CityU KTO – AUTM Virtual Course “Startup Business Development” – Class 1

 The 4-day AUTM virtual introductory course on Startup Business Development is organized by the Knowledge Transfer Office of City University of Hong Kong, HKSAR Intellectual Property Department and the Institute for Entrepreneurship of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.  AUTM is the non-profit leader in efforts to educate, promote and inspire professionals to support the development of academic research that changes the world and drives innovation forward.

The first class was held on 8 Dec 2020.  I was honor to be invited to attend this course. In the beginning, Prof. Barbara Gunderson (Prof. Dev. Director) introduced the course and speakers.

Then Ms. Tricia Chong (Director of Knowledge Transfer, CityU) gave welcome address. “Hong Kong has good ecosystem and opportunity for startup.” she said.  She wished we would have more crossover after four day online courses.

The speakers in the class 1 were Professor Keith Marmer (Chief Innovation & Economic Engagement Officer, University of Utah) and Mr. Paul J. Corson (Deputy Director and Sr. Director for Entrepreneurship at the University of Utah’s PIVOT Center). 

Firstly, Prof. Marmer briefed what is a startup that is a company undertaken by an entrepreneur(s) to seek, develop and validate a scalable economic model.  Then he polled to the audience and found that most of us were supporting entrepreneurs and would like to learn more about it.

Then Prof. Marmer quoted Neil Blumenthal (CEO, Warby Parker) defined that “A startup is a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed.”  However, the significant growth of startup was obviously in decade. 

And then Prof. Marmer mentioned about entrepreneur that is a person who assumes risk in pursuit of a business opportunity.  He posted the 2^nd poll to us that most of faculty members (professor) to have some or few entrepreneurial aspirations.  (Remark: My observation is that academic incentive system is not enough.)

After that Mr. Paul J. Corson discussed startups fail and he said 100% of startup planned for success and 85% of them fail within two years, as well as 74% people who feel pressure not to fail.  The top three fail factors were “No Market Need”, “Ran Out of Cash” and “Not the Right Team”. One more thing, he pointed out that so many stakeholders should be considered that made it difficulty. Mr. Corson also poll and found that most participants agree to think like entrepreneur without having actual experience.

Mr. Corson then briefed some entrepreneurial mindset and discussed how to transfer from research to prototype and added value through working as startup.  Because university covered some overheads during this trial.  

The last poll showed that most of participants selected to run own business is a well-respected career.

Finally, Prof. Marmer quoted KPMG study that Hong Kong students ranked the top one to be an entrepreneur.  For university, we needed to align the goal among faculty members, postdoc and new CEO in startup.

Reference:

AUTM - https://autm.net/

KTO course - https://www.cityu.edu.hk/kto/index.aspx?id=PG-1200052&event_id=EV-2000025

Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO) - http://www.cityu.edu.hk/kto/

AUTM Virtual Course 2020:

20201208: CityU KTO – AUTM Virtual Course “Startup Business Development” – Class 1 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2020/12/cityu-kto-autm-virtual-course-startup.html

20201210: CityU KTO – AUTM Virtual Course “Startup Business Development” – Class 2 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2020/12/cityu-kto-autm-virtual-course-startup_10.html

20201215: CityU KTO – AUTM Virtual Course “Startup Business Development” – Class 3 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2020/12/cityu-kto-autm-virtual-course-startup_15.html

20201217: CityU KTO – AUTM Virtual Course “Startup Business Development” – Class 4 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2020/12/cityu-kto-autm-virtual-course-startup_17.html

CityU KTO related past activities:

20200630: CES Chairman and Work Group meeting with New Director of KTO, CityU - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2020/06/ces-chairman-and-work-group-meeting.html

20191017: CityU Knowledge Transfer Office TSSSU_SEEDS Q&A Session - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2019/10/cityu-knowledge-transfer-office.html

20190627: CityU Inno-preneurship Mentoring Meet-up Dinner 2019 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2019/06/cityu-inno-preneurship-mentoring-meet.html

20190522: CES Work Group meeting with KTO, CityU - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2019/05/ces-work-group-meeting-with-kto-cityu.html

20180528: CityU Inno-preneurship Mentoring Meet-up Dinner 2018 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.com/2018/05/cityu-inno-preneurship-mentoring-meet.html

20180308: The 1st CityU Innopreneurship meeting with HANDS 2018 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2018/03/the-1st-cityu-innopreneurship-meeting.html

20170719: HKQAA Startup Coaching to CityU Inno-preneur “HANDS” - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/07/hkqaa-startup-coaching-to-cityu-inno.html

20170705: HKSTP TecONE Investment Series Seminar and Visit IncuBio “HANDS” - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/07/hkstp-tecone-investment-series-seminar.html

20170627: CityU Inno-preneurship Mentoring Meet-up Event - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2017/06/cityu-inno-preneurship-mentoring-meet.html

20161201: CityU Inno-preneurship Mentoring Scheme Dinner - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2016/12/cityu-inno-preneurship-mentoring-scheme.html

20151123: CityU Innopreneurship Ecosystem Launch Ceremony 2015 - https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2015/11/cityu-innopreneurship-ecosystem-launch.html

20140627: Visit to CityU Apps Lab -

https://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2014/06/visit-to-cityu-apps-lab.html