Davis Roots opens doors, presents first two companies - The bond between the Davis business community and UC Davis got a bit stronger this week as Davis Roots, a nonprofit business accelerator, unveiled its new headquarters Monday at the Hunt-Boyer Mansion. Davis Roots took the opportunity to present the first two startup companies it will help develop, both of which are affiliated with UCD. The first company, Barobo Inc. was co-founded by Graham Ryland, a UCD graduate, and Harry Hui Cheng, a professor and director of the integration engineering laboratory on campus.  The second company, Nuritas, was founded by UCD post-doctoral student Nora Khaldi, who has developed computer software, or specifically, a proprietary bioinformatics tool for the discovery of nutriceuticals or food components that affect health.  Both Rylan and Khaldi are alumni of the institute's Entrepreneurship Academies. (Davis Enterprise, May 1, 2012)

Davis Roots is opening its doors for business

Davis Roots will host a ribbon cutting and open house ceremony at their new home in the Hunt-Boyer Mansion, 604 Second Street, in downtown Davis on Monday, April 30 at 5 p.m. They will also introduce the first two companies selected for the program. One of the companies is the result of a Food and Health Entrepreneurship Academy '12 alum.

Planned speakers include Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor, Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza, and UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi.

About Davis Roots

The accelerator will be located at the Hunt Boyer Mansion on the corner of Second and E Streets, and will house emerging ventures while helping them develop their business and find funding.  Davis Roots was formed as a 501c3 with the objective of increasing the number of startups forming and eventually locating in Davis. 

Davis Roots to move into Hunt-Boyer Mansion — The City Council voted 3-1 Tuesday night — with Councilman Stephen Souza absent — to approve a six-month lease for Davis Roots to move into the city-owned Hunt-Boyer Mansion, 604 Second St. downtown. (Davis Enterprise, March 7, 2012)

From the ground up: New non-profit Davis Roots to nurture start-ups  — As UC Davis works to spin out more start-up companies and the city of Davis mulls how best to keep them here, a new nonprofit organization aims to help both succeed. Davis Roots, a business accelerator, is the brainchild of local entrepreneur Anthony Costello, former chairman of the city’s Business and Economic Development Commission, and UCD professor of technology management Andrew Hargadon, the founding chair of both the campus’ Energy Efficiency Center and what is now the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. (Davis Enterprise, February 20, 2012)

Making Sense of Innovation--UC Davis Magazine's spring issue features cover story on Andrew Hargadon, director of the Child Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and its mission to accelerate research innovations to the marketplace.

Davis Roots to move into Hunt-Boyer Mansion — The City Council voted 3-1 Tuesday night — with Councilman Stephen Souza absent — to approve a six-month lease for Davis Roots to move into the city-owned Hunt-Boyer Mansion, 604 Second St. downtown. (Davis Enterprise, March 7, 2012)

Regional Entrepreneurial Support

Looking to start a company in the Sacramento region? Developed by a consortium of regional resources, you can now download the new "Helping you succeed: Regional entrepreneurial support" diagram and information map.

Helping You Succeed (pdf) >>

$5M commitment to establish new institute for innovation and entrepreneurship — The University of California, Davis, is launching a new interdisciplinary institute devoted to education, research and outreach in innovation and entrepreneurship, with the help of a $5 million commitment from alumni Mike and Renée Child.  The institute, which launches today, builds on the success and experience of the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship, which since 2006 has helped researchers and students move their innovations and ideas into the marketplace. The center’s founding director, Professor Andrew Hargadon, is now serving as the institute’s faculty director. (UC Davis News Service, November 8, 2011)

Poop to Plastic — Landfills aren’t the only place innovators are turning waste into green products. Sewage treatment plants could be a gold mine in the quest to replace the millions of barrels of petroleum used every year to make plastic for packaging. Energy Now Correspondent Lee Patrick Sullivan gets a whiff of how sewer sludge is being turned into sustainable plastic to reduce the nation’s oil consumption in this interview with Green Technology Entrepreneurship Alumnus, John Bissell. (Energy Now, October 31, 2011)

Pew Center report identifies “Seven Keys to Success” for low-carbon innovation  — C4E Founder Andrew Hargadon's Business of Innovating: Bringing Low-Carbon Solutions to Market report highlights keys to success in pursuing low-carbon innovation using case studies of eight low-carbon solutions by four leading companies: Alstom SA, Daimler AG, HP and Johnson Controls, Inc. (Pew Center on Global Climate Change, October 19, 2011)

EcoCatalytics a Global Finalist in the CleanTech Open — EcoCatalytics is a global finalist in the the world's largest cleantech accelerator, Smart Grid category, one of seven innovative entrepreneurial teams selected from an elite group of 39 cleantech startups that competed in the California Region competition. They will compete for the final prize in November. (CleanTech Open, October 7, 2011)

Sacramento's KlickNation rises on wave of social media gaming — Darrell Smith at the Sac Bee writes "Just over three years ago, online game developer Klicknation was born in tiny offices near midtown Sacramento's Fremont Park, when University of California, Davis, business graduate Mark Otero took profits from his popular Mochi Yogurt shop to launch the startup."
(Sacramento Bee, July 30, 2011)

Innovation from the Bottom Up — The N.Y. Times' "Dot Earth" blog describes C4E founder and Faculty Director Andrew Hargadon as "one of the foremost thinkers on innovation [who] argues that what we typically consider to be some of the most important 'inventions' are actually 'recombinant innovations.'"
(New York Times, July 28, 2011)
 

Personalized chemotherapy innovation wins UC Davis Big Bang! Business Plan Competition — A technology that could allow cancer specialists to better determine the most effective chemotherapy treatment for a given patient won the $10,000 first prize in the 11th annual Big Bang! Business Plan Competition at the University of California, Davis. The contest is run by MBA students in the Graduate School of Management. A money-saving innovation that decreases the amount of rare and expensive platinum needed to make fuel cells won both the second-place $3,000 prize and the audience-selected People’s Choice award of $2,000.
(UC Davis Dateline, May 20, 2011)

International Study Trip: Czech Republic and Hungary

After several weeks of intense class study, MBA students and adjunct professor Will Agatstein, executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, are now on the ground in Czech Republic and Hungary. Follow them as they meet with executives, tour companies, and are brieifed by Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis, the US Ambassdador to Hungary.

http://web.me.com/wagatstein/Czech_Republic_and_Hungary_IST_SUQ_2010/Home.html

Breast Milk Sugars Give Infants a Protective Coat

by Nicolas Wade, New York Times
August 2, 2010

A large part of human milk cannot be digested by babies and seems to have a purpose quite different from infant nutrition — that of influencing the composition of the bacteria in the infant’s gut. The details of this three-way relationship between mother, child and gut microbes are being worked out by three researchers at the University of California, Davis — Bruce German, Carlito Lebrilla and David Mills. They and colleagues have found that a particular strain of bacterium, a subspecies of Bifidobacterium longum, possesses a special suite of genes that enable it to thrive on the indigestible component of milk.

