TIM Lecture Series : Leadership Position in Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Overview

On Thursday May 31st, a much larger audience than expected attended Carleton University to engage with faculty, graduate students, and professionals working to establish a worldwide leadership position in technology entrepreneurship and commercialization for Carleton University and the region. Members of the audience included technology entrepreneurs, investors, company executives, R&D personnel, economic development and government personnel, faculty, students, and alumni from Ottawa’s post-secondary institutions, service providers, consultants, and visiting scholars. The event started at 6 p.m. and was scheduled to end at 9 p.m. However, event attendees engaged in vibrant conversations well past 10:30 p.m.

The second part of the lecture was a showcase of graduates students' work in entrepreneurship and commercialization.It was comprised of 10 presentations: one described a doctoral thesis proposal, one described a completed master's thesis, and eight highlighted master's-level projects that led to the launch of new technology ventures in Canada's Capital Region.From the very first speaker, the excitement and energy level in the overcrowded room were high and the presentations were delivered with matching enthusiasm.
The desired outcomes of the May 31st TIM lecture were to: i) validate the seven proof points and engage community talent who wish to help achieve them; ii) showcase graduate student talent and engage community resources with students' theses, projects, and ventures; and iii) volunteer to help key organizations in the community achieve their own proof points for leadership positions in technology entrepreneurship and commercialization.
We have worked very hard to figure out how to achieve a global leadership position in technology entrepreneurship and commercialization, and tonight, we present you with the seven proof points we have developed over the past several months.We ask that you validate these proof points and fully engage with us to attain them.

Opening Remarks
The Dean of the Sprott School of Business, Dr. Jerry Tomberlin, opened the lecture by welcoming the attendees and describing the joint status of Carleton University's Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program within both the School of Business and the Faculty of Engineering and Design, and its many strong connections to the community.He then introduced the President of Carleton University as a person who is committed to fostering entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity at Carleton and in the region.
Dr. Roseann O'Reilly Runte, President and Vice-Chancellor of Carleton University, expressed her pride about hearing students refer to Carleton University as the most entrepreneurial university in Canada.Dr. Runte set the tone for the event by relating a story of a painter in ancient Greece who was intent on painting horses that looked so real that people could imagine riding them right off the page.The painter studied anatomy and mechanics of movement, and he practiced many years without getting the painting right.One day, after many years of hard work, the painter threw a wet sponge at the painting out of frustration.The wet sponge left markings in the painting that made the horses he had drawn look like they were riding in a cloud of dust.That small addition to the painting made the artist into an accomplished and celebrated painter.A narrow-lens perspective on delivering academic programs leaves the provider focused on course staffing, student enrolment, and budgets.This makes narrowlens suppliers prone to ignoring the implications for graduate students of globalization, co-innovation, and value-chain adoption challenges.Interaction between TIM students and members of the innovative wider ecosystem is a fundamental building block of the TIM program's content.The TIM program therefore uses a wide-lens perspective to deliver graduate-level education because the success of its students depends on the success of individuals and organizations innovating outside of the university.Today, this dependence is more pervasive than ever before.Failure to expand the focus to include the business ecosystem that successfully delivers and commercializes innovation will set up graduate-level programs for failure, regardless of how well they deliver on their narrow-lens objectives related to staffing, enrolment, and budgets.
Choosing to focus on the ecosystem approach to deliver graduate education, rather than the narrow-lens approach common elsewhere, has changed everything for TIM students and faculty -including how they define and measure success, how they see their work, how they prioritize opportunities and threats, how they contribute to the launch and growth of ventures, and how and why they contribute to the geographical and virtual communities in which they are embedded.Proper staffing levels, the correct size of enrolments, and adequate budgets are certainly important; however, these are just necessary but not sufficient conditions for the success of TIM students, the TIM program, the university, and the region.
Graduate students benefit from leveraging an existing healthy business ecosystem that includes assets The wide-lens perspective enabled by the business ecosystem approach reveals new ways for TIM students, TIM graduates, and members of the community to: i) enhance knowledge and develop skills; ii) increase their social capital; iii) add value to customers, partners, investors, and employers; and iv) contribute to their physical and virtual communities.
Under the umbrella of the wide-lens approach, the reasons for a talented individual to contribute to the attainment of these seven proof points include: i) strengthen existing skills or develop new ones; ii) achieve with others what the individual cannot do alone; iii) increase the individual's brand and options; iv) find new interests and hobbies; v) enjoy new experiences; vi) provide public examples of the individual's commitment, dedication, and interests; and vii) be part of large and diverse technology entrepreneurship and commercialization community.

Part 2: Showcase
In the second part of the lecture, students from the TIM program and Sprott School of Business showcased their research and companies.Each student ended their presentation with a request to the audience, variously asking for feedback, participation, or help to secure customers, resources, or funding.The results-based organization design approach was developed through this research, and it was used to apply the literature on business ecosystems to the construction of a real-world organization that produces and disseminates knowledge.This new approach was described in the context of designing a technology startup in the May issue of the TIM Review (McPhee, 2012; timreview.ca/article/554).
Request: Contribute to the TIM Review as a reader, author, or guest editor, and help spread the word about the journal.

