iBridge: Social Networking for the Tech Transfer Set
Connecting universities and professors with the companies and venture capitalists that help turn their ideas into viable businesses, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has launched a new website, iBridge Network, which aims to foster collaborative networks to streamline the innovation process. The site provides a centralized, open, and transparent clearinghouse for institutional technology, and encourages direct, multi-stakeholder interaction. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education:
iBridge Network…lets institutions share information about inventions and research tools developed by their faculty members. It also includes features that allow scientists or companies to sign up for alerts about new developments in certain fields. In some cases, they will be able to license rights to technologies listed on the site with the click of a button.
A networking system like this could help spur the commercialization process of federally funded research.
Networking is important, but so is place. For an overview of how innovation clusters drive economic development, see: “Regional Centers of Innovation 101.”
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