Read more at the NY Times>>

Blue-ribbon report: Put higher value on tech transfer

By Andy Fell, UC Davis

UC Davis needs to put a higher value on moving ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace, with an approach that goes beyond counting patents and licenses, according to a report from the chancellor's Blue-Ribbon Committee on Technology Transfer and Commercialization.

"The true benefits of research are realized when the science is converted into practice," said the committee chair, Andrew Hargadon, a Chancellor's Fellow, professor in the Graduate School of Management and faculty director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.

"The university doesn't expect faculty to become entrepreneurs, but there needs to be a place in our culture that recognizes faculty who see their research move out into the world."

Among the committee's top recommendations:

• Provide opportunities for faculty, staff and students to develop and demonstrate the commercial value of their inventions.

• Make it easier for faculty to get involved in technology transfer and commercialization.

• Merge the existing InnovationAccess and Industry Research Agreements units to foster long-term relationships with industry that uphold the university’s mission.

• Set and communicate clear objectives and priorities for technology transfer and commercialization that support these goals.

The report calls for establishing standards for transparency, timeliness and accountability for the offices handling patents, licensing and industry research agreements.

Blue-ribbon assignments

The committee was one of two set up by Chancellor Linda Katehi in December 2009 to advise on how UC Davis can expand its research enterprise and increase the transfer of university inventions to public use, respectively. In addition to these committees, the chancellor engaged a team of consultants from The Washington Advisory Group, which provides strategic advice to research universities, governments, companies and nonprofit organizations.

The Washington Advisory Group team, led by Eric Bloch, former director of the National Science Foundation, held three days of meetings on campus in April and issued its own report to the chancellor. The consultants received a fee of $226,000 plus up to $30,000 in reimbursable expenses under the contract, which ran through June 30, 2010.

Hargadon's committee, made up of faculty from across the campus, including a number of inventors with experience patenting their work, met with UC Davis administrators and faculty and heard presentations by technology transfer officers from other leading universities.

The Blue-Ribbon Committee on Research issued its draft report in May and asked for comment through June 11. The report called for “a research culture and administration support structure that streamlines campus administrative processes, changes its goal to be mitigation of compliance risk rather than seeking to eliminate risk, and views its mission to be enabling faculty and research teams to thrive in their research endeavors.” The final report is due out by mid-August.

Rooted in practical tradition

UC Davis has a strong research base and is rooted in a practical tradition, Hargadon said.

"Because of the land-grant mission, UC Davis has a strong history of working with industry, government and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations)," he said. For example, collaborations in agriculture have had a lasting impact at the state, national and global levels, and licensing of plant varieties has been a continuing source of income for the university.

But Bloch said the university as a whole has lagged in relationships with industry. "You are not where you should be compared to similar campuses," he said.

UC Davis does not file enough patents or spin off enough companies compared to its peers, Bloch said. There are few incentives for faculty or students to get involved with activities that could lead to start-up companies or to industry links. The Graduate School of Management runs programs in entrepreneurship for graduate students and postdocs, as well as hosting the annual Big Bang! business plan competition, but these are only a beginning, Bloch said.

Technology transfer has not been perceived as a consistent high-level priority at UC Davis, Hargadon said, and the administrative support has been reactive and risk-averse rather than strategic.

More than counting patents

Transferring knowledge from the university to the wider world is about far more than counting patents, Hargadon said. It must also include:

• Training students who go to work for the public or private sector.

• Publishing academic papers.

• Interacting with industry researchers at professional meetings.

• Welcoming corporate-sponsored research projects on campus, and faculty consultation with private companies or government agencies.

• Encouraging entrepreneurial activities of faculty and students, regardless of whether they use intellectual property from the university.

These activities need to be encouraged, promoted and better rewarded, the committee recommended.

At the same time, the office managing technology transfer issues needs to convince faculty that the office can help them be more effective as researchers by quickly resolving intellectual property issues and agreements, by supporting new research funding opportunities and by assisting them in the broader dissemination of their work.

"There need to be clear recommendations from the chancellor on what this new office does and why, and a new organizational structure to support it," Hargadon said.

Read more >>

GE Invests, Teams With SynapSense on Data Centers

The weird, unfortunate distance between data centers and office buildings is finally being bridged.

Data center specialist SynapSense has rolled up another $5 million in funding, but perhaps more importantly, it will get to go on sales calls with General Electric in the future.

GE joined existing investors in the latest round, which brings the total invested in SynapSense to $25 million. Other investors include Bosch, American River Ventures, Nth Power and DFJ Frontier.

"We are tremendously capital efficient for a green technology company," joked CEO Pete Van Deventer.

The two companies, though, will also combine forces to sell their products. Two years ago, SynapSense sold a system that took a snapshot of the temperature, pressure, humidity and other environmental factors affecting the weather in the micro-climate of data centers. It then provided recommendations to corporate customers on how to adjust their air conditioners to data center's AC unit based on the information from the sensors and software. In an early test, the system found ways to reduce power consumption in a Yahoo data center by 21 percent.

Read more>>

UC Davis Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy Accelerating Successful Start-Ups in Sustainability

DAVIS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At the invitation of the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship, nearly 50 scientists, researchers and engineers from more than 20 universities have gathered this week for a series of seminars and workshops on how to launch a successful green-tech company. All of the sessions at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Research in Incline Village are open to the media.

“Two years down the road, I still keep in touch with our academy mentor on a weekly basis. He has been key in helping us secure partnerships and scale our business.”

The fourth annual Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy includes a Tuesday morning session with John Bissell, a UC Davis and academy alumnus, who started Micromidas, a West Sacramento-based company that converts carbon found in organic wastewater into biodegradable, recyclable bioplastics. Most plastic products today are petrochemical based and difficult to recycle.

Bissell will share his experience in starting a new venture based on green technology research. On Friday, attendees will present commercialization strategies to a panel of investors and corporate partners, providing a unique opportunity to gain insight and perspective from investors and corporate partners, such as Pacific Gas & Electric Co.; Chevron Corp.; Mohr Davidow Ventures, a Menlo Park-based venture capital firm; and Nth Power, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm focused on energy technology.

The academy, which runs from today until Friday, July 2, is taught by leading experts from top venture capital and law firms, UC Davis and other research institutions.

