The Georgia Institute of Technology, a leader in innovation, entrepreneurism, commercialization and economic development, continues to initiate and foster programs designed to strengthen these strategic efforts. Many ongoing initiatives originated as part of an innovation task force while other programs continue to emerge to support the Institute’s entrepreneurial spirit.

“We are actively and aggressively working to develop and commercialize the technologies developed here at Tech, moving the discoveries made in our laboratories to the marketplace and building the companies that will create jobs, drive our economy and stimulate economic growth,” said Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson. “The recent passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act designed to reform the U.S. patent system will strengthen the Institute’s efforts to innovate and enhance our potential to be a force for prosperity.” Peterson currently serves as a member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Updates on new and ongoing initiatives include:

Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP): In June, President  Barack Obama named Peterson to the AMP steering committee. AMP is a national initiative of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that will identify opportunities to catalyze investment in and deployment of emerging technologies with transformative potential for advanced manufacturing in the U.S. and develop collaborative approaches that will realize these opportunities. The PCAST AMP will help guide the nation’s investment in advanced manufacturing R&D across a diverse range of technologies with the goal of creating high-quality jobs and enhancing the global competitiveness of the U.S. PCAST will hold the first of four regional meetings at Georgia Tech on October 14. 

Enterprise to Empower (En2Em): This Georgia Tech student organization seeks to educate, enable and engage students in social entrepreneurship, and to help students discover how their skills and talents in any field—from business to engineering—can be applied to current social problems impacting the world today. En2Em’s goal is to equip participants with the skills of leadership, creativity and empathy for others so that they may become positive change-agents in their communities and workplaces.

Georgia Tech Integrated Program for Startups (GT:IPS): GT:IPS combines a streamlined licensing program with organized support for faculty and student inventor-entrepreneurs. Courses were launched in July to assist the campus in areas ranging from budgeting to copyrights.

Georgia Tech Flashpoint: Flashpoint, Georgia Tech’s new technology accelerator program, has selected its inaugural class of 18 teams that will be invited to participate in the first cohort that will run through December of 2011. The program has also disclosed formation of the Flashpoint Investment Fund I, a $1 million risk capital fund that will support startups in the first two cohorts. The program, the first public-private partnership of its design in the country, brings together resources from the Institute, private funding and startup leaders to accelerate innovation and growth.

Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI): The Global Center for Medical Innovation made it one step closer to reality after the center location renovation was officially launched in August 2011. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez joined representatives from the four partner organizations supporting the center, including Georgia Tech, Saint Joseph’s Translational Research Institute, Piedmont Healthcare and the Georgia Research Alliance, at the event.

IC3 – To streamline the process from proposal to the commercialization stage, the Georgia Tech Research Corporation and the Office of Sponsored Programs recently announced the formation of IC3. The new initiative consists of three divisions, the Office of Industry Collaborations and Affiliated Licenses, the Office of International Contracts and Technology Transfer and the Office of Innovation Commercialization and Translational Research. As part of the effort, a new website has been launched to promote research collaborations and technology transfer opportunities to build successful partnerships between Georgia Tech and the business communities.

Innovation Co-Laboratory: Officially launched in March 2011, this international research collaboration is a joint venture between the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute, the Beijing Institute of Technology School of Management and Economics and the University of Manchester Institute of Innovation Research. The Innovation Co-Laboratory will build an architecture of collaboration between the three institutions that will involve shared data resources, training and joint research with pilot projects focusing on the nanotechnology domain.

TI:GER: The award-winning TI:GER Program (Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results), a partnership between Georgia Tech and Emory University School of Law that brings together PhD, MBA and law students to learn about the challenges of commercializing innovative technologies, won a grant from Georgia Tech's Fund for Innovation in Research and Innovation (GT FIRE) for an international technology commercialization project to be conducted in collaboration with Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich, Germany.

VentureLab: Georgia Tech’s comprehensive center for technology commercialization, VentureLab is open to all faculty, research staff and students who want to form startup companies based upon their research. Part of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, VentureLab just celebrated its 10th anniversary for transforming innovations into companies by developing engaging business models, connecting researchers with experienced entrepreneurs, locating sources of early-stage financing and preparing these new companies for global markets. Many companies created within VentureLab become part of the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Georgia Tech’s startup accelerator.  ATDC has been helping to launch and build successful technology companies for more than 30 years.

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Note: The programs featured above are representative of many ongoing efforts across campus. See the news release below for a more extensive list of initiatives.