Hoosier economy to benefit from ‘pervasiveness’

By Julie Wernert

So far, the Pervasive Technology Labs have generated interest from several national companies, including technology heavyweights IBM, Sun Microsystems and Intel. Pervasive Tech Labs also plans to leverage existing agreements IU has with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division and other organizations.

“The labs, created by the $30 million grant from the Lilly Endowment, should make a significant impact on the Indiana economy through the licensing of technology and the creation of new businesses,” said Dennis Gannon, director of the labs. “Our goal is to make each lab a critical mass of research talent. It’s so important to Indiana. Once you achieve critical mass, so many things start to happen.”

The university has set aside $2 million of the grant as seed capital to be invested by its technology transfer arm, the Advanced Research and Technology Institute (ARTI), in spin-offs from the laboratories.

“Home-grown companies tend to develop their headquarters and expand in their own back yards,” said Ron Henriksen, ARTI president. “We want to take advantage of that.”

In 1999 about 82 percent of university spin-offs had their primary place of business operating in the reporting institution’s home state, according to a survey from the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM).

Almost two-thirds, or 62 percent, of the 3,914 new licenses for university technology were granted to companies with less than 500 employees to help these companies grow and become more competitive. AUTM estimates that $30 billion of economic activity and 250,000 jobs each year are attributable to commercializing academic innovation.

Universities also have a strong claim to recent innovations in information technology, such as the Google search engine developed by two Stanford graduate students, and the multi-purpose Smart Card, which licensed technology developed by Florida State University.

“Everyone knows about Silicon Valley and Rte. 128,” said Scott Jones, chairman of the Indiana Technology Partnership and chairman of Indianapolis-based Escient Technologies. “If it weren’t for the intellectual power of universities and research institutions, these technology corridors wouldn’t have developed. While we might not be able to duplicate the same entrepreneurial volume as Silicon Valley, we’re expecting Pervasive Tech Labs to create that same kind of synergy for information technology in central Indiana.”

“We want these labs to spin off new companies,” said lab director Dennis Gannon. “We would like them to be Indiana companies. We will also interact with existing companies here and in other states. In these areas, Pervasive Tech Labs plans to work with Indiana businesses as well as other corporate information technology firms.”

So far, Pervasive Technology Labs has generated interest from several national companies, including technology heavyweights IBM, Sun Microsystems and Intel. Pervasive Tech Labs also plans to leverage existing agreements IU has with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division and other organizations.

Pervasive Technology Labs is in the process of creating a technology board made up of national leaders in the information technology field.

While Pervasive Technology Labs is unique, its potential for technological development and research funding can be compared to a few other similar research institutions in the nation, such as GCATT, a Georgia-based telecommunications technology development partnership of government, universities and the advanced telecommunications industry. In the past two years, GCATT centers have brought in $13.7 million in new non-state private funds for research. Since 1995, GCATT has spawned 21 new high-tech companies, which employed 695 people and attracted $318 million in investment or acquisition dollars.

In 2000 IU’s Office of Technology Transfer distributed nearly $2 million to individual creators and the university, and $3.5 million was generated overall. Under IU’s Intellectual Property Policy, inventors, their campuses and the university all share in any money earned.

So far, IU’s technology transfer arm, ARTI, has spun off two information technology companies, Wisdom Tools and the e-learning company CyberLearning Labs. Wisdom Tools, which makes customized, Web-based learning tools, has received three rounds of funding from angel investors and venture capital firms totaling $2.5 million.