webinar will help other university officials who desire to do the same.”