SUMMARY

Tim Lavengood is on Ask an Innovator today talking with us about innovations in science. We talk about how the Technology Innovation Center will provide a place for scientists to truly own their own intellectual property and what that means for inventing and the world at large.

We talk about the importance of mentorship in the startup space. Tim and Josh discuss how this surge of scientists creating and innovating will mirror the technology revolution of the ’80s. Check it out – full transcript below!

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About Technology Innovation Center

After 30 years incubating hundreds of digital startups in Chicago, Technology Innovation Center is shifting its model to serve the hard sciences. Like the digital revolution of the 1980s, energy, materials, medical devices, agriculture, genetics and other sciences are entering a phase of entrepreneurial revolution. The toolkit for science is becoming faster, cheaper and smarter by the day, drastically reducing the barrier to entry for young, independent scientists to create IP of their own. Moore’s Law has come to the sciences and Technology Innovation Center is in on the ground floor supporting the first generation of true scientist entrepreneurs.

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Full Transcript with Tim Lavengood

Josh Barker: [00:00:13 ] Welcome to Ask an Innovator. Today I’ve got with me at Tim Lavengood. Welcome, Tim. Really appreciate you being here.

Tim Lavengood: [00:00:18 ] Glad to be here!

Josh Barker: [00:00:20 ] Awesome. So Tim is the Executive Director at Technology Innovation Center, is that right?

Tim Lavengood: [00:00:26 ] That is correct. 

Josh Barker: [00:00:28 ] Can you give a little bit of background of yourself and a little background about Technology Innovation Center?

Tim Lavengood: [00:00:33 ] Well, I’ve been working as the Executive Director for quite a few years, so those are kind of the same thing. We are a technology-based business incubator that’s actually been in operation since the eighties for about 30 years. 31 years. And we have worked with several hundred different kinds of startups over the years providing space and services and networking to help innovation-based companies get off the ground.

Josh Barker: [00:01:03 ] Awesome.  And I’m reading on here, 25,000 square feet. That’s quite a bit for 30 to 50 technology-based startups. Is that right?

Tim Lavengood: [00:01:13 ] That was the case. We’re in the process now of making the transition to the hard sciences. There were reasons for that and we are working on a build-out of laboratory space in Northbrook, one of the other suburbs here.

Josh Barker: [00:01:35 ] I’d love to hear a little bit more about that. Can you give a little bit more details about  your transition to the hard sciences?

Tim Lavengood: [00:01:40 ] Yes.  We’ve been around since the eighties and  we came in right around the same time as, you know, the beginning of the, uh, original.com boom.

 I think because of that perspective, I am seeing very similar circumstances now in the hard sciences: in new materials, in life science, in energy that we saw in the eighties in information technology. And I think it is now time for us, I think we’re most valuable in dealing with now this just emerging generation of scientist entrepreneurs.

To me, the key is the tools. And just as in the eighties the tools for information technology got dramatically and rapidly, cheaper, smaller and smaller, and that results in entrepreneurship. As opposed to people who, because of the expense and the expertise required to use the tools, have to go to work for larger organizations.

And I think we are now seeing just emerging the dawn of an age of the independent entrepreneurial scientist. And I think the implications of that actually make the information technology revolution seem small by comparison.

Josh Barker: [00:03:07 ] Yeah, that makes sense. So before you’d have all these scientists really not  able to afford the equipment, the space, all of the different things needed for true innovation to really happen. And now, you’re  essentially providing that space, you’re providing the equipment,  loaning it out to them, so to speak, for kind of a monthly cost.

Tim Lavengood: [00:03:27 ] Yes. We’re redesigning, we’re creating what we’re calling a workstation  for a wet laboratory, and what we’re basically trying to do is allow scientists to generate valid data.

That proves their concept in circumstances where they’re not working for a big corporation that’s going to own everything. Approximately, now more than 95% of all scientific intellectual property by economic value, is owned by organizations with valuations over a billion dollars. So it’s the most concentrated asset class in the developed world and that is just about to break wide open now,  in my view. It’s a profound trend that I think we’re in the forefront of.

Josh Barker: [00:04:19 ] Sure. Awesome. I’d love to hear some examples of the different companies that are doing  innovative things that might not otherwise be doing that if they weren’t in the position they’re in now.

Tim Lavengood: [00:04:32 ] A company that started with us in 2015  called Hazel Technologies. They came to us, graduate students at Northwestern, with $6,000 they got from a business plan competition. They were working on producing a material, a nanoscale powder that actually controls the ethylene, the gas concentration that causes fruits and vegetables to ripen and then to spoil.

By controlling this without additives, without GMO, they’re able to extend the shelf life of produce. That company was able, because of the tools, because of our environment, to get started and generate data that proved the effectiveness of that material with $6,000 upfront to pay rent for six months.

This meant that as this data was generated, they owned it as opposed to what would have happened if they were at a large company. Now that company is worth, as I understand it, about $30 millio