AzTE's tech transfer goes global

Arizona Technology Enterprises (AzTE), the technology venturing arm of Arizona State University, has entered into separate global arrangements to market technologies developed by ASU's partner universities, Dublin City University in Ireland (through its technology commercialization organization, Invent DCU Limited) and Tec de Monterrey in Mexico.

AzTE is located at SkySong in Scottsdale and is working in collaboration with Julia Rosen of ASU's Innovation and Entrepreneurship to bolster these relationships.

AzTE will collaborate with each university in protecting and commercializing in the United States selected intellectual property developed by their researchers. Both of these collaborations are intended to leverage the extensive U.S. networks of corporate executives, investors and entrepreneurs developed by AzTE's professional staff from decades of experience working in the private sector.

Technology transfer to US companies would reflect the global impact of research activities at Dublin City University and Tec de Monterrey and benefit the U.S. public with potential development of useful products and services.  It could also return discretionary income to the universities, including ASU through AzTE's share of licensing income, for reinvestment in their research and educational enterprises.

This summer, AzTE will send its life sciences team, led by Jack Geltosky, senior vice president of business development, to visit Tec de Monterrey to begin reviewing technologies developed at the university's biotechnology center.

Dublin City University has won several large research awards from the Irish government in the areas of sensors and adaptive information technologies.  It is expected that AzTE will work to commercialize technologies related to those areas.

"These sorts of transnational and multinational arrangements will begin to play a more important role in the advancement of scientific and technological development as we all become more interconnected and interdependent on a global level," says ASU President Michael Crow.

According to Augustine Cheng, managing director of AzTE, "The collaborations with Dublin City University and Tec de Monterrey are ways for all three universities to project their international reach in the technology space. In addition, our engagement with dynamic, entrepreneurial universities worldwide supports ASU's objective of expanding the global impact of its research, discovery, entrepreneurship and scholarship."

"ASU already has a number of activities focused on student entrepreneurship, global company attraction, and investor network development that are located at SkySong,” says Julia Rosen, associate vice president of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at ASU.  “Adding technology transfer to our international collaborations increases the likelihood that global discoveries will be commercialized utilizing Arizona networks. Over time, ASU's development of vibrant global networks will positively impact economic development in the State."

AzTE was established in 2003 as an Arizona limited liability company and wholly-owned subsidiary of the ASU Foundation.  Staffed by professionals with extensive industry and university experience in intellectual property and related business development, AzTE operates as the exclusive IP management and technology transfer organization for ASU.

SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, is currently home to 31 enterprises from 11 countries, with clusters of companies in e-learning, information communications technologies, and sustainability.  SkySong is an interactive business environment in which individual entrepreneurs, global enterprises, ASU researchers, and community members connect to bring new technologies to the marketplace and expand globally.

For more information about AzTE, visit www.azte.com.