Physics Graduate Students in 2007 MRS Entrepreneurship Challenge
A team comprising physics graduate students Michael Hetzer and H. Lee Mosbacker from Prof. Brillson's group been selected as finalists in the Material Research Society's 2nd annual Entrepreneurial Challenge. The goal of the challenge is to create collaborations between basic researchers and business students to foster entrepreneurship and commercialization. The students partnered with The Center for Entrepreneurship at Fisher Business School through the Technology Entreprenuership and Commercialization Academy (TEC) and The Technology Licensing and Commercialization Office (TLC). Together, these entities developed a product concept idea and business case focusing on technology developed by Prof. Epstein. The students win an all expenses paid trip to the MRS spring meeting in San Francisco on April 10, where they will pitch for a chance at venture capital funding and a competition prize of $3000. This year's challenge was highly competitive and included universities with high profile business and technical schools such as Harvard and MIT. Along with this competition, their efforts have attracted interest from local investors and potential strategic partners. Mr. Mosbacker is also involved in two projects that have won round 1 of the Fisher Business Plan Competition utilizing technologies evaluated by TEC and Techriculture, a commercialization and outreach non-profit that he co-founded with five other Ph.D students in Business, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. More information is available on the Fisher College of Business website.
