Academic entrepreneurship provides an alternative pathway which translates the academic-generated knowledge into industry-adopted technology through both intellectual property transfer and the talent development. This approach has been proved one of the most effective ways of technology transfer in many cases.

However, turning researchers into successful entrepreneurs has also been proved a formidable task even for the most reputable institutions. The hotly debated researchers’ involvement and potential conflict of interest furthermore makes academic entrepreneurship a delicate technology transfer tool for both practitioners and university administrators.

Academic Entrepreneurship Development Workshop was held in Zhejiang University on 12 May 2017. With reference to experience of the pioneers from both abroad and locally, to provide a collective learning experience for all participants, mostly technology transfer practitioners, entrepreneurship educators and university administrators in the cross-disciplinary areas of academic entrepreneurship development.

Four guests from overseas and local universities and institutions shared their views and practices in the morning sharing session. In the order of presentation, the Keynote Speakers are:

1. Mr Benjamin Soffer, CEO of T3 - Technion Technology Transfer, Isarel
2. Prof. Dongmin CHEN, Professor of Peking University, China
3. Mr Kwok Leong HUI, Associate Director (Enterprise) of NUS (Suzhou) Research Institute, Singapore
4. Prof. Rongxiang ZHAO, Dean of Industrial Technology Research Institute, Zhejiang University, China

ISTA members are welcome to download the presentation slides listed below. To access the protected files, please send a request to ista.secretariat@polyu.edu.hk for the password.  

- T3 Approach: TechnionAccelerator (by Mr Benjamin Soffer)
- Peking University Approach: Innovation Colleague (by Prof. Dongmin CHEN)
- NUS Approach: Technology Lean Launchpad Programme (by Mr Kwok Leong HUI)
- Zhejiang UniversityApproach: Zijin Town (by Prof. Rongxiang ZHAO)