“Our biggest impact is to foster these network relationships connecting researchers with investors, big companies, utilities and the public sector. This has been a big missing piece in the puzzle of getting innovation out of the labs,” said Andrew Hargadon, director of the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship.

Hargadon, a professor who holds the Soderquist Chair in Entrepreneurship at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, is one of the nation’s foremost experts on entrepreneurship and management of technology innovation. He wrote the book, How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth about How Companies Innovate.

Since 2007, more than 420 scientists, engineers and business students from universities worldwide have attended the Center for Entrepreneurship’s 12 academies – including green technology and food and health. In the process, more than two dozen companies have been launched or supported, with more in the pipeline.

This week’s participants – graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and faculty working in a wide range of science and engineering fields – come to the green technology academy with a wealth of knowledge and work on cutting-edge, sustainable technologies.

The academy’s faculty is drawn from the Northern California venture capital and angel investor community, including CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, DFJ Element, DCM, Physic Ventures and Sierra Angels. Attorneys from Morrison & Foerster and DLA Piper also will be on hand.

Guest entrepreneurs include Professor Paul Hudnut of Colorado State University, a co-founder of Envirofit International, Ltd, a company that makes clean cook-stoves; and Bissell, whose company, Micromidas, recently raised $3.6 million in its first major round of financing.

“The network that we developed from the 2008 academy has been absolutely instrumental in developing our company,” said Bissell. “Two years down the road, I still keep in touch with our academy mentor on a weekly basis. He has been key in helping us secure partnerships and scale our business.”

In addition to Chevron and PG&E, major sponsors include the Nevada Institute for Renewable Energy Commercialization and the National Institute of Environmental Sciences’ Superfund Research Program. Additional support is provided by the Sierra Angels and Sierra Nevada College.

For more information: http://entrepreneurship.ucdavis.edu/green

Spring 2010 Networks Newsletter

In this issue:

• Executive Brief: The Path Best Taken
• A Better, Brighter Future: Business Development Alumnus Kurt Kornbluth
• A Kick-start for Healthy Businesses: Food + Health Entrepreneurship Academy
• Researcher Resources: Building a Team

Plan to use tobacco to grow vaccines wins $15,000

A new venture that could save thousands of lives and millions of dollars by accelerating development and production of animal and human vaccines won the $15,000 grand prize Thursday in the 10th annual Big Bang! Business Plan Competition organized by MBA students of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.   

The process conceived by a group of UC Davis students substitutes tobacco plants for conventional manufacturing methods that rely on chicken eggs and cell culture, to cut development time for new vaccines from six months to as little as six weeks, according to Lucas Arzola, a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering who headed the winning team, Inserogen.

The Inserogen plan noted that the U.S. government spent $1.3 billion to develop an H1N1 vaccine, but could deliver only 30 million of 160 million promised doses by last summer. With limited supplies of the vaccine, 86 million Americans were infected with the flu virus and, of those, 17,000 died.

The Inserogen team and the evening’s “People’s Choice” winner, a blueprint for a new infant diagnostics test developed by a team known as Pedianostics, were invited to compete in the $250,000 DFJ Cisco International Business Plan competition, which will pit the UC Davis teams against winners of similar contests at other top West Coast business schools.

A third UC Davis team, Nomad Technologies, finished second with a UC Davis-patented nanotechnology-based design that could increase computer hard drive capacity by more than 800 percent. The team, four Bay Area Working Professional MBA students from the management school’s San Ramon campus, won $5,000. Pedianostics won $3,000 for the People’s Choice Award, which is decided by a vote of the event’s audience.

Sacramento venture capitalist Roger Akers, one of those who supported the launch of Big Bang! as a student-run competition in 2000, said it has evolved dramatically over the past decade. It drew more than 40 entries this year.

“Every year we’ve seen an incremental growth in the quality of the plans and the quality of the teams that come together,” said Akers, one of the contest’s judges. “Now the organization has its own brand and it own identity. The prize money has quadrupled. The quality of the business plans from all the interdisciplinary areas now are fundable.”

Organized and run since its inception by UC Davis MBA students, the competition is designed to inspire and reward innovation and entrepreneurship. Previous winners and finalists have gone on to form companies such as VinPerfect, Bloo Solar, SialoGen, Ultra V and Visual Calc.

Read more>>

Media contact(s):

Tim Akin, Graduate School of Management, (530) 752-7362, tmakin@ucdavis.edu

Jim Sweeney, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-6101, jpsweeney@ucdavis.edu

A History Lesson in Clean Tech
From the Kauffman Foundation "Ideas at Work"
By Andrew Hargadon
Senior Fellow, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

History teaches us a little-known lesson about innovation: Ideas don't matter. Good ideas languish all the time.

What matters? Execution. It's everything—especially, ironically enough, with breakthrough technologies. As the world embraces and demands advances in clean technologies, it’s time to look at what past technology revolutions teach us about the best ways to move clean technology innovations forward.

While policymakers in the United States might believe that innovation depends more on ideas than execution, history points to a different lesson. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu argued: "Our previous investments in science led to the birth of the semiconductor, computer, and bio-technology industries that have added greatly to our economic prosperity. Now, we need similar breakthroughs in energy." It was more than spending on science that turned those past ideas into breakthroughs.

Read more on the the Kauffman Foundation website>>

Read the Energy Empowers, U.S. Department of Energy blog post on the Green Tech Entrepreneurship Academy >>

7 Ways to Make Students More Entrepreneurial

Read Professor Andrew Hargadon's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education in which he talks about the need to teach entrepreneurship broadly—and what needs to be taught:  

The article is available for non-subscribers for 5 days here, then available to subscribers here

Follow Along with the GSM International Study Trip to Turkey

Follow C4E Executive Director, Wil Agatstein, and the students from the GSM's International Study Trip, as they travel to Turkey.

IST Turkey >>

Professor Andrew Hargadon quoted in Science Magazine, February 2010 article. Read more on Monetize Your Science >>

Spurring Business Startups and Innovation in Clean Technology

Live Webcast Hosted by the Kauffman Foundation and the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices

Wednesday February 24, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EST

Governors across the country are looking for ways to build their economy by supporting new businesses and spurring entrepreneurship—newly created companies and young startups are the primary drivers of job creation in the United States. At the same time, they are looking for ways to build opportunities in emerging industries such as clean energy, a sector in which sound state policy is a necessary precursor for business growth. This webcast will feature three ways in which states can use existing scientific and business talent to spur the creation of new clean energy companies:

(1) By providing scientists and engineers with the skills and knowledge they need to start companies.

Andrew Hargadon, Center for Entrepreneurship, University of California, Davis, will discuss the Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy, a one-week business development intensive that teaches science and engineering students and faculty how to commercialize research and start new ventures.

