Business, tech. meet in BU pilot program
Sydney Lupkin
Issue date: 1/22/08 Section: News
Boston University graduate student Jonathan Scherer spent the fall semester developing a business plan for new optical cancer detection techniques that will someday allow doctors to use light to identify potentially cancerous cells.
Scherer, a School of Management student, worked on the entrepreneurial side of cutting-edge technology developed by BU researchers in the inaugural semester of eSPRIT -- the Entrepreneurial Students Participating in Innovative Technologies. Unlike other business simulations, eSPRIT students and professors said the program gives them the chance to evaluate real-world biomedical technologies and decide where they fit into the economy and how to effectively incorporate them.
"The opportunity to work on a live potential company was an interesting process," Scherer said. "It wasn't just working on something that was fabricated."
Three SMG courses provided students with the option to work in commercialization, creating business plans, performing marketing analysis and handling other technology-related problems for a particular innovation.
Scherer was one of the 17 SMG, College of Engineering and School of Law students to participate in the Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization program launched this fall, ITEC director Jonathan Rosen said.
Office of Technology Director of Corporate Business Development Michael Pratt and his colleague ENG Director of Biomedical Engineering Jennifer Marron worked with the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership to determine which projects would be best suited for the class work, Pratt said.
The seven biomedical technologies eSPRIT teams worked with last fall were funded by Coulter, which sets highly competitive standards for its beneficiaries, ENG Dean Kenneth Lutchen said.
"It really provided a great win-win scenario; the students get trained in really emerging technologies and some of the best projects for potential innovation," Lutchen said.
Scherer, a School of Management student, worked on the entrepreneurial side of cutting-edge technology developed by BU researchers in the inaugural semester of eSPRIT -- the Entrepreneurial Students Participating in Innovative Technologies. Unlike other business simulations, eSPRIT students and professors said the program gives them the chance to evaluate real-world biomedical technologies and decide where they fit into the economy and how to effectively incorporate them.
"The opportunity to work on a live potential company was an interesting process," Scherer said. "It wasn't just working on something that was fabricated."
Three SMG courses provided students with the option to work in commercialization, creating business plans, performing marketing analysis and handling other technology-related problems for a particular innovation.
Scherer was one of the 17 SMG, College of Engineering and School of Law students to participate in the Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization program launched this fall, ITEC director Jonathan Rosen said.
Office of Technology Director of Corporate Business Development Michael Pratt and his colleague ENG Director of Biomedical Engineering Jennifer Marron worked with the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership to determine which projects would be best suited for the class work, Pratt said.
The seven biomedical technologies eSPRIT teams worked with last fall were funded by Coulter, which sets highly competitive standards for its beneficiaries, ENG Dean Kenneth Lutchen said.
"It really provided a great win-win scenario; the students get trained in really emerging technologies and some of the best projects for potential innovation," Lutchen said.
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