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Business Development Project Assistant – Summer

on April 4, 2023

Responsibilities

We seek a highly motivated and self-disciplined Business Development Project Assistant to join our team at WORLDiscoveries. As a Business Development Assistant, you will be responsible for exploring the commercialization of Western University technologies and identifying potential industry partners and receptors. In addition, you will assist in Technology Project Support and Evaluation, Market Assessment and Market Research, Developmental Risk, and Competitive Environment. Other responsibilities include identifying potential industry partners, performing technology literature research and competitive landscape analysis, and assisting in project and technology marketing. The ideal candidate will have technical knowledge in Science related fields with some business understanding, excellent oral and written communication skills, and be able to work independently and in a team setting. Candidates should preferably be students or recent graduates in the Sciences or Business programs. They will be exposed to technology commercialization, business development, and innovation culture on campus while working with business and science professionals. Familiarity with database searching and MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is required.

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From World to Beyond: WE-Empower! Celebrates Western Professor Innovative Research

on March 7, 2023

By: Maria Varon, WORLDiscoveries

Every year on March 8, people worldwide celebrate International Women’s Day. This global day recognizes and celebrates women’s social, economic, cultural, and political achievements. This year, as we #EmbraceEquity, WE-Empower! (a program for people who self-identify as women from faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students at Western University), is excited to celebrate Dr. Jayshri Sabarinathan. Dr. Sabarinathan is a WE-Empower! participant and who recently submitted a Report on Invention (ROI) to Western University’s Tech Transfer Office, WORLDiscoveries. 

Dr. Sabarinathan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and was previously the Associate Director of Training (2019-2022) at Western University’s Institute for Earth and Space Exploration. She obtained her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research expertise is in developing novel nano-photonic sensors, integrated photonics, and miniature remote sensing instrumentation.

From the World to Beyond: 

Dr. Sabarinathan has worked in multi-spectral imaging for remote sensing applications for the last seven years. Inspired to build a customized multi-spectral camera for agriculture monitoring, she and her team developed custom multi-spectral imager instrumentation for unmanned aerial vehicle-based and mobile robot-based remote sensing. This has applications in precision agriculture and geological classification. This work led her to The Canada Space Agency, where Dr. Sabarinathan became involved with the Integrated Visions System Project led by Dr. Osinski (the PI and Science Lead at Western University). Dr. Sabarinathan and her team have demonstrated a compact dual-sensor multi-spectral imager for a lunar rover application capable of characterizing the lunar surface geology. 

 “What’s exciting about this multi-spectral imager is that we use a dual sensor with an extended spectral range from the visible and near-infrared to the short-wave infrared, thus allowing us to recognize more lunar mineral signatures,” explains Dr. Sabarinathan. “We also realized that this instrument can be used in many applications. This led us to apply for an ROI with WORLDiscoveries. We hope to commercialize and potentially use it for other applications such as mining and air quality monitoring.” 

WE-Empower!

Dr. Sabarinathan is a current participant in an inaugural program led by WORLDiscoveries. It creates opportunities for women to turn their innovations into business opportunities. Funded by the Strategic Priorities Fund, the WE-Empower! The program provides year-round mentorship for principal investigators, faculty, postdoctoral trainees, and graduate students who self-identify as women. The program works to support and train these researchers on the technology transfer process, research commercialization options, intellectual property (IP), and entrepreneurship. “The WE-Empower program educates women faculty on navigating the commercialization process while introducing them to available resources and networks at WORLDiscoveries and within the region.”

Dr. Sabarinathan is also a co-founder of LightSail, a start-up which develops integrated photonic solutions for the aerospace industry sector. “Being part of this start-up also led me to join the WE-Empower! program as it provides resources on how to take research to commercialization and learn the right way to do it,” she says. 

Staying Inspired 

Today, Dr. Sabarinathan is pioneering innovative ways to lead impactful research to publications and guiding her students with the skills to be successful in the space industry. “This industry is growing in Canada and worldwide,” Dr. Sabarinathan explains. “We want to see our research impact people and be used by other researchers.” When talking about her inspirations, Dr. Sabarinathan describes her drive as having a dream and staying focused on that dream. “It’s important (…) not to let challenges stop you from achieving your dream. Some of the best advice I have received is: It might take someone a certain amount of time to achieve a goal, and it might take someone else a shorter amount of time. It does not matter either way as long as the goal is achieved”  

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Business Development Manager

on January 11, 2023

Responsibilities

The Business Development Manager will lead, develop and implement strategies to enhance the commercialization of intellectual property created by Western and its partners, including faculty, postdoctoral fellows, students and staff, as well as provide support in matters related to industrial interactions and intellectual property management under the area of Life Sciences.  The role will establish relationships to solicit new innovations for WORLDiscoveries, seek out commercialization opportunities and maintain relationships with industry, partners and other stakeholders in order to reinforce and advance the reputation of Western and WORLDiscoveries locally, nationally and internationally. 

