The ‘magic’ of university commercialization

By Hunt Lambert, contributing writer

The most common question I get about university start-ups is how inventions move from the academic environment into the commercial marketplace. The answer is: magic. Not the magic of the fairy-tale variety, but the magic that results when the right combination of people, circumstances, timing, vision, and ideas come together to make something happen that might not have seemed possible under other conditions. Because not all "magicians" are created equal, academic institutions have highly variable results in commercialization. The beauty of this magic, however, is that like most university inventions it is science-based. Once you learn the secret, movement from the lab to the marketplace is not difficult to understand.

At Colorado State University, we have worked to create an environment where this type of magic can happen – through an investment in technology transfer and commercialization capability. Over the past few years, we’ve hired a number of skilled magicians (chief operating officers, scientists, tech-transfer specialists) and have emerged as a university commercialization leader. Announcements this year that CSU has launched two Supercluster enterprises – multidisciplinary alliances of researchers and business experts that speed the transition of research to the global marketplace – and a potential billion-dollar start-up is evidence that we have learned something about this kind of magic.

Journey backward

For those who want to learn the secrets, a journey backward from breakout to lab is instructive. We start our expedition with the company that I hoped three years ago could become CSU’s first billion-dollar start-up, AVA Solar Inc. AVA Solar began as AVA Technologies LLC and perfected a manufacturing process that turns ordinary window glass into solar panels that can generate power anywhere the sun shines. The mass-produced solar panels will compete price-wise, for the first time, with traditional energy sources. The traditional manufacturing process for photovoltaic, or solar-generating, cells and panels uses crystal silicon – which is extremely costly – as its base. But a sheet of AVA Solar glass uses 100 times less semiconductor material in the manufacturing process, and the process produces a new solar panel every two minutes.

As I stand in the AVA building, I look through a window at a long machine. It is vacuum sealed and monitored by dozens of sensors. Into one end flow sheets of glass. Out the other end flow solar panels. In between, the processes developed in CSU’s labs under W.S. Sampath, CSU mechanical engineering professor, make the conversion at a fraction of the current best-in-world manufacturing cost. The machine is operating one year earlier than the original plan, and the company just won a $3 million solar incubator grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar America Initiative. Soon the newspapers will report that an amazing start-up, formed only nine months ago, has finally produced solar voltaic panels at a price competitive with traditional energy sources. What they will not report is that 15 years earlier, in an old building surrounded by doubters, a scientist stood determined that his ideas could someday change the world.

This scene offers three pieces of magic.
Lesson one: Don’t doubt geniuses who are determined.
Lesson two: Be patient while being persistent.
Lesson three: The right CEO can accelerate commercialization amazingly.

Step back nine months to 2006. I am meeting with Dr. Sampath and his team. They have just spent most of the past year meeting with large companies who might be interested in their technology. The alpha-level manufacturing machine in the lab has proven the potential, but so far there is no real company, just three dedicated researchers who share a dream. They are mostly discouraged. They agree to meet potential CEOs so they can find a personality and capability match for their goals. They agree to launch a manufacturing company, license the CSU technology, and provide equity to the CSU Foundation. Lesson four: The research team must have trusted business advisers inside and outside the institution.

Step back another year to 2005. I have brought my mother to the lab to show off what CSU does. It is very hard to explain thin film cadmium telluride behavior in a vacuum. I try to simplify by saying “if this works, solar cells will be priced so anyone can afford to put them on their house.” It works. Lesson five: To be in business, keep it simple.

Step back another five years to 2000. The CSU Technology Transfer office receives another invention disclosure from the CSU Engineering Research Center. It is very interesting but is years away from any commercial potential. Patenting will cost too much for the under-funded unit and no one in industry is ready to license the technology and pay for the patent. The technology transfer office makes the right decision and releases the technology to the inventor. The inventors have saved enough personal money to form a company and pay for the patent. Lesson six: No one is smart enough to pick the winners; bet on people’s passions and not the technology.

Step back to 1992, the beginning of the journey. A professor is fascinated with thin film and cadmium telluride. He dreams that one day he might help the world move from high-pollution, fossil-fuel-based energy to clean solar energy. If his solar cells can be produced cheaply enough, maybe they can even open underdeveloped countries to economic development that requires high-priced energy. He makes a bet that the secret is not in the materials but in the process. No one agrees, but it is his career, and he keeps winning grants so everyone leaves him alone. Because he is an entrepreneurial scientist in an academic environment, he has the freedom to explore where no commercial venture can. Lesson seven: Keep doing basic science so our kids can live in a better world.

Today in 2007, Dr. Sampath’s bet is getting ready to pay off, and we are lucky enough that he and his team are sharing the winnings with CSU.

These seven lessons briefly look at the science of magic in technology transfer and commercialization. We plan to keep learning and producing successes through CSU’s Office of Economic Development, Research Foundation, Superclusters, and Ventures enterprise.

Hunt Lambert is the director of the Office of Economic Development at Colorado State University. He can be reached at hunt.lambert@colostate.edu.