Dagmar Möbius

On September 1, 2023, the Center of Excellence for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship (TUD|excite) officially started its work. KONTAKT spoke with the Director, Professor Andreas Pinkwart, about innovation, patent rankings and New Work.

When and how did the idea for the new center come about?

TUD|excite was developed as part of the current TUD Excellence Initiative. Above all, we want to leverage synergies to strengthen the innovation chain. In the future, activities for the protection of intellectual property (IP management), the transfer of knowledge and technology to companies and the start-up service for TU Dresden dresden|exists will be united under one roof. TUD|excite sees itself as a core institution. The official opening event on October 20, 2023 introduced the working methods of the new center and its contribution to the state's transfer strategy to the public.

You will be heading the university-wide center. Where is the new center located and who helped develop it?

With TUD|excite, we have found a format that fits TU Dresden perfectly. We are not doing everything from scratch, but we are doing some things better. The predecessing institutions have done important work, which is now being developed and continued under one roof with a total of about 30 colleagues. All six units (Patents Unit, Innovate Unit, Startup Unit, Talents Unit, Facilitate Unit, Futurelab Unit) are still spread across several locations, some of which are off campus. Over the course of the coming spring, the entire center will be relocated to the Andreas Schubert Building, in the middle of an attractive ecosystem on campus.

What exactly will the work of the Center of Excellence look like?

We cover a broad spectrum to ensure that good ideas do not get lost in the ivory tower of academia. From early inquiries to providing examples of best practice, from patent applications to business collaborations, and designs for new forms of start-ups. With TUDAG, we are re-organizing how we exploit patents. We want to create incentives to protect, exploit and use patents.

(laughs) We are not concerned with ourselves. Innovation is helping to address major societal challenges such as climate change, the scarcity of resources, demographics, digitalization, and artificial intelligence. Our work is highly specific: Our goal is the implementation of ideas and inventions from TUD from an innovation perspective. And we want to help those who are less experienced by opening our network to them and giving them the confidence to act.

In large institutions with many stakeholders, it is not always easy to get innovations off the ground. What do you do differently?

The purpose and motivation of our work is that we see ourselves as enablers. We cannot reinvent the world, but we can make people's lives better and more sustainable. Among other things, a new Future Lab is planned at TUD|excite. The Future Lab will scientifically and experimentally investigate the latest international developments and methods in innovation and technology management and apply them to our work.

At TUD, there are 17 faculties based a five different Schools We want our work to be as interdisciplinary and non-hierarchical as possible, preferring agile structures and new ways of working, e.g. New Work. We will develop targeted training programs for all colleagues who have an interest in transfer issues. We will offer incubator programs for start-up teams. These will be complemented by a powerful accelerator for deep-tech startups that we are developing with experienced partners.

What can you tell us about the innovation scouts and managers?

Innovation scouts and managers support researchers and clusters at an early stage in identifying and developing projects with a high transfer potential. TU Dresden is one of the top technical universities and has the most patents by far. Successful exploitation has been achieved in the form of licenses and investments in spin-offs. Our goal is to make this sustainable work even more effective in the future and to increase the flow of funds back to TUD.

What innovative examples are currently ready to go?

There have already been numerous successful spin-offs, such as Novaled or Heliatek. The latter company is involved in the production of flexible PV films that can be applied to walls and windows and do not need to be mounted on the roof. Current examples include SpiNNcloud Systems (SCS), which is developing chips for AI applications that consume significantly less energy. The Altavo team aims to give voiceless people back their voice using radar sensors and artificial intelligence to generate the voice. And TUD has licensed a process to identify male chicks as early as possible before they hatch during egg production.

What is particularly interesting for alumni?

At TUD|excite, we see ourselves as intermediaries who bring the various transfer partners together in a spirit of trust and facilitate fair agreements and the best modes of exploitation. We are constantly training ourselves and the relevant stakeholders for these tasks and developing appropriate programs. We are grateful for alumni with experience in these fields who are willing to share their knowledge as instructors, mentors or coaches, including internationally. Alumni around the world can help build networks and open doors for TUD startups and inventions. We will be organizing national and international road shows. With each enabler from the alumni circle, the innovative power of TUD and its impact on innovation grows.

We thank Professor Pinkwart for the interview and wish TUD|excite all the best!

Contact:
Center of Excellence for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship
Prof. Andreas Pinkwart, Director

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