In addition, the Business Development Manager will research and evaluate innovation disclosures, develop and manage patent processes, determine the commercial potential for innovations, make decisions on technology investments, and develop and execute related marketing plans. The role will negotiate terms and conditions of licenses, research and development agreements, and material transfer and confidentiality agreements.  The Business Development Manager will also identify opportunities for prototype development funding and assist with spin-off company creation, including business plan preparation, market research, developing research and development plans with inventors, and strategic planning.

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WORLDiscoveries Annual Vanguard Awards 2022

on October 10, 2022

Claire Crooks has been named the WORLDiscoveries Annual Vanguard Awards – Innovator of the Year.

Crooks is a clinical psychologist, professor at the Faculty of Education and Director of the Centre for School Mental Health, where she and her team develop, implement, and evaluate mental health promotion and violence prevention programs in a range of school and community settings.

Her research looks at the gaps between science, practice and policy related to the healthy development of children and youth.

Along with a team of fellow researchers, Crooks has developed the Fourth R, a curriculum that is based on the principal that relationship skills can and should be taught in much the same way as reading, writing and arithmetic.

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Business Development Manager

on September 29, 2022

The Business Development Manager will lead, develop and implement strategies to enhance commercialization of intellectual property created by Western and its partners including, faculty, postdoctoral fellows, students and staff, as well as provide support in matters related to industrial interactions and intellectual property management under the area of Life Sciences. The role will establish relationships in order to solicit new innovations for WORLDiscoveries, seek out commercialization opportunities and maintain relationships with industry, partners and other stakeholders in order to reinforce and advance the reputation of Western and WORLDiscoveries locally, nationally and internationally.

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Claire Crooks, is the Director of the Centre for School Mental Health and a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Western.

Healthy relationship program highlights WORLDiscoveries success

on September 19, 2022

The Fourth R is a comprehensive school-based program designed to include students, teachers, parents, and the community in addressing youth violence and bullying, unsafe sexual behaviour, and substance use.

Based on the idea that education needs to involve more than the traditional three R’s – reading, writing and arithmetic – the Fourth R stands for relationships. The program emphasizes the importance of healthy relationships in stopping violence.

The Fourth R was developed at Western’s Centre for School Mental Health and London’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health by researchers David Wolfe, Claire Crooks, Ray Hughes, and Peter Jaffe. The curriculum and has been adopted by more than 5,000 schools in Canada and the U.S.

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From left to right: Fatma Hassan, Anastasia Codirenzi, Eaton Asher, Michelle Pryde, Durwesh Kadri, Oleksiy Zaika, Cody Jackson

New Medical Innovation Fellowship cohort begins their journey

on August 10, 2022

Western has recruited a group of skilled scientists, engineers and medical practitioners from around the world to be part of the eighth cohort of its Medical Innovation Fellowship (MIF) program.

The program takes place over 10.5 months where fellows will learn about topics relevant to business and technology commercialization, prior to being immersed in clinics, where they identify market needs. They then develop and prototype solutions by working with researchers, clinicians, and technology transfer offices to generate new intellectual property. Graduates of the program have become leaders in industry, research and health care and have started their own companies.

Starting this August, the fellows will complete a boot camp that lays the groundwork for the rest of the fellowship meeting with academic researchers, clinicians, industry representatives, and venture capitalists that provide training on innovation, prototyping, intellectual property, regulatory affairs, and business strategy.

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Hisham Hafez is Senior Director, RNG Projects at Greenfield Global and an Adjunct Professor at Western.

Taking green graduate research to industry

on July 28, 2022

Alumnus applies innovations developed in lab to exclusively licensed venture

Western alumnus Hisham Hafez, PhD’10, MBA’19, is taking his innovative bio-fuel process from the lab to market as the Senior Director, Renewable Natural Gas Projects at Greenfield Global, a producer of high purity alcohols, solvents, biofuels, and bio-processing materials.

Hafez was a doctoral student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department when he was approached by a Greenfield executive during a poster presentation, interested in his research involving converting waste biomass into biological hydrogen and methane using a novel process he developed and patented throughout the course of his program.

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Western Medical Innovation Fellows take first place in MSK Innovation Competition

on July 14, 2022

The Western Innovation Fellows (MIF) have won a cash prize of $25,000 by landing the top position in the 2022 MSK Innovation Competition.

First launched in the spring of 2019, the MSK competition aims to cultivate innovative ideas that can be pitched to investors and promote an entrepreneurial spirit. The stage of development is not restricted for entrants and anyone on the commercialization path is welcome to participate. The competition is open to all London-based entrepreneurial musculoskeletal experts. The initiative is hosted by the Bone and Joint Institute and the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship at Western.

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New program, WE-Empower, to encourage women entrepreneurs

on June 30, 2022

A new program, funded by the Strategic Priorities Fund, seeks to provide a year-round mentorship program for women and underrepresented principal investigators, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students and training in technology transfer, research commercialization, intellectual property, and entrepreneurship.

The program was a result of an equity, diversity, and inclusion assessment that identified a gap in the number of disclosures of innovation with lead female principal investigators.

Piloted by WORLDiscoveries, the business development arm of a research partnership between Western, Robarts Research Institute and Lawson, the WE-Empower program, joins other programming like the Western Medical Innovation Fellowship and Graduate Student Innovation Scholars to help promote the commercialization of research innovations coming from our partner institutions.

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