From pharmaceutical breakthroughs to carbonated ice cream, BYU faculty and students are constantly creating new products.
Getting these innovations into the hands of consumers is no small feat, but the Technology Transfer Office helps smooth the process.
Located in the Harold B. Lee Library, Tech Transfer serves as a booster for innovation. Creators work with staff to patent and market their products, a process that would otherwise be costly and time-consuming.
The university invests in this resource because part of BYU’s mission states that all work should “greatly enlarge Brigham Young University’s influence on a world we wish to improve.”
Office director Dave Brown explained how the office contributes to this mission.
“There’s this idea that people have, naively, that if you just publish research, suddenly people are cured of things,” he said.
In reality, making a world-improving product consumer-ready requires a significant investment.
Brown also said, “a lot of people will focus on tech transfer as a profit center. (In reality), it’s mission-driven, and we want technologies out, improving things for people.”
The process to get started is simple. If a student or faculty member believes they have created something special while working at BYU, they fill out a disclosure form.
The product is then evaluated to gauge market opportunity and interest.
If it's deemed promising, the office spearheads an effort to negotiate commercialization deals, bringing the product to market and presenting it to people who can use it to improve their lives.
Since its founding in 1989, the office has helped launch dozens of projects from professors and students alike.
Among the most successful have been a turkey vaccine, carbonated yogurt, pollution-reducing carbon capture technology and Adobe’s Magnetic Lasso Tool.
On a campus filled with professionals, Brown said there is an “untapped resource of professors who don’t think of themselves as innovators.”
Creations like these are commonplace, and professors just need the right environment to take them further. One such professor is Jeff Jenkins, who teaches technology entrepreneurship and cybersecurity in the Information Systems Department.
About ten years ago, Jenkins was working on his dissertation for the University of Arizona and doing research at BYU. They tried their hand at developing a product to detect irregular behavior by people filling out credit card applications, insurance claims, or other forms.
After hard work, they successfully created a marketable product. The intellectual property belonged to BYU and the University of Arizona, but by working with the tech transfer offices at both schools, they were able to license it for their business, Neuro-ID.
Last year, they sold Neuro-ID to Experion, a happy ending to a decade of work and development. Jenkins attributes the smoothness of the process to the Tech Transfer Office.
“(Tech Transfer) hired and paid the lawyers and facilitated the patent process. They provided other support along the way,” he said.
Jenkins also remarked that the office did much to ease the time burden of being an entrepreneur, saying that he could “be a good professor and a good entrepreneur, and one (wasn’t) eating away from the other.”
Brown said the office is also a place where students can gain experience as entrepreneurs, even without an idea.
Students can select an existing product in the office and run with it, doing their best to turn it into a viable business.
BYU student Eric White made a business out of handling finances for startups in Provo, such as Otishi. He adopted a collapsible pen gadget from Tech Transfer and is now working to market it.
“I’m an entrepreneur who has experience and time, and I (wanted) to do something, I just (didn’t) have a good idea,” White said. “This place provides ideas.”
White encourages all students with a passion for innovation to take advantage of their time in Provo. He firmly believes that given the resources available to students, “there’s no better time to do all these things.”
Interested students and faculty are invited to take full advantage of what the office provides. Not only can it lead to breakthroughs in their own lives, but their work will contribute to a fair and robust society.
“Every startup company we launch is like a solution machine,” said Brown. “We just want to release as many solution machines as we can.”
The Tech Transfer Office is open each weekday year-round. Those interested can visit the office in the HBLL or check out its website.