A course that challenges students, including MBAs, technical majors and law students, to create a business around new or discarded technologies at The Ohio State University (OSU) was recently hailed as one of the country’s best on entrepreneurship in a recent Inc. magazine edition.
In Technology Venturing, taught by Michael Camp, academic director of Ohio State’s Center for Entrepreneurship, teams of students focus on technologies that have not found commercial uses. “They want to know whether the invention solves a problem significant enough that you could build a business around it,” says Camp. “They’re not allowed to dismiss one because it looks complicated.”
Recently, one team uncovered a new use for their technology—one that even the inventor didn’t foresee. According to Inc., “A physics researcher at OSU designed an electrically charged polymer for stimulating cell growth; he envisioned it being in the body to promote healing. But getting there was a $50 million proposition, so the technology languished. Camp’s students determined that pharmaceutical companies could use the polymer to grow cells for cancer research. They found a local company to beta test it, the university licensing office rewrote the patent, and OSU is now fielding customer queries.”
Interested in more details? Click out a detailed syllabus of the course. And for more information on OSU’s Tech Venturing course, visit the Center for Entrepreneurship.
