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May 25, 2007, 02:11 PM ET
U. of Florida Hands IT Ideas Over to Entrepreneurs
Ask someone to identify an institution with a knack for spawning technology start-ups, and you're not likely to hear the University of Florida's name. But maybe you should: The university now ranks behind only the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of California system in turning professors' brainchildren into tech companies, according to BusinessWeek.
Florida's status as a blossoming technology hotbed is especially surprising because the university had no start-ups to speak of just a decade ago. What changed? For one thing, Florida decided that engineers don't make good entrepreneurs:
The rise is the result of a change in strategy, which boils down to treating intellectual property like merchandise and then marketing these products to targeted customers. In a break from conventional wisdom, the university also shuns its own inventors when it comes to running start-ups, relying instead on hired guns who have proved they can make a go of business.Some scientists might bristle at that business model. But in the wake of Florida's quick ascent, it's likely that more colleges will give that division of labor a try. --Brock Read
Categories: Research, Company-Watch
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