Quicksilver: A case study from Innovative Venture Research at Louisiana Tech
Jon D. Pratt, Louisiana Tech University
In 2003, Louisiana Tech University received NSF Partnership for Innovation
funding to offer the course Innovative Venture Research (IVR).* In IVR,
multidisciplinary teams of students, both graduate and undergraduate, consider
the feasibility of commercializing a particular intellectual property developed
at the university and gather data useful to university staff in planning for its
future. One such IVR team was assigned the patented search engine and
automatic Web site classification software codenamed Quicksilver to consider
for commercialization. The challenge for this IVR team was to identify an
approach to commercialization that is viable within a highly competitive
and fast changing industry. This paper chronicles the Quicksilver IVR team's
research, conclusions, and subsequent developments which have resulted
in the formation of a new start-up in this rural region by some of the team
members and the anticipated license of the technology.
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