DCU Commercialisation Awards 2013
The annual Invent Commercialisation Awards ceremony was held on 25th February 2014 in the Helix, DCU. These awards were established by Invent DCU to publicly recognise DCU researchers who work with Invent to protect and commercialise their research. The ceremony was officially opened by Prof. Brian MacCraith, President DCU. He commented on the wonderful achievement of the Invent DCU office as being the leading technology transfer office in the country for the fifth year in a row. DCU is certainly punching above its weight having executed 20 licences from a total of 118 nationally and spinning out 7 companies from a total of 30 nationally. These are impressive figures indeed and in keeping with developing DCU's reputation as the University of Enterprise.
Invent was delighted to have Dr. Mazhar Bari as guest speaker. Dr. Bari is a serial entrepreneur and focused on delivering solutions for energy efficiency and smart grid applications. He is a mentor for several new technology start-ups and an entrepreneur in residence at the National Digital Research Centre in Dublin. He is co-founder and former CEO/CTO of Solarprint Ltd - a 3rd Generation Solar company; he is a consultant on renewable energy projects in Asia and is a recognised expert in nanotechnology and sustainable energy technologies. He is Chairman and principal shareholder in BTS Ltd - commercialising next generation thermoelectric nanomaterials for power generation and cooling for automotive and aerospace applications. Dr. Bari gave an inspiring talk on how working on research challenges will help solve huge problems such as climate change. He firmly believes that the capability is currently there world-wide but we just need to bring all the elements together in a cohesive manner.
After Dr. Bari's lively presentation, the awards were then presented by Prof. Alan Harvey, Vice-President for Research and Innovation. A total of 13 awards were presented and the awards spanned three categories: Licence options, licences to existing companies and licences to spin-outs. The awards were a great success with attendance of over 120 researchers and academics on the day from various DCU Schools and Faculties.
Drawing the event to a close, Richard Stokes, Director of Invent, stated that, "These individuals have demonstrated great initiative in the commercialisation of their technology and both DCU and Invent value the time and effort researchers put into commercialising their research. As the commercialisation gateway of DCU, Invent has the infrastructure, the ability and the expertise to assist and advise industry, academia and researchers in their innovation, commercialisation and business development endeavours”.