Dear fellow AUTM members,
Having recently attended my first AUTM annual meeting, I was invited to share my thoughts on what I found to be the most enriching aspects of this experience. The AUTM meeting offers the unique opportunity for members to learn the concepts of technology management, develop meaningful relationships with peers, and identify ways to improve their own institutional operations.
Come for the education, stay for the networking.
The annual meeting has something to offer for members of all levels, beginner to advanced. Based on my expertise in different areas, I was able to identify the sessions that would benefit me the most and schedule my days accordingly. There is no doubt that the experiences shared by our veteran colleagues on issues related to intellectual property, management of start-ups, or best practices for license agreements have shaped my approach to academic technology transfer. And although I learned much from these sessions, the lively discussions that took place afterward were just as important.
Common goals can lead to meaningful relationships.
Whether I was chatting with a business development person from a large pharma company, a director of another university’s tech transfer office, or a fellow novice licensing associate, I was amazed to see the overlap in our activities, interests and day-to-day challenges. Companies are often trying just as hard as universities to identify promising licensing opportunities. By the simple acts of conversation or exchanging of business cards with industry members, I was able to create new relationships that might blossom into partnerships down the road.
A fresh perspective might stimulate ideas for improvement.
Many of the attendees share the characteristic of working at a technology transfer office, but I was shocked to find out how different the experience can be by country, state and university. My organization’s policy on patent decisions, strategy for marketing new technologies, or system for managing licensing contacts was the only perspective I had up to that point. The annual meeting allowed me to explore the practice of other institutions and identify ways to improve our operations back home.
I’m sure that you will find the annual meetings to be as valuable as I do.
See you at the next meeting!
-Vinay
_______________________
Vinay Tannan, Ph.D.
Licensing Associate
UVA Patent Foundation
250 W. Main St., Suite 300
Charlottesville, VA 22902
Ph: 434.243.0862
Fax: 434.982.1583
Email: vinay@uvapf.org