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Guayacán Group, Univ. of Texas join to boost technology commercialization

Local venture capital group Guayacán Group Inc. is throwing its support behind technology transfer and furthering the commercialization of innovation or discoveries through a partnership with the University of Texas, Austin.
As part of that effort, Guayacán will host a series of workshops on Jan. 13-14 with the Univ. of Texas Austin’s IC2 Institute open to health professionals, scientists, researchers, executives, academics and anyone who is immersed in the development of research ideas and products with potential for commercialization.

“Entrepreneurs do not associate university research as the place to find innovation. On the other hand, university-business technology transfer does not happen for a lack of quality or quantity of results, but because of the weak capacity to train researchers on how to market their inventions and discoveries,” said Juan Carlos Costa, executive director of Guayacán Group Inc.

Constant technological evolution has redefined society — from the way people think and communicate to how government, academics, researchers and entrepreneurs use the industry’s advances. In fact, the phenomenon is so pervasive that experts have coined the term “technopolis” to define how technology commercialization and diversification fuels a jurisdiction’s economy. Stateside cities already defined as “technopolies” include Boston, San Francisco and Austin.

By inviting experts from the IC2 Institute, Guayacán seeks to harness their expertise to determine existing opportunities in Puerto Rico to launch a process of commercialize technology, said Eva Vázquez, senior director at Grupo Guayacán.

“At the same time, we want to create and execute a program based on their recommendations,” she said.

The IC2 is a world-renowned interdisciplinary research unit of The University of Texas at Austin that leads research of the theory and practice of entrepreneurship.

“The theories and hypotheses developed at IC2 are tested in life-scale through several world-recognized programs: the Austin Technology Incubator, one of the world’s most prominent business incubators, the Bureau of Business Research, to provide Texas leaders with research data to strengthen the state’s economy, and the Global Commercialization Group, to catalyze emerging knowledge-based economies throughout the world,” according to its Web site.

For more information about the workshop, call 787-641-6028 or visit www.enterprizepr.com.

Author Details
Author Details
Business reporter with 30 years of experience writing for weekly and daily newspapers, as well as trade publications in Puerto Rico. My list of former employers includes Caribbean Business, The San Juan Star, and the Puerto Rico Daily Sun, among others. My areas of expertise include telecommunications, technology, retail, agriculture, tourism, banking and most other segments of Puerto Rico’s economy.

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