Innovate IndianaNews and information on how IU is driving innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development

Four IU Start-Up Companies Named as Success Stories by the Science Coalition

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Congratulations to IURTC clients CS-Keys, Fast Diagnostics, Immuneworks, and Therametric Technologies. All were listed among 100 federal funding success stories by the Science Coalition, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group that supports federal funding of scientific research in the United States.

The report underlines the vital connection between university research, investment, and economic development. The 100 companies named now employ more than 100,000 people and earn revenues of nearly $100 billion a year.

What Executives Make of Innovation – BusinessWeek

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By Bill Stephan

A  Business Week article I thought you might enjoy.

As executives breathe out after surviving the Great Recession, they find they’re gazing on a New Reality. The meltdown accelerated many trends that had been merely budding pre-crisis. There has been no time for slow and steady adaptation to the pressures and challenges of a new business landscape. The world changed in a flash. Perhaps the single best tool to negotiate the new environment successfully? Innovation.

Read the entire article:

What Executives Make of Innovation – BusinessWeek.

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The “Proof-of-Concept Center”: A Good Idea, But Not a New One

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By Tony Armstrong

The New York Times has discovered something that IU officials have known for years—that business innovation is, can, and should be driven by university research.

In The Idea Incubator Goes to Campus, Bob Tedeschi describes the “proof-of-concept center” as a new model for commercializing research discoveries.

At first glance, the centers look like academic versions of business incubators. But universities are getting involved now at a much earlier stage than incubators typically do. Rather than offering seed money to businesses that already have a product and a staff, as incubators usually do, the universities are harvesting great ideas and then trying to find investors and businesspeople interested in developing them further and exploring their commercial viability.

It’s a great idea. And, in Indiana, it’s been happening for years.

The Indiana University Emerging Technology Center has launched more than three dozen start-up companies.

IU has been in the incubator business since 2003, when it opened the IU Emerging Technologies Center in Indianapolis. It launched a Bloomington incubator in 2009. Now, IU is even providing seed capital to promising clients through the Innovate Indiana Fund.

Tedeschi cites proof-of-concept centers at MIT and University of California at San Diego as leaders in the field. He notes that San Diego’s William J. von Liebig Center “has helped start 26 companies that have created more than 180 jobs” since 2001.

Not to brag, but the IURTC has been in business since 1997 and has helped create nearly 40 companies and more than 500 Indiana jobs. Last year, it celebrated the $100 million sale of one of the first incubator tenants—ANGEL Learning.

Can universities drive business innovation? I’d say IU has already proven the concept.

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How do you create an Innovation Economy? Find out here.

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By Tony Armstrong

Ask the average citizen about Silicon Valley, and they’ll probably reference Apple, Google, or Xerox. Ask them about the Hoosier State, and they will likely mention John Mellencamp, the Indy 500, and basketball.

It’s a perception problem, but it’s also an opportunity. Indiana University researchers have been quietly forging scientific and technological breakthroughs for decades—from cavity-fighting fluoride toothpaste to the cancer treatment that saved the life of cyclist Lance Armstrong. Now we’re putting that brainpower to work for Indiana. (more…)