Tech Coast Angels Screenings Come Home to USC

The Tech Coast Angels (TCA), the largest private investor group in the U.S., brought its screening sessions back to USC on Friday after an absence of four years. Although their screenings have taken place on other LA campuses, the TCA has maintained a strong presence on the USC campus through its mentoring of commercialization teams launched by CTC. Twenty graduate students (10 from business, 10 from engineering) and faculty were invited to participate in a pre-screening session with the angels where they could ask questions. Then they were permitted to observe the actual screening of four technology companies seeking funding from the TCA. It was an opportunity to understand the kinds of ventures that TCA considers for funding and learn the criteria that these investors seek. In 2005, the TCA invested over $10 million in start-up and early stage ventures in Southern California. They also work closely with professional venture capital firms to provide larger funding rounds. Find out more about the Tech Coast Angels at http://www.techcoastangels.com/ The next TCA screening at USC will be November 17. Contact Juan Felipe Vallejo for access. Seating is limited.

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CTC Expert Series Highlights Critical Legal and Tax Issues for Tech Start-ups

On September 14, the Center for Technology Commercialization launched its second annual Expert Series sponsored by Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLP with a discussion about the creation of technology companies. The panel provided a valuable opportunity for over 80 graduate business, science, and engineering students and USC researchers to hear the advice of four renowned industry experts.

Louis Dienes, a partner in Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLP, was instrumental in securing an impressive panel that included Donald Lee from BuchalterNemer, Andrew M. Apfelberg from Rutter Hobbs & Davidoff Incorporated, and Andy Torosyan from Holthouse Carlin & Van Trigt LLP. Attendees benefited from the real-world advice of the experts.

"I think there is a tendency for people to operate in silos. It is very rare for the entrepreneur to sit down with his attorney, tax advisor, whoever is helping him with his insurance, his informal advisors," commented Andrew Apfelberg. "Everyone makes mistakes, but one way to avoid them is to sit down and work together."

"As an entrepreneur, know what your weaknesses are and complement them, and then find people that you really trust, people who can add something strategically or technologically, people with a great Rolodex. Test them before you ask them to be your advisors, ask them for stuff and see if they really deliver," advised Donald Lee.

"There are real nightmare stories that result from people not taking care of taxes properly," explained Andy Torosyan. "If you have a firm doing your taxes, you are paying for that tax return to be done properly. You have to make sure that there is enough detail and attention paid to your tax return, not by the staff person, but by the partner. And that is something you can ask about. You want to make sure that when they are doing things, they have their national office review them. Sure this costs money, but you want to make sure you get things done right. Ask for the resume of your advisor. Is he the one who is actually doing the work? You need to ask these questions." Click here for speaker bios.

Video of this panel can be found at http://msbstream01vid.usc.edu/ExpertSeries/09142006.wmv

The second panel in the Fall CTC Expert Series will take place on October 19 at Popovich Hall (JKP 300) from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and will focus on Creative Financing for Technology Ventures.

Those interested in attending should rsvp to techcenter@marshall.usc.eduwith subject line heading Experts Series October 19.

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CTC Director Featured in Fortune Small Business Magazine

CTC Director Dr. Kathleen Allen knows from experience how difficult it is to judge the market for a new technology. But it's even more difficult when there is no "pain" in the market for what the technology has to offer. When the technology addresses a potential want and not a compelling need, the pitch to investors and customers is more difficult. That was the dilemma facing Allen when she was asked by Fortune magazine to advise inventor Steve Hines, a former Kodak Labs and Disney pioneer and talented optical engineer, on the feasibility of his "Holo-box" 3D display technology. Hines has visions of his Holo-box being in every museum, theme park, and trade show in the country. But the cost of the unit is high, about $12,000, and it takes up valuable merchandising space, which may be a significant negative for retailers. During the fall semester, Allen has a team of MBAs with technical backgrounds working with Hines to study the options. Is this a solution looking for a problem or a technology with real commercial potential? Hines will learn the answer to that question over the next two months and CTC newsletter readers will find out as well when a summary of the feasibility results is included in the November newsletter. Find the article at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2006/09/01/8384902/index.htm or in pdf form for faster loading .

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Business Students and USC Researchers Share Their Entrepreneurial Spirit During 2006 Fall Tech Expo

The fall 2006 Tech Expo was organized by the Graduate Technology Alliance (GTA) and the Entrepreneurial Venture Management Association (EVMA) in association with the USC Marshall Center for Technology Commercialization. The annual event provided an opportunity to a group of USC researchers to present their inventions to graduate students in business, science, and engineering. The technological projects ranged from ultrasonic imaging and information summarization to remote rehabilitation systems. Students enrolled in a Technology Feasibility class (BAEP 556) will now work with the researchers and evaluate the commercial feasibility of these technologies. The class is offered every fall to business and non-business graduate students and is part of the Certificate in Technology Commercialization offered by the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the CTC.

"This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a technology or biotech start-up and put
your graduate school knowledge to work," said Dave Grant, Vice President of GTA, to the students attending the event. "These technologies need your know-how in business, law, development, and science to get to market"

The guest speakers during the fall 2006 TechExpo included

Greg Spinner (see photo), who is working with Ulrich Neumann, Associate Professor of Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering Systems at the USC Integrated Media Systems Center, on the commercialization of a USC technology that fuses and displays up to 100 video camera feeds in a single, unified screen display and enables a security guard to virtually navigate in real time over an observed area.

Dr Kirk Shung, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, who has developed a High Frequency Ultrasonic Scanner with superior imaging capabilities over existing devices that can be used to take images of superficial structures in humans such as anterior portions of the eye as well as images of small animals.

Dennis Gachot, who has teamed up with researchers at the USC Information Science Institute and is working on summarization software that extracts the most relevant sentences from single or multiple documents and ranks them by order of importance.

Leslie Liu, a Computer Science Ph.D. candidat, is working with a multi-disciplinary team involving faculty and graduate students from the USC Annenberg School of Communications, the Department of Biokinesiology/Physial Therapy, and the Viterbi School of Engineering, to develop rehabilitation programs that can be used to treat patients who suffer from neurological impairment caused by strokes. These programs enable patients to perform exercises at home using haptic and other input devices and to participate in various tasks under the supervision of therapists and doctors located remotely.

Mrs. Sakire Arslan is a Ph.D student working at the Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC). Her research focuses on high performance data recording. Mrs. Sakire talked about HYDRA, an efficient media stream recorder that can handle both recording and playback of many streams simultaneously and provides a central repository for all data.

USC researchers interested in participating in future Tech Expos should contact Juan Felipe Vallejo at the Marshall Center for Technology Commercialization at techcenter@marshall.usc.edu

About the USC Marshall Center for Technology Commercialization

The USC Marshall Center for Technology Commercialization identifies, encourages, and supports technology entrepreneurship activities at the University of Southern California and its broader Southern California neighborhood. For nine years, it has been the central source of information, research, education, and services related to the commercialization of USC technology through new start-up ventures. CTC assists inventors and companies with IP issues, business feasibility analysis, business plan development, start-up financing, management team acquisition, and related issues.

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