The target audience for this course is MBA and Engineering students interested in developing business models that drive value from intellectual property. What makes this course different from many other innovation and entrepreneurship courses is the focus on turning scientific research into intellectual property and then into business value.

As a world-class research institution, Columbia University is a prime producer of academic research. Every year Columbia researchers submit inventions on over 350 potential breakthroughs, which Columbia’s office of Columbia Technology Ventures converts into over 100 licenses with industry, including 20+ new startup companies, which collectively have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing revenue for Columbia and its researchers over the past decade.  However, even with this track record, for every invention that reaches the market there are many more that never find a commercial partner to complete the journey. 

Such resources, which are available only at a world-class research institution like Columbia University, may be turned into a source of competitive advantage by students interested in entrepreneurship. Indeed, one of the major ways in which companies (in particular technology-based startups) create barriers to entry is through their intellectual property, including patents and trade secrets. Collaboration with academia is a great way to create such barriers to entry.

This course trains students to identify and pursue innovation opportunities that rely on intellectual property coming out of scientific research. It provides students with some basic knowledge of research frontiers in relevant fields of knowledge, as well as tools and frameworks for developing business models based on scientific research. In addition, the course connects students with different backgrounds and skills, and trains them to collaborate effectively with each other.

Enrollment in this course is limited, and split evenly between the Engineering School and the Business School.

Olivier Toubia

Glaubinger Professor of Business

Olivier Toubia is the Glaubinger Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, where he also serves as Faculty Director for the Lang Entrepreneurship Center. His research focuses on various aspects of innovation, including preference measurement and idea generation. Specifically, he combines methods from social sciences and data science, in order to study human processes such as motivation, choice, and creativity. He teaches a course...

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