COURSE NUMBER: MBA295T.5* Cross-Listed
with EWMBA
COURSE TITLE: Technology
Transfer & Commercialization
UNITS OF CREDIT: 2
INSTRUCTOR: David Charron
E-MAIL ADDRESS: charron@haas.berkeley.edu
CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION
(HTTP URL):
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME:
Wednesday, 4:00-6:00 PM
PREREQUISITE(S): None
CLASS FORMAT:
Lecture/Seminar
REQUIRED
BASIS FOR FINAL
GRADE:
30% Class participation
30% midterm paper
40% final paper
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S
CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
Novel technologies arise regularly in virtually every context and can often
drive an entrepreneurial process. In many cases, the commercialization of a new
technology is long and difficult road, with many difficult choices and
potential failure points along the way. Entrepreneurs can find themselves in
situations where they don't have technical or market depth of understanding.
Venture capitalists find themselves waiting for technology to become real, or
markets to develop. Inventors can find the process frustrating and fear of loss
of control difficult to take. This course gives entrepreneurs, engineers and
scientists a chance to explore all the aspects of how technologies make it to
the marketplace. Students will receive a set of in-depth frameworks and tools
for assessing and capitalizing on technology-based opportunities.
The course combines
lectures, cases, guest lectures and student presentations of projects.
Description of the projects:
Students will form teams of at least two individuals interested in a specific
market or area of technology (pharmaceuticals, metrology, CAD software,
networking / communications, etc.). The team will then write two papers:
1. An analysis of a funded and operating technology-based company. The analysis
will focus on a particularly interesting aspect of that the company's history
and the roles of the individuals involved during the formation and the growth
of the company. Students should choose companies for ease of access to either
public information, or the people involved in the formation of the company on
which the paper will be written.
2. Analysis of a specific new or emerging technology that may alter a market in
the future, and a description of how that technology might be commercialized
and why you chose that pathway.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/charron.html