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Smaller Israeli Colleges Ramping Up Technology, Business Investments

Scores of successful inventions are shepherded from laboratories to the marketplace by Israel’s renowned system of technology-transfer companies (TTCs), which are part- or wholly-owned by the universities at which the technologies were discovered or improved.

Just a few of the companies established via TTCs are Mobileye (Hebrew University), Mazor Robotics (Technion), Phinergy (Bar-Ilan University) and BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics (Tel Aviv University).

But what about all the ideas percolating at Israel’s smaller colleges and research institutes that can’t afford a proper TTC? Many of those technologies and designs withered on the vine until the 2013 establishment of SNÉ, Israel’s first national TTC.

“As a private company, we are not driven by the interests of the researchers or the universities. Our only interest is the business potential of the idea,” SNÉ chief executive officer Avi Ben-Zichri tells ISRAEL21c.

With $6.8 million from the Council of Higher Education and a fresh infusion of $2.5 million from Arieli Capital, SNÉ now plans to expand its services to 45 institutions, and is readying a handful of startups for launch:

A kit to help neonatal intensive care unit nurses transfer breast milk from mothers to newborns with significantly less staff involvement, milk loss, mix-ups and exposure to contamination;

A neonatal feeding system for NICUs;

A portable electro-optic testing device and image-processing solution to help textile and clothing manufacturers detect the risk of pilling, a common defect in low-quality fabrics that currently is assessed manually;

A 3D-printed speaker enclosure geometrically designed to eliminate back-wave distortion to ensure better audio fidelity for home stereo and home theater systems;

A special curved needle for sewing ultra-fine carbon-fiber thread in manufacturing processes;

An automated process to permeate thermoplastic packaging materials with essential oils, which are then infused into the package to extend the shelf life of food, fragrances and pesticides;

A software-based analysis tool that automates protein annotation for biopharmaceuticals, food substitutes, consumer materials, textile coloring, and detergents.

“We are very proactive from step one. We approach the researchers to find ideas and prepare a business plan, and identify and approach target customers,” says Ben-Zichri, a former executive at Siemens Data Communications, Oplus, NeuStar and Intel.

Among SNÉ’s clients are the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design; Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art; Hadassah Academic College; Jerusalem College of Technology; ORT Braude College of Engineering; Medical Center of the Galilee; and Ruppin Academic Center.

Prof. Moshe Shavit, head of the entrepreneurship center at ORT Braude in Karmiel, took over management of the college’s Ofek tech-transfer company two years ago. As the sole, part-time staffer, his chances of success were limited, so he turned to SNÉ for assistance in early 2015.

“ORT Braude’s commercialization activities now are done in a much more professional and organized way, from invention disclosure to analysis to identifying the proof of concept and potential partners and investors,” Shavit tells ISRAEL21c.

“Before, we didn’t have a patent committee, and now we have an advisory board to help us make decisions. SNÉ funded five patents and handled the patenting process, which saved us a lot. They also help us decide whether to drop a patent that is taking too many resources without delivering results. This also saves us a huge amount of money.”

Working with SNÉ encourages the college’s researchers, Shavit says. “In the past, they didn’t notice any benefits. Now they see a light at the end of the tunnel so they’re more motivated.”

The protein annotation software was invented by an ORT Braude computer science professor. SNÉ subsidized a graduate computer-science student this fall to help build a proof of concept to present to investors.

Each partner institution is assigned a SNÉ professional to judge the maturity and potential of ideas. The best candidates get passed on to an account manager, who meets with the researcher to formulate a business plan. At that point, an expert in the specific field is brought in.

“This expert is like a creature with two heads – someone who has a very good academic background and real business experience,” says Ben-Zichri. “I need these two heads to be able to understand the research end and to understand the business potential.”

These experts often suggest different or additional applications that the inventor may not have considered. “I call this IP enrichment,” says Ben-Zichri.

(via Israel21c)

[Photo:  Panoramico.co.il / WikiCommons ]