Groundbreaking inventions like earth-abundant batteries and cold atmospheric-pressure plasma arrays have the potential to change the world, but only if they can find their way out of the lab. That was the challenge facing Boise State undergraduates this fall: take deep-tech research and translate it into a viable business strategy during the Idea to Impact competition.
Hosted by the College of Business and Economics in partnership with the Office of Technology Transfer, the Venture College and the College of Engineering, this four-week program gave undergraduate students the opportunity to work directly with faculty researchers. Their mission was to learn about university-owned patent-pending innovations, conduct focused market research and pitch business ideas back to the researchers at the end of the program.
“Our goal was for students to learn how to analyze the market viability for deep tech innovation – but also just to get exposure to innovation that’s very specialized. These aren’t the kind of things that students normally would be exposed to,” said Chad Coffman, competition organizer and assistant professor of entrepreneurship in the Department of Management. “We’re hoping this is the first phase in a broader effort to form interdisciplinary teams to promote commercialization efforts across campus.”
The event cultivated entrepreneurial collaboration across campus and beyond. Participating students came from mechanical engineering, materials science, computer science, electrical engineering, civil engineering, kinesiology and four different business majors. Faculty partners represented the departments of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Geosciences, Physics, and Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Partnering with Technology Transfer
Partnering with the Office of Technology Transfer ensured students were focused on viable, cutting-edge technologies. The office is the campus group that protects and commercializes university intellectual property — any technology developed by campus researchers. They work with faculty, graduate students and staff researchers to identify patent-protectable technologies, manage and pay for the patenting process, find commercialization pathways and actively market technology on behalf of the inventors. They also provide gap funding for intellectual property development.
The office selected projects for the competition that are actively under development and mature enough for market exploration. (Faculty members and PhD students listed below took part in Idea to Impact. To see the full lists of technology inventors, click the links):
- Compression Resistant Disposable Plastic Bottle for Improved Recycling with faculty member Aaron Smith
- Soil Gas Monitoring and Logging System with faculty members David Huber and Jacob Anderson
- 2D Material Device Fabrication with PhD student Michael Curtis
- Earth-Abundant Batteries with PhD student Cyrus Koroni and faculty member Claire Xiong
- System and Method to Measure Intermolecular Interactions with faculty member Byung Kim
- Cold Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma Array with faculty members Ken Cornell and Jim Browning
“This was a great opportunity for co-education between the faculty and the students,” said Natasha French, intellectual property coordinator for the Office of Technology Transfer. “Often technologies are developed, but research teams may not have the information they need for the product to be successfully taken to market. We thought it would be great to use the business talent that we have on campus to help fill that gap.”
How the competition worked
To launch the competition, researchers presented their intellectual property to the student teams. Students then rated the inventions by preference and were assigned to a project team.
Over the following four weeks, students conducted in-depth market research. Each group met with their assigned faculty researchers and Doug Johnson, president of RedSage group, who served as a product development mentor. After researching how to adapt the inventions into market-ready products and identifying potential market challenges, students presented their market strategies to the researchers. The two winning teams focused on Cold Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma Array and 2D Material Device Fabrication and split a $1,000 cash prize provided by The Office of Technology Transfer.
“Our presentation focused on the feasibility of a Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP) seed treatment device developed by Dr. Ken Cornell and Dr. Jim Browning,” said Saxon Putnam, a business administration student in a LinkedIn post. “We analyzed the device’s market potential, cost structure and commercial viability, while engaging with local industry partners to understand its real-world applications in agriculture…This experience showed how powerful it can be when innovation, business strategy and real-world industry collaboration come together to turn ideas into impact.”
The winning teams also received a golden ticket to the recent Bronco Entrepreneur Challenge. They are also well prepared to participate in the Venture College Incubator Programs and may qualify to apply for up to $200,000 in TRANSFORM Seed Grants.
“It’s a path towards the next thing. If the students wanted to take on an idea and form a business, they could work with the research team and go through Venture College programming, compete in pitch competitions and the like,” French said. “The students did an amazing job at picking up on the tech well enough to actually think through a marketing plan and a potential future for the product. The university also benefits from seeing innovations move from the lab become commercialized and moved into the economy.”