The AUTM Leadership Forum is a high level forum for seasoned technology transfer professionals from around the world. The goal of the forum is to connect university professionals with industry colleagues to discuss taking a leadership role in accelerating commercialization. As a group, we will identify tactics to advance the technology transfer profession globally. The AUTM Western Region Meeting will take place immediately following the Leadership Forum on Nov.15 - 16, 2012.  Plan to attend both events to maximize your networking opportunities!

Bendis to Keynote

In the spring of 2012, President Obama passed an act that will drastically alter the landscape of crowdfunding platforms. Until April 5, 2012, a small pool of existing crowdfunding sites were only permitted to operate on a reward or donation basis, essentially offering a product, discount, or enticement in exchange for monetary funding. With the launch of the JOBS Act, short for Jumpstart Our Business Startups, the ability for the general public to receive company equity in exchange for funding is now a possibility.

As of today, the Securities Act of 1933 states that entities can not offer or sell securities to the public unless (a) the offering is registered with the SEC, or (b) there is an available exemption from registration.  Unfortunately, the crowdfunding exemption introduced under the tittle III of the JOBS Act under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act won’t be available until the SEC issues its regulations.

Entrepreneurs and innovators are supposed to be happily self-directed. Instead, the same sad story is popping up in many parts of the world. People who left corporate jobs for the joy of entrepreneurship are working harder and feeling less joy. Although they're no longer wage slaves, they still feel captive to the fortunes and whims of big companies. Their establishment customers might delay payments, back out of commitments, and generally squeeze suppliers.

My advice to them, and others feeling similar economic angst, is to try one or more of these strategies for getting back control over your destiny.

Huge ovens and industrial presses await start-ups at the Ceramics Corridor Innovation Center, a business incubator in south-central New York State. Companies use the equipment to churn out products that are largely invisible to consumers, though they are critical for everything from electronics to hip replacements.

Because of their particular requirements, startups in the ceramics industry face limited choices in business incubators. Nor can just any incubator give them useful advice. “It’s actually quite tough to find good space for startups,” says Alan Rae, executive director of the Ceramics Corridor Innovation Centers and its sister incubator, the Nanomaterials Innovation Center. “What we do is give access to the right type of work space, the ability to network, and a substantial set of equipment.”

Haidian district in Beijing has achieved significant progress in education, environmental protection and scientific research and innovation over the past 20 years, and has become a national innovation center, said one of its officials.

As it is increasing international exchanges and cooperation in technologies and intellectual property rights, the district is making full use of its edge in innovation and aims to be a key global technology transfer center that is growing to international status, the official noted.

The figure represents a 26 per cent rise from the £12.4 million recorded in 2011, with the number of companies supported by angel capital also rising by 13 per cent.

LINC Scotland, the national association for business angels in Scotland, says its member can account for £10 million of the £15.6 million allocated. This is up from the £7.4 million contribution made last year.

Some 19 angle groups across Scotland are represented by LINC, a collection which has this year closed 59 investments compared to the 54 completed in 2011.

Losing weight can help people who are overweight get a better night’s sleep, according to a new study.

And sleep quality seems to improve whether the weight loss is achieved through dieting alone or by combining diet with exercise, researchers from Johns Hopkins found.

“We found that improvement in sleep quality was significantly associated with overall weight loss, especially belly fat,” the study’s senior author, Kerry Stewart, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of clinical and research exercise physiology, said in a Hopkins news release.

The Michigan Venture Capital Association has placed four fellows from the inaugural class of its Michigan Venture Fellows Program. Sam Hogg has joined the Kalamazoo office of Open Prairie Ventures; Jared Stasik has joined Detroit Venture Partners; William Blake has joined Farmington Hills-based Beringea; and Linda Chamberlain has joined the Grand Rapids-based Michigan Accelerator Fund.

Funded last November by an $800,000 grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, the Michigan Venture Fellows Program gives budding VCs the opportunity to work with a Michigan-based venture firm for a period of two years. The fellows are chosen after a rigorous application process, including a portion where the candidates must demonstrate strong Michigan ties, which usually involves a degree from a Michigan school. During their placements, fellows get a feel for the startup environment by getting deeply involved with at least one portfolio company. The hope is that the fellowship will lead to permanent employment in Michigan.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Common visible signs of aging may not just be a vanity or employment problem. They may also be a harbinger of heart disease.

In a large, long-term study, people who displayed three to four signs of aging, such as receding hairlines at the temples, baldness at the crown of the hear, earlobe creases or yellow fatty deposits around the eyelids had a 57 percent increased risk of heart attack and a 39 percent increased risk of developing heart disease, Danish researchers found.

What do Falco’s Rock Me Amadeus, Dee Lite’s Groove Is in the Heart, and Soft Cell’s Tainted Love have in common? Each is a distinguished inductee into the proverbial One Hit Wonder Hall of Fame.

The breakout hit knows no industry boundaries: from books (Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind) to fashion (pajama jeans) to one of the most popular puzzles of all time, the Rubik's Cube, one hit wonders are fascinating artifacts of the human experience. If nothing else, they make us smile. Imagine: Where would the average American wedding be without at least one debaucherous keg-fueled extended family rendition of Los Del Rio’s The Macarena?

While most of the campaign season leading up to the re-election of Barack Obama Tuesday focused on economic policy, a continued Obama presidency will certainly affect technology as well.

Based on Obama's campaign and policies he already has begun or announced,  action can be expected in the following five areas:

1) Net neutrality

Network neutrality is, at its core, the idea of an "open Internet," with no restrictions based on the type of content. Under current rules, all types of content — whether video, music or text —from all providers big and small are treated the same, and delivered at the same speed. However, some telecommunications companies, including Verizon and MetroPCS, would like to implement a tiered approach in which they can charge content providers for faster delivery of data. Critics fear that the higher fees would make it harder for small websites to get their message out, turning the Net into an arena dominated by big media companies (including the network providers themselves. Cable and Internet provider Comcast is a majority owner of NBC, for example.) In Obama's first term, the Federal Communications Commission used its power to make companies treat all online content equally.