(2) By transitioning entrepreneurs and executives from other high-tech sectors into the green energy sector.

Peter Rothstein, New England Clean Energy Council, will discuss the Clean Energy Fellowship Program, an entrepreneurial development program that rapidly transitions experienced entrepreneurs and executives into the region’s clean energy sector.

(3) By working across states to take existing small businesses to scale.

Kimberly Loui, Arizona State University, will present the soon-to-be launched Energy Innovation Network, which aims to catalyze interaction between states and other stakeholders to create the conditions necessary for the growth of existing startups in clean energy.

To view webcast check back here
Wednesday February 24, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EST
(Microsoft SilverLight plugin will be required to view).
Registration on the player is required to submit questions.

PepsiCo at the Food and Health Entrepreneurship Academy

PepsiCo showed up at the University of California, Davis Center for Entrepreneurship this week as a sponsor and participant in the Food and Health Entrepreneurship Academy. The academy attracts scientists in the fields of nutrition, viticulture and enology, plant science, biochemistry, nutritional genomics and fields relevant to foods for health. The discussions involved taking scientific ideas and turning them into viable business opportunities.

Read more on the PepsiCo Food Frontiers Blog >>

The UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship Announces the Release of its Annual Report 2008/09

Read the Annual Report >>

Download PDF >>

• Director’s Statement, Andrew Hargadon, Founder and Faculty Director
• Entrepreneurship @ UC Davis
• Program Overview
  • Fellows Program
  • Entrepreneurship Academies
  • UC Entrepreneurship Academy
  • Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy
  • Food + Health Entrepreneurship Academy
  • School of Medicine Intensive
• Executive + Custom Education
• Business Competitions
• Additional Programs
• Start-up Profiles
  • WicKool
  • Micromidas
• In the News
• Our Team
• Sponsors + Partners
• Soderquist’s Lasting Legacy
• Salquists Support Innovation
• Olympus Award
• Financial Review, Wil Agatstein, Executive Director

$2 Million Gift to Spark Entrepreneurship at UC Davis

Andrew Hargadon is the first holder of the Charles J. Soderquist Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis photo)

The UC Davis Graduate School of Management has $2 million in new seed money to spark entrepreneurship in California, thanks to a gift from the estate of Charles J. Soderquist, a UC Davis alumnus who founded and led several dozen high-tech companies in the greater Sacramento area.

Half of the $2 million will establish an endowment to support the management school's Center for Entrepreneurship, and the rest will be used to create the Charles J. Soderquist Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship.

Soderquist received his master's degree in 1973 and his doctorate in 1978, both from UC Davis in environmental chemistry. He died in 2004.

"Although I did not have the good fortune to know Mr. Soderquist personally, I am grateful for his many years of dedication to UC
Davis," Chancellor Linda Katehi said. "Philanthropic support, like that from the Soderquist estate, is critical to the growth of
programs and helps to move us even higher within the top tier of the nation's public research universities."

Steven Currall, dean of the Graduate School of Management, said this gift will contribute to the momentum of the UC Davis Center for
Entrepreneurship.

"This is a trailblazing gift that will catapult the center to higher levels of recognition and achievement," he said.

The Center for Entrepreneurship got its start in the winter of 2004 when Soderquist, Graduate School of Management Professor Andrew Hargadon and Sacramento-based venture capitalist Scott Lenet co-taught a course that mixed Graduate School of Management students with graduate students from the life sciences and engineering program on campus. Students learned under the guidance of experienced entrepreneurs, investors and corporate leaders. Soderquist shared his experiences in launching new companies, along with his vision for how science and business could mix at UC Davis.

"The idea was to create a program that would not just teach entrepreneurship but create entrepreneurs," said Hargadon, who has
served as the center's director since its inception. He assumed the Charles J. Soderquist Endowed Chair on Nov. 1. "We felt that UC
Davis, with all of its science and engineering talent, could blossom if entrepreneurs helped bring those ideas out of the laboratories and into the broader world."

Since then, the center has enrolled more than 40 doctoral candidates in the Business Development Fellows program (a yearlong series of courses and intensive weeklong "boot camps") and more than 300 national and international participants in its entrepreneurship academies. These scientists and engineers have turned their ideas into action, fostering the development of such innovations as energy-efficient LED street lighting, technology that can turn wastewater into biodegradable plastics, and designs for
high-efficiency solar cells, among many other projects.

"Charlie would have been proud to see the Center for Entrepreneurship blossom as it has," said Chancellor Emeritus Larry Vanderhoef, who counted Soderquist as a close friend and was instrumental in establishing the endowed chair. "He was passionate about so many things, including the promise of science and technology to make this world a better place."

Soderquist often defined entrepreneurship as "the art of business," and he tirelessly engaged entrepreneurs to replicate themselves. The center married two of his passions -- entrepreneurship and UC Davis.

Soderquist's enthusiasm extended from the science, business and investment communities to education, art, literature and the
environment. He was a staunch supporter of his alma mater and served as chair of the UC Davis Foundation, a volunteer-led organization that receives private gifts to benefit UC Davis and manages its endowed gift funds and other private assets. He also served as president of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association and as an alumni representative to the UC Board of Regents.

Hargadon said he only wishes Soderquist could have seen that first class become a program that continues to grow and engage UC Davis students and scholars from around the world.

"There is nothing more fitting -- nor more moving to me -- than to have Charlie's name and continuing support attached to the program he helped create," Hargadon said.

About the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship

The Center for Entrepreneurship is one of three Centers of Excellence at the Graduate School of Management. It is a nexus for entrepreneurship education and research — and a springboard for entrepreneurial ventures — on the UC Davis campus and beyond. The center teaches scientists and engineers how to move their ideas out of the lab and into the world. Through a set of programs, the center provides researchers with the necessary skills and knowledge to launch a venture, commercialize their research and prepare for a career in industry. Science, engineering and business students work together with experienced entrepreneurs, investors and corporate leaders in an environment that blends effective theory with hands-on participation and solution-driven innovation. http://entrepreneurship.ucdavis.edu

About the UC Davis Graduate School of Management

Established in 1981, the Graduate School of Management has enjoyed growing national and international prominence. U.S. News & World Report has ranked it among the top 50 public and private business schools for the past 14 years. It moved up to 40th place in the magazine's latest survey. The school has 120 students enrolled in a daytime MBA program at Gallagher Hall at the UC Davis campus and more than 450 working professional students at campuses in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. Three Centers of Excellence are devoted to research and activities that have a powerful impact on the business world and enrich the curriculum with hands-on learning opportunities for students: UC Davis Center for Investor Welfare and Corporate Responsibility, the UC Davis MBA Consulting Center and the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship. http://www.gsm.ucdavis.edu

About UC Davis

For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science — and advanced degrees from six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

Media contact(s):

• Nicole Starsinic, Center for Entrepreneurship, (530) 574-6531

• Tim Akin, Graduate School of Management, (530) 752-7362

• Jim Sweeney, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-6101

Fall 2009 Networks Newsletter

In this issue:

• Welcome from Executive Director, Wil Agatstein
• Networks Interview with Angela Zivkovic, Milk Bioactives Program
• Growing Green Ideas: Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy 2009
• Developing a Strong Intellectual Property Strategy: Morrison & Foerster
• NewsBytes

The Conversation: A newcomer to California – and seeing the bright side
Hosted by Daniel Weintraub, Sacramento Bee, August 30, 2009
Picture by Anne Chadwick Williams

Steven Currall still believes in the California Dream.

