Innovation Pipeline

A recent gathering of graduate engineering and science students on the UC Berkeley campus was about a different set of grades and marks. The students were competing in the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology’s third annual Technology Breakthrough Competition.

The stakes were high. A prize of even a few thousand dollars can give a fledgling company legs to stand on and, more important, draw the attention of potential investors or acquirers. The judging panel was composed of savvy academics and business professionals who know the difference between a science project and a business.

In the audience were a few hundred people, there to get a look at tomorrow’s tech innovations and hear young entrepreneurs who might one day be captains of an industry.

The evening got started with a reality check from experienced VCs like Steve Domenik, general partner with Sevin Rosen Funds, and Lip-Bu Tan, founder and chairman of Walden International. “There’s a huge revolution in computing and communications,” said Domenik, and it’s at the intersection of various disciplines like biology and computing where promising new opportunities lie.

The quality of innovation at the competition was impressive. One standout: a low-cost disposable genome chip based on organic transistors. The genome chip team was not from the biology department but from the school of electrical engineering and computer science. The device’s developers say it could cut out the cost of the expensive optical equipment in use today. One application: a hospital could administer gene tests just as it does a simple blood or urine test now, said inventors Daniel Huang and Qintao Zhang. It took the top prize in the information-technology competition.

In the science competition, a disposable microdevice for point-of-care diagnostics took the top prize. Called a SeroScreen, it’s a portable and inexpensive diagnostic platform. The low cost would make it viable for screening for dengue fever in developing nations. The device uses a simple electrical detection scheme; that helps lower the price and improve flexibility, said inventors J. Tanner Nevill and Nicholas Toriello.

All of the technology innovation and business thinking at the competition echoed bigger themes. For instance: markets are no longer supposed to end at the U.S. border. Students clearly were thinking globally.

The most important takeaway: the verve and relentless attitude of the young innovators, who no doubt have bounced back from failure many times. It’s the same spirit they’ll need in the future, when they try to convince investors to break off a few million bucks. –Lee Bruno