Contact: timreview.ca/contact
Arthur Low, founder of Crack Semiconductor and MASc (TIM) candidate, has 20 years of experience designing integrated circuits and holds several patents in encryption and network security.Today, his venture develops a turbo-charged security hardware processor that is sold to European customers.Crack Semiconductor (cracksemi.com) is developing a platform comprised of security software, Linux, and an embedded microprocessor, which will be licensed to partners worldwide.Each partner will use the platform to accelerate security software to its own customers.The combination of optimal hardware implementations of the important public key cryptographic operations, an operating system, and applications software that is finely tuned to the hardware significantly reduces system integration costs and increases performance.
Request: Provide introductions to potential partners worldwide that may be interested in licensing the platform.Contact: art@cracksemi.comMichael Ayukawa, founder of Cornerportal and MASc (TIM) candidate.Cornerportal (cornerportal.com)sells a mobile-centric content management system (CMS) that integrates a social capability that makes "things" easier to sell by attaching a memorable story to nowpersonal objects.For service companies, the same CMS makes assets easier to manage.This helps Cornerportal's small and medium clients compete and grow.
Request: Help identify new clients and applications.Contact: mike@cornerportal.comDavid Ker, founder of Realwat and MASc (TIM) candidate.Realwat (realwat.com)has employees in Canada and Cambodia developing Lassoo The Web, an iPad application that makes it easier and faster to browse using an iPad, manage bookmarks, and share bookmarks to Evernote.Realwat is in the process of bringing Lassoo the Web to the next level by creating an interest-based social bookmarking platform viewed as "Pinterest version 2".
Request: Help raise money, download Lassoo The Web and provide feedback, and refer potential clients who can benefit from the company's application development capabilities.Contact: David.Ker@Realwat.comRonald Amelunge, founder of ClearVoix and MASc (TIM) candidate.ClearVoix is getting ready to provide mobile voice-to-text conversion solutions in Canada.Currently, the company is improving the Spanish voice to text engine and modifying the system so it is capable of delivering solutions in English.
Request: Help identify four talented students that Clearvoix will pay to program in PHP, Joomla, and MySQL as well as complete and maintain the website "Listings.ca".Contact: raantelo@connect.carleton.ca

TIM Lecture Series: Leadership Position in Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization
Robert Poole, founder of Freebird Connect and MEng (TIM) candidate, has more than 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur.Freebird Connect (freebird connect.com)uses a game-changing platform business model to deliver powerful, self-service data analytics, collaboration, and social networking capabilities to small and medium-size organizations globally.Freebird Connect is on a mission to enable companies, municipal governments, and not-for-profit organizations to eliminate decisions based on hunches, gut-feelings, and guesses.Freebird Connect also offers its solution to global OEM partners who need data analytics, reporting, and collaboration to add value to the solution they offer to their customers.
Request: Refer organizations that struggle to access or understand data, need to enable collaboration, and wish to generate revenue from data.Contact: robert.poole@freebirdconnect.com James Makienko, founder of HiveDirect Captioning and recent MEng (TIM) graduate, is a 2012 Nicol Intern (tinyurl.com/77grl2u)who has developed a minimum viable product in six months.HiveDirect sells services for captioning video that include hosting and support services as well as SaaS captioning.Due to media accessibility legislation, public institutions must caption their videos.HiveDirect decreases up to 50% of its customers captioning costs, and its service fits well with existing processes and infrastructure.HiveDirect's customers include public and private video content creators, particularly educational institutions in Canada and globally.
Request: Help identify potential customers, channels to market, Python/Django/front-end developers, and international opportunities.Contact: jmakienk@gmail.comNatasha D'Souza, founder of VirtualEyeSee and a recent MEng (TIM) graduate, is a 2012 Nicol Intern (tinyurl.com/77grl2u)with over 15 years of industry experience working in technology companies, non-profit organizations, startups, and running her own social media consulting company, VirtualEyeSee (virtualeye see.com).The development and commercialization of a system to deliver virtual therapy for children with special needs was a combination of a mother seeking an effective solution for her child and the knowledge gained from the TIM program (D'Souza, 2011; timreview.ca/article/440).The system is for children with special needs (i.e., Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Asperger Syndrome) who have social challenges and for those who help these children, including schools, parents, and therapists.The system provides consistency between home, school, and the therapist, evidence of the right amount of repetitions to master a skill, and most importantly, it is affordable.
Request: Help find developers, as well as parents and children willing to provide feedback on the system.Contact: natasha@virtualeyesee.comElias Majic, founder of Ottercall and recent MEng graduate, has four years of experience in speech recognition.Ottercall (ottercall.com)sells several mobile applications and has licensed technology to a military customer.Ottercall targets business users who are too busy to dedicate time to just learning a language at a computer.Customers focus on accent reduction and business language comprehension; they receive instantaneous feedback on pronunciation for a significantly lower price than other language-learning products.With Ottercall's software, users are able to become proficient in languages quicker, which results in greater earnings and increased global opportunities.
Request: Help identify individuals who can help localize market offers in Brazil, Russia, India, and China and secure customers.Contact: eli@ottercall.com

Closing Remarks
Dean Tomberlin ended the evening by thanking the audience for attending and for their input into the proof points and graduate students' work.In closing, the Dean encouraged everyone to act upon the underlying theme of the evening: collaboration within a business ecosystem setting.In this spirit, readers of the TIM Review are invited to contribute their feedback on and support for the seven proof points and to fulfill the requests outlined in the student presentations.
The TIM Lecture Series is hosted by Carleton University's Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program (carleton.ca/tim).

Leadership Relies on Implementing a Business Ecosystem Approach
The president's story emphasized that success requires hard work over many years, science, research, and inspiration.Luck is something that you make with other people.