2014 Charleston Library Conference

Innovation in academic research can come from inside as well as outside academia. Many successful companies were launched while the founders were graduate or even undergraduate students (Facebook, Google, WordPress -- to name a few). The default path for a student or faculty member with an idea is to publish their concept or write a grant. However, some academics who are inspired to build a ‘better mousetrap’ in their domain seek to create a company to support their idea as well as themselves. The goal of this session is to explore the how these ‘academic entrepreneurs’ founded and built their companies. Though a guided discussion, we will learn about: their background and experience prior to forming their company; what triggered their initial idea; why they chose a commercial approach; how they overcame the challenges they encountered while growing their company; and lessons learned as they grew their start-ups. Many members of academia are reflexively suspicious (or even downright hostile) towards the idea of a for-profit company serving academia. By directly addressing and discussing these tensions, we hope to break down barriers between the members of the academic ecosystem. We aim for the session to provide academics with a unique insight into the founding a companies which serve them, and nascent academic entrepreneurs with inspiration -- as well as a reality check about doing business with academia. We will invite members of the audience to interrogate, provoke and perhaps even commiserate with our panel members via a lively exchange of ideas.