A central feature of the equity crowdfunding legislation in the JOBS Act is the concept of a "funding portal," a Kickstarter- or Rockethub-like platform, if you will, through which all equity crowdfunding must take place. (Unlike deals restricted to accredited investors, issuers would not be permitted to sell directly to the crowd.)

Funding portals would be regulated, but the implication was that funding portal compliance would not be nearly as complicated as broker-dealer registration and compliance.

That was the idea.

As the nascent equity crowdfunding industry sorts through how to organize itself, more and more participants are signaling they have come to the recognition that being a funding portal won't get them where they want to be. So they are aligning with broker-dealers, or planning to go ahead and go the extra hundred yards and become broker-dealers themselves. Apparently, it is dawning on everyone that funding portal registration will not be simple, and that funding portal regulation will be highly restrictive as to what a funding portal can do.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins debuted his new NIH Director's Blog last week. The blog, he wrote, is designed to "highlight new discoveries in biology and medicine that I think are game changers, noteworthy, or just plain cool." Posts so far have featured video from a recent "Celebration of Science" event held at NIH and information about the Human Connectome Project, an NIH-funded project created to map the brain's neural connections.

A number of people, especially graduate and postdoctoral students, have asked me recently,” how do I evaluate entrepreneurial companies during my job search?” They have little to no track record, compared to larger more established companies and many seem to have innovative technology, strong research, and passionate founders. What parameters can be used as a metric for potential success and what differentiates one startup over another?” I have outlined a few considerations below as a starting point to address this complicated question.

Founder(s)

Research the founder(s). Review press releases, LinkedIn, Google Scholar, USPTO and other sources of information to learn about them. Founder(s) of previously successful companies, have a track record, which could be an indicator of future success. Founders who are distinguished and well respected in their given field, even if they have not previously founded a successful company, are definitely worth consideration.

Wisconsin’s economy has been shaped and reshaped over the years by citizens who adapted quickly to changing times. We now stand at just such a crossroads in the history of the state. To build a 21st century economy, Wisconsin must make the most of its people, resources and opportunities, and meet the challenges posed by the rise of the “Knowledge Economy.”

For Wisconsin to take its place among the leaders of the Knowledge Economy – or, as it’s also called, “The Real-time Economy” – some specific things must take place. The state must grow, attract and retain more technology-based companies. It must build an infrastructure to support them. It must foster a tax and regulatory climate that encourages innovation. It must incubate a culture that values risk-taking and which attracts enough investment capital to fund our best and most marketable ideas. It must let the world know that Wisconsin has the strong research base, the quality of life and environment, and the creative workers to help the Knowledge Economy grow.

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Tomorrow, roughly 100 million Americans will cast their vote for one of two men who have stressed the importance of entrepreneurs and of course, small business to the country—and claimed to be the best candidate to empower them. Meanwhile, one week from today, policymakers, researchers and millions of nascent entrepreneurs in 130 countries will be taking matters into their own hands through a collection of 40,000 events, activities and competitions during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

This is the fifth year for the global initiative and in years past, I have had the fortune of travelling to a number of countries to witness some of these activities first-hand. Last year, I joined Singapore’s Minister of Trade and Industry Teo Ser Luck at a ceremony to recognize budding young student entrepreneurs—and discuss the commercialization efforts of the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. Other stops included the launches of GEW in Abu Dhabi and Germany, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Malaysia and Oman. Previous years, I have focused more on activities and efforts in Africa, Oceania and South America.

KPCB partner Mary Meeker usually publishes her famed Internet Trends report once a year, but gave a small San Francisco crowd a mid-year update tonight. The biggest new facts? Android phone adoption is ramping up six times faster than iPhone, and Android surpassed Windows as the #1 OS for Internet-enabled devices in Q1 2012. Here’s the rest of the new stats, and the statement by Mark Zuckerberg that Meeker called arrogant, but probably true.

Tonight an event was held at Bloomberg‘s San Francisco headquarters in honor of Kleiner Perkins portfolio company Lending Club reaching $1 billion in loans enabled. There, Mary Meeker gave a quick presentation on Internet trends to a few industry big wigs.

“The price tag you put on yourself decides your worth. Underestimating yourself will cost you dearly.”

“It is the road you take that decides your destiny and not your destiny that decides the road you take.”

“Your value in the world is the value you create for yourself. Make yourself valuable and the world will treat you that way.”

“Mediocrity is always a safe option but never a satisfactory one.” Apoorve Dubey

“If you don’t have the courage to walk alone others will not have the courage to walk with you.”

Does a Masters in Business Administration make its recipient more or less attractive to tech startups? Or does it have any impact at all?

It’s a serious question.  A day after Harvard Business School’s Cyberposium 18, I remain struck by the concern attendees seemed to feel about what their advanced degree will mean in a tough economy and in a tech business that elevates technical prowess above everything else. After all, college dropouts Paul Allen, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Mark Zuckerberg all built hugely successful tech companies — Microsoft, Dell, Apple, Facebook —  without a degree among them.

The world's rarest whale has been spotted for the first time, in New Zealand, where two of the whales stranded themselves.

The two spade-toothed beaked whales, a mother and calf, stranded and died on Opape Beach on the North Island of New Zealand, in December 2010. The mother was 17 feet (5.3 meters) long and the calf was 11 feet (3.5 m) long.

A report describing the whales and the analysis of their DNA appears in the Nov. 6 issue of the journal Current Biology.