Currall, a native of Missouri, started last month as dean of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. He comes to the Sacramento region by way of the London Business School and Rice University in Houston. An expert in innovation and entrepreneurship, he was drawn here by Northern California's reputation as a hotbed for both.

When I interviewed him last week, Currall evidenced an outsider's perspective about problems that many longtime Californians see as the end of our state as we know it. To Currall, the state government's dysfunction and its inability to balance the budget, resolve conflicts over water or address problems in kindergarten-through-12th grade education are mere "speed bumps" that the private sector will get past with little trouble.

Although he is more concerned about tax and regulatory policies that might suppress innovation, even there he sees a glass half full: His vision for using the graduate school as an incubator for new green-technology companies depends in part on the government's plans for aggressive regulation of greenhouse gases to fight global warming.

Currall thinks his school can be for the Sacramento region what the Stanford Business School has been for the Silicon Valley: a source of management expertise that will help engineers and other entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful commercial enterprises, and in turn transform this region into a global leader in clean energy technology.

– Daniel Weintraub

Edited excerpts from an interview with Steven Currall.

What attracted you to California and the University of California, Davis?

Davis has got this amazing confluence of assets. The quality of the university, world-class university. The graduate school of management is relatively young, only 28 years old. But it's had a terrific rise in visibility and impact. And it's had a real strong commitment to quality. Quality of faculty. Quality of students. So I saw that as a great platform, a great foundation.

And also, it's an opportunity to grow the school. The school is relatively modest in size. But I like to consider myself an academic entrepreneur; I like to grow and build things in an academic setting.

And Davis just seemed like an ideal opportunity. A great foundation. Good momentum and trajectory, but still an opportunity for me to have some, for me to make a contribution.

You've talked about the California Dream. Haven't the current conditions tarnished that image?

I think the current conditions are just a small speed bump. I'm not troubled by them. I think the ethos here is so committed to innovation and being on the edge, and exploring new things, I think that is going to carry us through. I think we are going to innovate our way out of this, I hope. And the Graduate School of Management is going to contribute to that. One of our main strategic foci is innovation. We've got a great history of doing that.

We've got a center for entrepreneurship which is very successful. And it's consistent with my hopes and aspiration for the school, because I want the school to fulfill its scholarly and educational mission, but I think the school has a responsibility for promoting economic prosperity as well. Not only should we educate MBA students to lead and run existing corporations, but I think we have a role in actually starting companies and job creation. I'm hoping we can make a contribution there, as well.

What does the California Dream mean to you?

Californians are not encumbered by confusion about what matters and what doesn't matter. I think that my observation of Californians is that their priorities are on what one can achieve, what one has done, what one might someday do. My experience on the East Coast is different. It's much more retrospective, much more backward-looking, what family are you from or what school did you go to. I think California people don't care about that very much, and I find that appealing. It's much more of a meritocracy.

People are unconcerned with exactly where you're from or what your ethnicity is and what your gender is. How can you contribute to what we are trying to accomplish seems to be the key question in the minds of Californians. I love that, and I think that's very exciting. I find that refreshing and liberating. That's sort of what I see as the California Dream.

Is our focus on entrepreneurship the cause of those attitudes, or the result?

It's both a cause and an effect. I think the California ethos is probably more the cause of the entrepreneurship dynamic here. I'm from Missouri originally, and my father used to joke that the people from Missouri are the ones who didn't have the stamina to make it to California.

The Californians are the ones who really, 'We're just going to go all the way until we hit the ocean.'

I like that can-do attitude. That and the quality of life out here. The great universities here, the University of California system and the great private schools, Stanford and Cal Tech and others, have been human capital magnets. They draw people in. And with all that intellectual talent and creativity, then, the financial capital essentially follows human capital. It's not the other way around. With so much of that in California the financial capital came in, and we had the Silicon Valley dynamic. Then there is this critical-mass effect. You have amazing intellectual resources, then you've got the financial resources as well, and you put that all together and that's what's given rise to the whole entrepreneurship phenomenon in California.

California, it is sort of the envy of everywhere in the world, more specifically Northern California.

Northern California's the gold standard for everybody around the world in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship. I know that because I just spent 31/2 years in Europe, and I certainly spent a fair amount of time in Asia and heard the same thing there. To me it's exciting to get in on that whole dynamic and see if I can make a contribution as well.

Won't all the problems we are having get in the way of innovation?

Maybe I'm unrealistic, but somehow I feel the innovation momentum we have is going to push through this. It might be slowed down, but it won't be arrested, it won't be stopped. It's too big to stop. But you're right, the plumbing has gotten clogged up a bit in terms of the infrastructure. And I am concerned about that. One of the interesting things about Davis being so near to Sacramento is I hope we are in a little bit closer touch with all of that than even folks in the Bay Area.

To what extent does entrepreneurship depend on a well-functioning government?

Not that much, I don't think. What will hurt us more is tax policies that make it very difficult to start a company, grow a company. I'm very mindful of environmental and sustainability issues, and that's one of the things I like about California.

My hope is we don't swing so far that it makes it impossible to start and grow new companies here. If the government regulations begin to have that kind of impact, then I'd begin to get more worried.

But there are a lot of places that have flourishing innovation climates and entrepreneurship that are far worse than California in terms of government policies and bureaucracy. I just came from the U.K. for 31/2 years. They didn't actually invent bureaucracy. But the British are pretty good at it and have been at it for several hundred years. Despite that, there's a lot of interesting things going on in London from an entrepreneurship standpoint.

There's a certain spirit of entrepreneurs where they are sort of intrigued with the idea of doing it despite, succeeding despite, the government. 'Yes, we know it's hard, but we're entrepreneurs and we are going to overcome those obstacles.' I feel that in California.

It's too early to tell whether these kinds of government policy challenges are going to have a significant cooling effect. I hope we can have some innovations in government in the same way we've had innovation in the for-profit sector.

