With unemployment in the state of Florida exceeding 12 percent, surging numbers of Americans are looking to start their own businesses. UF is planning a series of entrepreneurial workshops this fall that will channel some of these individuals to look at commercializing new discoveries that are generated in university laboratories. An introduction to technology commercialization—a concept not well understood by most people—will be followed by an interactive opportunity to explore the creative ideation process ahead of starting the company.
Creativity and Ideation Flier – Sept. 2 (.pdf)
This workshop will be followed by a “feasibility analysis” workshop to help people assess whether the technologies they are interested in pursuing have true market potential. Topics covered will be both a technical and commercial feasibility of the technology and guidance on how to develop a commercial development plan for the technology.
This will be followed by a two and a half day Entrepreneurial BootCamp that will provide training on starting a tech-based company and instructions for writing a business plan. The entrepreneurship series will culminate with a one day workshop to provide training for writing an SBIR/STTR grant which provides funding to early stage companies to develop prototypes and assistance in executing commercialization plans to get these new discoveries into the market.
Entrepreneurial Boot Camp flier – Oct. 6 (.pdf)
Organizers of the series include staff from UF’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, College of Engineering, College of Medicine, the Office of Technology Licensing and UF Tech Connect. For more information, contact Lynn Janoski at (352) 273-4759 or ljanoski@ufl.edu.
