Oregon’s Lab2Market Initiative - Disclosure Competition

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0438736.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

On Friday, October 14, 2005, Oregon’s Lab2Market Initiative will be holding its first Technology Disclosure Competition. Any Oregon-affiliated innovation team is eligible to enter a technology in the competition provided at least one member of the team has participated in the Managerial Thinking for Technologists short course (to be held September 6-9, 2005).

Six technologies will be selected from the Technology Disclosure Competition to enter into a Venture Mentoring Program that will include scheduled meetings with leading experts in technology commercialization who are Lab2Market partners. Of the 6 technologies, a minimum of 1 will be selected from innovation teams based at Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon State University, and University of Oregon. In addition to these 4 technologies, the remaining 2 “wild card” technologies will either be from these universities or from other innovation teams that have at least one primary inventor based in the State of Oregon.

Each Venture Mentor Team will be made up of experts, ranging from intellectual property attorneys to venture capitalists to seasoned entrepreneurs. A team of MBA students from either Portland State University’s School of Business Administration or one of the other graduate business programs around the State of Oregon also will join the Venture Mentor Team.

For one year, a Venture Mentor Team will work with each of the 6 winning disclosure teams to refine their technologies and business concepts. Milestones will be set jointly by the Venture Mentors and the inventors with the goal of commercializing the technology within two years. Business model development, due diligence, financing, etc., will be covered. Also, subsidized space in the Portland Business Accelerator will be made available for a subset of the teams.

To enter, please send in the disclosure summary by Wednesday, October 5, 2005, at 5:00PM Pacific Time (no late entries can be accommodated) to Candace Clement at cclement@nwtechventures.com or by fax: (503) 232-7826. Prior to submission of the Disclosure summary, each innovation team must clear the Disclosure with its home institution (if applicable).

An initial screening of the disclosures by Lab2Market Mentors will take place October 6-10, and the innovation teams will be notified by October 12, 2005, if their technologies have been selected to participate in the October 14 competition.

The competition will take place on October 14, 2005, at the Portland Business Accelerator. Each innovation team will give a 5-minute “elevator pitch,” followed by a Q & A session with the judges. The 6 winners will be announced the following week.