Calling all UWS Students Interested in Commercialisation

Attention all Budding Entrepreneurs!

Free Business Pitch Opportunity
29th November on Campbelltown Campus

Have you got a revolutionary business idea or a fabulous research project? Yes? - Then test it!

On Friday November 29^th 2013 one or more successful UWS students will have the opportunity to pitch their innovative project to our UWS IP Panel

This is a great chance to get real world feedback on your idea, from a range of skilled experts with development support from the team at UWS Innovation. The panel consists of serial Entrepreneurs, Patent Attorneys, senior representatives from each of UWS’ Schools, and UWS Innovation.

Ekta Nankani, a PhD student from the School of Computing and Mathematics had the opportunity to pitch to the panel before she took her project out to work with an external company. Ekta found the advice she received from the panel, and particularly the patent attorney, very valuable.

“One of the most challenging decisions for any research student is to manage their IP. I was lucky to do an “Opportunity pitch” presentation at the IP Panel and meet with senior researchers, industry experts and advocates to discuss my research topic; in return the feedback received was very valuable. Staff at the Innovation office are very supportive and always ready to guide students. Exposure to different intellectual property rights and issues, patenting, legal implications when commercialising research is quite important and all the higher research degree students should be aware of such matters.”

If you are interested in this unique opportunity to hone your pitch skills or jump out of your comfort zone and explore new territory, send an application to Victoria Hirst at UWS Innovation.

The application should be no more than 1-page long and include your a) contact details, b) brief description of the idea c) and a statement about why does the market need your idea?

Submit your application via email to v.hirst@uws.edu.au.

Alternatively if you would like the opportunity to sit on the UWS Innovation Intellectual Property Evaluation Panel as a student representative, we would love to have you.

If you have any questions or would like to participate please contact Victoria Hirst on v.hirst@usw.edu.au or 9685 9742.

Three Minute Thesis Competition

This year the University of Western Sydney was host to the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) finals. The University was fortunate to have Mr. Ruben Meerman from ABC’s Catalyst as Master of Ceremonies for the event as Mr Meerman has been promoting science for more than 15 years.
The day saw some fantastic presentations by PhD students from all over Australia and New Zealand. Forty four (44) Semi finalists competed in the morning with eight (8) progressing through to the finals:

3MT Finalists:

·         Xiao (Demi) Gao from the University of South Australia. ‘Building a better bionic ear’

·         Sharon Savage from the University of New South Wales. ‘Giving words new life in dementia’

·         Kelsey Kennedy from the University of Western Australia. ‘Feeling for cancer: an imaging tool to make breast cancer surgery more effective’

·         Lily Chang from the University of Auckland. ‘An "eye" on Alzheimer's disease’ 

·         Thomas Finn from Massey University. ‘Oxygen: A double-edged sword for life forms’

·         Shu Hui Yau from Macquarie University. ‘Beeps, Burps and Brains: Auditory Processing in Autism’

·         Ksenia Gnevsheva from the University of Canterbury. ‘Non-Native English accents: How malleable are they?’ 

·         Gemma Sharp from Flinders University. ‘Paying for Lip Service’  

Our congratulations go to this year’s runner up Lily Chang from the University of Auckland and this year’s winner of the three minute thesis competition, Kelsey Kennedy from the University of Western Australia.  Kelsey managed to not only win the competition, but also take home the people’s choice award.

We also commend all the students who entered the completion and managed to condense and simplify their theses into an interesting three minute talk to be understood by a lay person, this is an impressive feat. We wish them luck in their future research.

If you have any questions concerning Intellectual Property or Commercialisation of your research please refer to the UWS Innovation website http://www.uws.edu.au/innovate or contact us on ip@uws.edu.au