How can your business school help create new companies?

There are three key ingredients for any successful start-up company.

The example I often use is a medical device. The practicing physician will know a great deal about devices and instruments that he or she uses in surgery. They know what they need. They have to be partnered up with people who have technical knowledge. The engineers are the ones who can solve technical problems. If a physician says I need an instrument that can do A, B and C, engineers are great at finding technical solutions to that. If you have people who know what the problems are, and people who have technical expertise who can devise solutions, then the third key ingredient is management talent.

Taking the knowledge of the demand and technical solutions and executing that into a successful commercial business. That's where the business school comes in. That's where our students are strongest.

They fulfill that role of business execution, management knowledge, how to build a company, scale up, how to create business structures, how to finance a company. Those are, our faculty in the school study those dynamics, marketing, finance, accounting, organization. That's what our students can contribute to creating new companies.

Fifteen years from now, how will we know if you succeeded?

If the Sacramento region emerges as a recognized national and global hub in energy and sustainability and in life sciences. I think that's where the promise is and that's where a lot of our attention is going to be focused. There's no need for us to try to focus on information technology and telecommunications.

That's been done. Wehave an interest in those things and the application of technology to energy and life sciences, but we are looking for ways in which the Sacramento region can really differentiate. I think there is real promise, especially in the area of sustainability and clean tech.

I think Sacramento really has a shot at being a globally recognized hub. Why is that? Because Davis has significant intellectual capital and resources in these areas, and that cannot be built overnight. That takes decades to create and we have that. So we have this great platform already.

The other interesting thing about clean tech and sustainability is that there is this huge government regulation role. And those innovations are not going to make it to the marketplace in exactly the same way as, say, computers or software, where there was some role for government regulation but less so. I think there is more of a role for government regulation. And my hope is that being in the Sacramento region, we can be more sophisticated about understanding that role, and we can teach our students, make them more a savvy about the role of government regulation in promoting clean tech.

Those are some unique characteristics and assets we have in Davis and in Sacramento that we can leverage. In 10 or 15 years, if the region is really acknowledged as one of those leaders and the Graduate School of Management is acknowledged as a contributor to that in the same way as, say, Stanford Business School was in Silicon Valley, then we would feel good about that kind of contribution.

Dot Earth: The Networked Path to Breakthroughs

By Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times

Several dozen graduate students and researchers pursuing careers that could help humans prosper on a thriving planet have gathered in Santa Fe, N.M.,  for the first “Summer School on Global Sustainability,” developed by the Santa Fe Institute with help from the  National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Over two days, they were immersed in a crash course on technological breakthroughs and the circumstances that either drive them or squelch them, led by Andrew Hargadon of the University of California, Davis. He studies what you might call the ecology of innovation, with a particular focus these days on fostering advances that don’t harm the environment.

Drawing on the history of Ford’s Model T, James Watt’s steam engine, Edison’s electricity innovations and other case studies, Dr. Hargadon concludes that four kinds of capital are required: financial, physical (labs and the like), intellectual (the “know-how,” he says) and social, which he calls the “know who.”

In the first part of a video interview (above), he says that social networks are most often the missing link — often because scientists, particularly in academia, are reluctant to build relationships outside their comfort zone. Over the weekend, I’ll post the second part, which includes a recommendation that science graduate students spend time in the world of business.

Watch Interview >>

GTEA Alums Semi-Finalists in the 2009 CleanTech Open

Two GTEA Alums are semi-finalists in the California CleanTech Open 2009. 

From the CleanTech Open Newsletter:

The 2009 California Competition is pleased to announce the 2009 Semifinalists. The teams will receive expert mentoring, one-on-one consulting, an intensive educational weekend at the Clean Tech Accelerator, plus more supporting events, training and materials. They will be invited to write a business plan and give a pitch to professional investors and experts. Stay tuned throughout the summer for updates from these great companies

Air, Water & Waste Categories:

Driptech, providing affordable drip irrigation for developing countries. Founder Peter Frykman is a GTEA 2008 Alum. Driptech is also a finalist in the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Venture Challenge, a $250K business plan competition.

MicroMidas, biodegradable plastic from wastewater. Founders John Bissell, CEO; Kristen Matsumura, CTO, and Casey McGrath, CSO, are all GTEA 2008 alums.

Another Path to Riches

By Stephen Baker, BusinessWeek

As recently as a year ago, many Stanford grads could count on high-paid jobs at tech companies, banks, and consulting firms. Not so this year. With many companies scaling back hiring, the answer for some grads is to launch startups.

Driptech

In many poor farming areas, water is scarce and expensive. Drip irrigation would help farmers grow crops with only a fraction as much water as traditional methods require, though putting the systems in place has long been too costly. Driptech produces low-cost units to manufacture drip pipelines. According to the company, which has a pilot project in India, farmers who invest $20 in drip systems can grow $100 to $260 of vegetables a year—without waiting for rain.

Read Full Article >>

Networks Are What Make Real Innovation Possible:
An interview with UC Davis professor Andrew Hargadon

By Terry Waghorn, Forbes Magazine

The next great life-changing technology may already have been invented. But it also may have been forgotten, left on a shelf gathering dust in some corporate or university science lab. How can that be, you ask? Because innovation becomes meaningful only when there is a network that can take that great idea and turn it into an invention that matters.

So says Andrew Hargadon, professor of technology management at the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis, and author of How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate.

Hargadon, who is the founding director of both the Center for Entrepreneurship and the Energy Efficiency Center at Davis, is devoted to figuring out not only how companies and universities can continue to make more things possible through their research, but also, and just as important, how they can capitalize and bring to life innovations they've already come up with, by connecting up the realms of science, engineering and business.

The key, he says, lies in harnessing social networks to bring innovators and thinkers together with venture capitalists, angel investors, entrepreneurs, intellectual property lawyers and others who can help commercialize great ideas so they can change lives.

Read Full Article >>

Inside the Spring 2009 Networks Newsletter: 

• Innovation lab to Incubate Ideas
• A Critical Shift
• Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy: Green Growth
• Food and Health Entrepreneurship Academy: Harvesting Research
• Legal Matters: Top 9 legal mistakes of early stage companies

Read online >>

Recognizing the power and promise of entrepreneurship and the importance of bridging science and business, Roger and Claudia Salquist have pledged a major gift to name one of the most exciting spaces planned for Gallagher Hall—an egg-shaped Innovation Lab designed specifically for "hatching" new ideas.

The Salquists will donate $100,000 to name and cover construction costs of the Innovation Lab as well as provide support to the Center for Entrepreneurship. They also have plans for significant additional support to the Center for Entrepreneurship in the future.

