For the 6th consecutive year the Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO) hosted technology transfer and business development interns from Chalmers University for a month-long internship with our office. The prominent Master’s in Entrepreneurship and business design course offers its students the opportunity to gain real-life work experience via its internship program. The program is popular not only with students, but thanks to the applicants’ good foundations, it draws the attention of tech giants and leaders such as Volvo, Spotify and Saab. Despite the competing placements available, UM’s KTO still manages to represent an attractive alternative year by year.
KTO assists the University in exploiting its research results by supporting potential technologies throughout the whole innovation process with the end goal of putting them in actual use in the industry. Through our work, the KTO performs a broad range of activities; the assessment of technologies, intellectual property definition and strategies, business development, and support with investment networks, to name a few.
Ms Adeline Fredriksson joined the NEVAC team where her focus was to define the value proposition of the technology and create a strategy of how to bring the technology to market. She also worked with branding of the technology, by creating a graphic profile, a new logo, pitch decks for various target audiences, and a new website. This material will continue to be used throughout NEVAC’s future promotional work and aid the networking efforts with industry and other commercial stakeholders.
“The most challenging aspect was to get it right from a market perspective. My mission was to find a niche market segment for entry, where the technology is a "must have" rather than a "nice-to-have"-solution and establish how that particular market operates and what strategic conclusions can be drawn from that.” – she added.
Ms Sofia dos Santos Johnson's primary project was TargetID, which is in the earlier stages of the commercialization process. Her main tasks were IP and market analysis as well as intellectual asset mapping with the goal to establish a business case for the technology. This has included making strategic considerations regarding what assets to focus on, how to package the assets into a value offering, and concluding what application area is most promising.
“It required a deep understanding of both internal and external analysis. It's been very challenging but also developing and fun. It's been great to see that what we've learned the past year actually is valuable and can be applied to real technologies and businesses. Even the simplest things such as what questions to ask to whom in order to get the information we require. I even see knowledge transfer as a viable career for myself” – elaborated Ms Johnson.
Mr Andras Havasi, manager at KTO added: “It is a great opportunity for us too to shake up the office and give a boost to the projects. Moreover, it is encouraging feedback about our work that several applicants choose us instead of fancy and paid internships at multinationals and start-ups in Sweden or the Silicon Valley.”
Currently, KTO is offering a knowledge transfer and business development internship opportunity to Maltese residents. Check out the details.