Turning Technology into Business Using University Patents

Abstract

We present an education paradigm that stimulates innovation and entrepreneurship through a master's-level university course: "Turning Technology into Business". The course was specifically designed to connect technological research with education using patented technologies developed at the research faculties of a technical university in the Netherlands. We outline the structure and the main content of the course and explain the selection process of both the patents used in the course and the students admitted to the course. This program was initiated at Delft University of Technology in 2003 and has resulted in 10 startups that have commercialized new technologies and at least two additional dozen startups that are indirect spinoffs. To illustrate the potential of this approach, we describe the case of Holland Container Innovations, a company founded by students who developed a foldable sea container during the course.