“By outfitting our Innovation Lab and providing funding to the Center for Entrepreneurship, the Salquist’s gift goes a long way to support what we're doing,” said Associate Professor Andrew Hargadon, founder and faculty director of the center. “The lab represents the center's work: a space where business and science, academia and industry, students and mentors, connect around a common innovation process.” 

Read more about the Salquists gift in the Summer 2009 Graduate School of Management Innovator Magazine >>

The 2009 Big Bang! Business Plan Competition winners, Ultra-V, were featured in the Sacramento Bee.

Big Bang winners at UC Davis bank on water-cleanup method

There has to be a better way.

Scientists, inventors, entrepreneurs and dreamers of all kinds ponder those words constantly. But those who find a better way soon learn that it's not worth much without a plan to sell it.

That marriage of innovative product and marketing is at the heart of the Big Bang, the annual business-plan competition at the University of California, Davis. A $15,000 prize goes to the team whose proposal is judged most likely to succeed.

This year, the Big Bang first prize was awarded in May to a three-person team of UC Davis engineering and business graduate students. They call their project UltraV, a system to disinfect water with pulsing ultraviolet light instead of toxic chlorine.  Read full article >>

UC Davis's Energy Efficiency Center Makes Conservation Sexy

Peter Frykman, Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy 2008 alum, was mentioned in Red Herring's post Water Innovation: It's Not What You Think on March 31, 2009.

Read the Red Herring post >>

Read more about Peter and driptech on our Web site >>

Professor Andrew Hargadon won the Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award on March 20, 2009 at the annual NCIIA (National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance) conference in Washington D.C.  He was recognized for his strong curriculum and notable success in moving technologies from the lab to the marketplace, as part of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Graduate School of Management.  Professor Hargadon launched the Center for Entrepreneurship in 2006. The center’s programs are designed for science and engineering graduate researchers and faculty and include one-week entrepreneurship academies as well as a year-long fellows program.   Since its inception, the center has seen its alumni move many new technologies into the marketplace >>

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UC Davis Graduate School of Management Professor Andrew Hargadon Wins Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award

DAVIS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Olympus, a precision technology leader creating innovative opto-digital solutions in healthcare, life science and consumer electronics products, today announced the 2009 winners in the Olympus Innovation Award Program.

Andrew Hargadon, professor at the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Davis, and a former design engineer for IDEO Product Development and Apple Computer, captured the Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award. The award recognizes an individual who has inspired innovative thinking in students in a discrete area and whom the judges believe has the potential to make even greater contributions to the field in the future.

Hargadon was recognized for his leadership as the faculty director of the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship, which has had notable success in moving technologies from university labs to the marketplace. The center’s programs are designed for science and engineering graduate researchers and faculty and include four one-week entrepreneurship academies as well as a year-long fellows program. The academies provide a framework for universities to build a network with the investment community and combines a comprehensive and pioneering curriculum developed by Hargadon. These academies offer hands-on exercises that participants use to develop business opportunities and investigate the potential opportunities for commercialization around their research.

Hargadon's further recognition stems from his research and teaching efforts at the undergraduate (as director of the Graduate School of Management's Technology Management Program) and graduate level (MBA courses in organizational behavior and technology management).

The national Olympus Innovation Award Program, executed by Olympus in partnership with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA), recognizes individuals who have fostered or demonstrated innovative thinking in education. The winners received their awards at NCIIA's 13th Annual Meeting last week in Alexandria, Va.

"This award from Olympus and NCIIA, both tremendous leaders in innovation in their own work, recognizes the impact of our work at the Center for Entrepreneurship and the great potential for our programs as they continue to grow," Hargadon said. "We're extremely proud and grateful to accept it."

The Olympus Innovation Awards Program, now in its fifth year, represents Olympus' ongoing commitment to technological innovation and education. The program includes three awards: The Olympus Innovation Award, the Olympus Lifetime of Educational Innovation Award and the Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award.

Editor's Note: For more information on the Olympus Innovation Awards Program, as well as photos from the awards ceremony, please see the backgrounder at www.olympuspresspass.com, contact the NCIIA at info@nciia.org, or visit www.nciia.org.

About the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship

As a Center of Excellence at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, the Center for Entrepreneurship serves as the nexus for entrepreneurship education and research — and as a springboard for entrepreneurial initiatives at UC Davis. The Center provides researchers with the necessary skills and knowledge to launch a venture, commercialize their research and prepare for a career in industry. To accomplish this, the center brings science, engineering and business students and faculty together with experienced entrepreneurs, investors and corporate leaders in an highly collaborative environment that blends effective theory with hands-on participation and solution-driven innovation.

Learn more at http://entrepreneurship.ucdavis.edu

Executive Director Wil Agatstein is co-leading the Graduate School of Management's International Study Trip to Panama and Ecuador. You can follow Wil and the MBAs on their trip and read about their experiences online >>

The 2008/09 Little Bang Poster Competition Winners:

Clean Energy/Environmental Sciences

Winner: Ultra V (Team Lead: Elisabetta Lambertini, UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship and Energy Efficiency Center Fellow)
Runner Up: HyPod (Team Lead: Steve Barnett, UC Davis Graduate School of Management MBA student)

Energy Efficiency

Winner: Energy Vault (Team Lead: Jeff Gleason, UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center)
Runner Up: Lighting the Way (Team Lead: Julian Cardona, UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship and Energy Efficiency Center Fellow)

Medical and Biotech Innovations

Winner: BioDynamics Consulting (Team Lead: Rena Chhit, UC Davis Graduate School of Management MBA student)
Runner Up: MicroMidas (Team Lead: Ben Crawford, UC Davis Graduate School of Management MBA student)

The Little Bang Poster Competition winners for 2008/09 were announced at the Awards Expo on February  12th at Kemper Hall, UC Davis. This year's program sponsors were PG&E and SMUD. Competition sponsors included Sacramento Area Regional Technology Association (SARTA) and Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization (SACTO).

Press Release

COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF BUSINESS HOSTS TALK FEB. 3 ON STARTING CLEAN TECH VENTURES

View online >>

FORT COLLINS - Andrew Hargadon, associate professor of technology management and director of both the Center for Entrepreneurship and the Center for Energy Efficiency at the University of California-Davis, will speak at Colorado State University as part of the Sustainable Enterprise Speaker Series hosted by the College of Business. Hargadon is well known for his work in innovation and entrepreneurship.

Hargadon will present "Carpe Green'em: Why Now is the Time to Start a Clean Tech Venture" from 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3 in Room C-142 of the Clark Building on campus. The event is free but registration is required at http://www.biz.colostate.edu/rsvp/hargadon.aspx.

