UM Technology Start-Up Boot Camp to Help Faculty and Students Bridge Gap Between Ideas, Commercial Ventures

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 18, 2005
CONTACT: Eric Schurr
(301) 405-3889
schurr@umd.edu

COLLEGE PARK, Md.—Chris O'Brien, student at the University of Maryland, has an idea. Instead of shoving smog-tainted snow to the side of crowded city streets, why not vaporize it? One problem: he has no notion of how to make his idea into a commercial reality.

Bridging the gap between ideas and successful ventures may be easier for O'Brien and other faculty and student inventors through the University's Technology Start-Up Boot Camp, to be held on Friday, October 21, in the Stamp Student Union at the University of Maryland, College Park, from 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.

The day-long workshop, free for students and faculty, takes more than 500 future entrepreneurs from as many as 15 universities in the region through the basics of launching a technology-based venture. Bulky snow mounds may yet be a thing of the past.

"The University has become the hub of entrepreneurship and technological development in the capital region," said Sam Feigin, a partner with Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, a law firm representing many technology companies. "Inventors and investors, lawyers and MBAs, veterans and rookies can talk turkey about traps for the unwary and paths to success at the Boot Camp. These people and these ventures have and will continue to turn ideas into products and businesses that can transform the way we live—whether by improving the delivery of medical treatment or improving the flow of communication."

Teachers for the Boot Camp will include leading entrepreneurs, investors, and venture capitalists from the Mid-Atlantic region. Each will be available to attendees for one-on-one interaction during a special networking lunch.

The University is rife with potential intellectual capital to build a company around. Consider:

• During fiscal year 2005, the University received $310 million for research and training;
• 22 patents have been issued just this year alone to UMD faculty and students;
• At any point in time, an average of 25 companies are being formed in the Hinman CEOs undergraduate entrepreneurship program; and
• 31 start-ups have spun from UM-created technologies in the past five years alone.

"The idea is to create an easy access, high-energy activity that brings together the information and networks needed," said Phil Weilerstein, executive director of the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, which has replicated the Boot Camp through a series of national "Invention to Venture" workshops at nearly 20 universities a year called Invention to Venture. "Maryland has a well developed agenda that is supported by well structured logistical and speaker support activities; it connects with the many resources that are available in the region."

Topics to guide the Boot Camp's future technology entrepreneurs include:

• Should You Take the Leap?
• What is Technology Entrepreneurship?
• How to Bring Order to the Chaos of a Start-Up
• Incredible Idea or Real Business?
• Teams, the Most Important Asset in a New Business
• Entrepreneurship is Alive and Well in Our Region
• Financing Your Venture
• Keys to Success

But the Boot Camp, like building a business, is also about the people—including the professional and personal contacts attendees will make at the Boot Camp.

"It goes back to the old saying that no person is an island," said Martin Knott, managing director of the Shepard Group, who will speak about teams being the most important asset in a new business. "If entrepreneurs don't work with other people then they are never going to be successful. If they try and work by themselves they will soon realize that they can't move as far forward as they want to."

The Boot Camp may help O'Brien by connecting him with a faculty member working on high-octane fuel mixtures for the air intake of an engine that could drive his snow vaporizer. He may meet attorneys interested in helping him acquire a patent. But most importantly, he may realize a dream and be empowered.

Speakers for this years Boot Camp include: Scott Magids, Director, MTECH Ventures; Phil Weilerstein, Executive Director, NCIAA; Dr. Nariman Farvardin, Dean, A. James Clark School of Engineering; Dr. Jacques Gansler, Vice President for Research, UMD; Scott Laughlin, Director, VentureAccelerator Program; Brownell Chalstrom, Venture Partner, Avansis Ventures; Dr. Gilmer Blankenship, Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UMD, College Park, and Chairman, Techno-Sciences, Inc.; Andrew Scherer, COO, Scherer Cybrarian Services; Martin Knott, Managing Director, The Shepard Group; Dr. Stephen Fritz, Director of Technology Transfer, Maryland Technology Development Corporation; Phillip J. Gross, Managing Director, Expense Reduction Analysts, Inc.; Gina Dubbe, Managing Partner, Walker Ventures; Christopher Foster, Deputy Secretary, Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development; Mark Anstey, Founder and CEO, DataStream Content Solutions, LLC and Potomac Publishing Company; David Eisner, Founder, President and CEO Dataprise, Inc.; Rich Harris, Managing Director, SpaceVest.

Sponsors include: Fish & Richardson P.C.; Mintz Levin; TEDCO; and the NCIIA. Supporting organizations include: Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, Robert H. Smith School of Business, Greater Baltimore Technology Council, MdBio, and Tech Council of Maryland.

The Technology Start-Up Boot Camp is conducted by the A. James Clark School of Engineering's Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute, a major University institute dedicated to new venture formation and outreach to assist Maryland-based companies.

More information: http://www.bootcamp.umd.edu

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