$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

Driptech is One of 15 Innovators From Around the World Recognized for Applying Technology to Benefit Humanity

SAN JOSE, Calif. Sept. 2, 2009 – Driptech, inc. was today named to The Tech Awards Laureates 2009, one of 15 global innovators recognized each year for applying technology to benefit humanity and spark global change. The Tech Awards, a signature program of The Tech Museum, and presented by Applied Materials, Inc., selected Driptech from among hundreds of nominations representing 66 countries.

Hundreds of millions of people in the developing world face water shortages in crop production; drip irrigation delivers precisely the right amount of water and not more. Driptech’s unique manufacturing drills precision holes in thin plastic tubing, thereby reducing the number of parts and the cost of a drip irrigation system. www.driptech.com

The Tech Awards: Technology Benefiting Humanity is one of the premier annual humanitarian awards programs in the world, recognizing technical solutions that benefit humanity and address the most critical issues facing our planet and its people. The awards program honors 15 scientists and innovators annually alongside the recipient of the Global Humanitarian Award. Laureates are selected by a prestigious panel of international judges organized by the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, and made up of Santa Clara University faculty as well as leaders from educational and research institutions, industry and the public sector around the world.

“The Tech Awards is an incredible honor, recognizing individuals and organizations whose ideas and execution of those ideas are changing the world,” said Peter Frykman, founder and CEO of Driptech.  “We are proud to be among those recognized for their contributions, and will continue to develop solutions that help rural farmers increase their income and standard of living.”

“The global challenges of the day have become increasingly strident, more deeply rooted,” said Peter Friess, president of The Tech Museum. “Still, there is hope. These incredibly impressive Laureates have all proven to be equal to, or better than, the challenge to make the world a better place. By celebrating their accomplishments today, we are encouraging future innovators to work toward solutions to make the world healthier, safer and more sustainable.”

Established in 2000, The Tech Awards recognizes 15 Laureates in five universal categories: education, equality, environment, economic development and health. These Laureates have developed new technological solutions or innovative ways to use existing technologies to significantly improve the lives of people around the world.  One Laureate in each category will receive a $50,000 cash prize during the annual Awards Gala in San Jose, Calif. on November 19.

This year, the Laureates represent the truly global vision of the program, spanning countries such as Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana and the Bay Area. Their work impacts people in many more countries worldwide.

The Tech Awards collaborates with humanitarian, educational, and business partners through global outreach efforts, giving people around the world the opportunity to benefit from the successful technologies recognized through The Tech Awards. The selected Laureates’ projects address multiple humanitarian efforts including developing alternate ways to generate electricity, creating free educational tools, evaluating ethical wage standards and reducing counterfeit drugs.

For more information about The Tech Awards, visit www.techawards.org.

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.

New UC Davis chancellor puts innovation first

An antenna connected to sensors deep within a truck's tires relays safety information to drivers about the tires and road conditions. A shield for sensitive circuitry is more effective - and cheaper - than its predecessors. A new arrangement of wires improves the function of cell phones, radios and microwaves.

• Suspicious fire outside UC president's home 08.21.09

These are just some of the 16 inventions co-patented by Linda Katehi, 55, who starts work today as chancellor of UC Davis - one of the nation's top campuses for science and research. An award-winning electrical engineer and academic with a doctorate from UCLA, she was chosen over 600 other candidates for the job.

Now Katehi wants to transfer that entrepreneurship to the campus she'll lead.

"The campus is in a wonderful position to become a major force in improving and strengthening the economy of the state," Katehi told The Chronicle, adding that she'll help UC Davis to become more aggressive in taking new biotechnology and agriculture products to market.

At a May reception for Katehi, Russell Gould, chairman of UC's governing Board of Regents, said the new chancellor will need "vision, skill, courage, a sense of humor - and some pretty thick skin."

He was right.

Within weeks of Gould's prediction, Katehi entered the spotlight not for her professional achievements, but because the University of Illinois campus where she has been provost since 2006 was suddenly caught up in an admissions scandal: Evidence surfaced showing that hundreds of unqualified applicants were being quietly admitted to the elite Urbana-Champaign campus after rich and powerful friends intervened on their behalf.

Katehi, who ran the office that oversees admissions, was not named in the Chicago Tribune stories that disclosed the scandal. But when a Sacramento newspaper reporter could not get her to talk about what happened, state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, a frequent UC critic, spoke out against her appointment to head UC Davis.

"The students and taxpayers of California deserve to know the level of Ms. Katehi's involvement in this scandal," he wrote in a scathing news release in June that referred to "corruption charges." Yee urged UC President Mark Yudof to halt her appointment.

Katehi has vehemently denied knowing anything about the secretive admissions system. She was copied on a handful of the thousands of university e-mails that served as evidence for an Illinois commission that recently concluded an eight-week investigation. The commission did not call her to testify.

Not a 'key player'

"She escaped any in-depth look by us because we made a decision early on that she wasn't a key player," Bernie Judge, a member of the commission, told The Chronicle. He said the former provost, Richard Herman, had extensive knowledge of the clout system and continued his involvement when he became chancellor. Katehi "very well could have played no role," Judge said.

Katehi told The Chronicle that she had no doubt she would be cleared. She said she was pleased that the commission cited UC for its policy prohibiting influence-based admissions. UC is one of only a few universities in the country with such a policy.

UC President Yudof stood by Katehi throughout the Illinois ordeal.

Early inspiration

Born on the Greek island of Salamis, Katehi said her life changed when, at 15, she saw the moon landing on TV.

"I was impressed by the images I saw, primarily the shots from the control room in Houston," she told her new colleagues at UC Davis. "It was then that I decided I wanted to be an electrical engineer."

Katehi was the first girl from her small town of Paloukia to graduate from college. At the University of Illinois, she was affiliated with the Women and Gender in Global Perspectives program. And today, Katehi becomes the first female chancellor of UC Davis.

She'll spend her first day not in Davis but in Washington, meeting with officials from the U.S. Department of Energy and attending an education policy discussion with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Professional activities

Katehi is a fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and chair of the President's Committee on the National Medal of Science, among many other professional activities.

She will draw a $400,000 base salary, 12 percent above her $356,000 salary in Illinois and 27 percent higher than the $315,000 earned by her predecessor at UC Davis, Larry Vanderhoef.

With benefits, her compensation is $508,916.

As for the tire sensor that reads road conditions, Katehi said the Michelin tire company hasn't actually brought the product to market yet.

"The cost of this technology will come down," she said, "and I think they'll come back to it in a couple of years."

E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.

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.