Hargadon's current work focuses on the intersection between entrepreneurship and the commercialization of sustainable technologies. Contrary to the popular view of innovation being the product of brilliant inventors, his research reveals that more often it is the product of networks of people and innovation brokers. His research has been used to develop or guide new innovation programs in organizations as diverse as the Canadian Health Services, Silicon Valley start-ups, Hewlett-Packard and the U.S. Navy. He is author of "How Breakthroughs Happen - The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate" and has had his work published in the Harvard Business Review.

Hargadon received his doctoral degree from the Management Science and Engineering Department in Stanford University's School of Engineering, where he was named Boeing Fellow and Sloan Foundation Future Professor of Manufacturing. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in Stanford University's Product Design Program in the Mechanical Engineering Department. Earlier in his career, he was a product designer at Apple Computer.

The speaker series gives students and campus community an opportunity to learn from sustainability experts from around the globe. Colorado State University's College of Business offers a unique 18-month master's degree in Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise. Each GSSE cohort consists of 50 percent international students and 50 percent U.S. students. The program focuses on entrepreneurial, sustainable approaches to solve global challenges in energy, agriculture, health, water, environmental management and economic development.

The C4E Winter 2009 Networks Newsletter

Download Newsletter >>

In this issue:

Food and Health Entrepreneurship Academy, February 23 - 27, 2009
Welcome from Executive Director, Wil Agatstein
Alumni Profile: Josaphine Tuchel, Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy 2007
Harga-blog: Prototyping (www.andrewhargadon.com)
Alumni News: driptech, HemoSonics, HyProSys, MicroMidas
Top 10 Considerations When Launching Your Start-up with Chris Russell, Morrison & Foerster

Professor Andrew Hargadon was interviewed by A World of Possibilities for a new series on innovation. The segment, entitled, Failing Our Way to Success, begins national and international broadcast today.

Failing our way to success:

At a moment when most all the systems that govern our lives have lost their grip on reality, we're forced to rethink and reinvent the way we do just about everything. Crucial to that transformation is learning how to innovate faster and better than ever before. In this weeks show, two leading students of innovation consider the pivotal role that experimentation plays in achieving eventual success.

Season's Greetings

The UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship would like to thank all our sponsors, partners, and alumni who supported and participated in our programs in 2008.  We wish everyone a happy and healthy 2009.

Please join us for our next  Sustainable Enterprise Speaker Series:

An Evening with Cree Edwards
CEO of eMeter
January 8, 2009
6:00 - 8:00 pm
Room 174, AOBIV
Graduate School of Management
RSVP to Kelly Scott

Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) is seeking promising social entrepreneurs to enter our 2009 and 10th Anniversary Competition! If you are an entrepreneur (or budding entrepreneur!) with a financially sustainable venture that addresses a social or environmental problem, we encourage you to apply!

Winning plans in the past have ranged from global health to microfinance, from cleantech to education, from fair trade to community development, from business concepts to operating companies, and have included for-profit and non-profit models.

The GSVC has provided nearly $500,000 in seed-money to thirty social ventures over the past ten years, as well as over 16,000 hours of mentoring from seasoned professional in various industries!

Key Dates for 2009

January 21 - Executive Summary Due at www.gsvc.org

April 7 - Final Business Plan Due for Global Finals

April 23-24 - Global Finals at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

April 25 - Gsvc Symposium on Social Entrepreneuship (San Francisco)

DAVIS, Calif., Dec 11, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE)-- The University of California, Davis, announced the details of the inaugural Food and Health Entrepreneurship Academy, to be held February 23 - 27, 2009, at the Buehler Alumni and Visitor Center on campus. Co-presented by the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship and the Foods for Health Institute, the academy is designed for researchers in fields related to foods, nutrition and human health.

Graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and research faculty who want to learn how to analyze, enhance and communicate the broader potential impact of their research, explore business opportunities and build the skill set for a career in industry are invited to attend this five-day meeting.

Applications are due by January 9, 2009, and are available at http://entrepreneurship.ucdavis.edu/health.php.

All accepted university participants receive scholarships to cover the program's tuition, materials, and lodging. The academy also is open to early-stage entrepreneurs on a space-available basis at an extended education rate.

The founding sponsors of the academy are Unilever Corporate Ventures and PepsiCo. "A key component of our strong commitment to open innovation is the skills, culture and competencies that we need in our organization to foster strong entrepreneurship and creative drive" said Phil Giesler, innovation director at Unilever Corporate Ventures. "Our vitality mission also makes the Food and Health initiative highly relevant for us."

The five-day academy includes sessions on networking, intellectual property, market and business validation, elevator pitches, development strategies, and the logistics of building a team and establishing an organization. Participants work with mentors from the venture and business community to develop their group presentations. A keynote networking dinner is scheduled for Wednesday, February 25, for participants, industry executives, guest faculty and mentors.

"The Food and Health Entrepreneurship Academy provides a ground-breaking platform for researchers in the fields of foods for health, nutrition and wellness to move their ideas out of the lab and into the world's markets, where they can directly address the global issues we're facing today," said Associate Professor Andrew Hargadon, faculty director for the Center for Entrepreneurship at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.

For more information: http://entrepreneurship.ucdavis.edu/health.php

For sponsorship opportunities:

Wil Agatsein Executive Director, UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship

wagatstein@ucdavis.edu

NOTE: News media are welcome to attend the academy free of charge but must make arrangements to do so through Nicole Starsinic, associate director, (530) 574-6531, nstarsinic@ucdavis.edu

The Fall 2008 Networks Newsletter is available online. Included in this edition:

Welcome from Faculty Director Andrew Hargadon
Profile on new Executive Director Wil Agatstein
Profile on Peter Frykman, driptech founder
Little Bang Poster Competition overview
Writing an Elevator Pitch

Download Fall 2008 Newsletter

Andrew Hargadon talks about green initiatives during keynote address at NIWeek 2008, as reported by Terry Costlow, Contributing Editor -- Design News, August 8, 2008

Video of Associate Professor Andrew Hargadon, director of the UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship, presenting a keynote talk on innovation at NIWeek 2008, the world's leading graphical system design conference and exhibition. 
(ni.com, August 7, 2008)

Inside the Summer 2008 issue:

• Interview with Barbara Grant, American River Ventures
• Profile of Melanie Funes Duran, Business Development Fellows Alum and Executive Associate Director of the Foods for Health Institute at UC Davis
• Taking Action by Andrew Hargadon
• Big Bang!: Excellence in Entrepreneurship
• Legal Matters: Choosing the Right Business Entity, by Chris Russell, Morrison & Foerster
• Green Technology Entrepreneurship Academy 2008
  

Download the Summer 2008 C4E Networks Newsletter.