62nd CHIZAI (IP) Seminar

NEDO Silicon Valley hosted an online IP seminar titled “Best Practices in University Technology Transfer: Bringing Innovation into the Real World” as part of the Bay Area CHIZAI (IP) Seminar Series.

Speakers:

Carol Mimura, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Intellectual Property & Industry Research Alliances, the University of California, Berkeley

Katharine Ku, Chief Licensing Advisor, Wilson Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati

Yoichi Oshima, Vice President for Industry-Academia-Government Collaboration, Professor, Director of Center of Innovation Management, Institute of Science Tokyo

Yutaka Niidome, Professor, Head of IP Strategy, Chiba University

The commercialization of research results from universities is essential for transforming groundbreaking innovations into real-world applications. This process relies not only on the efforts of university faculty and researchers but also on the dedication of companies and startups that bring these technologies to market. Facilitating this connection between academia and industry—and ensuring real-world impact—is the core mission of the Technology Transfer Office at universities.

In this CHIZAI (IP) seminar, we focused on university technology transfer, featuring insights from four distinguished speakers from both the U.S. and Japan.

We began with four keynote presentations that guided the audience in diving deeply into the field of technology transfer.  Katharine Ku shared the big picture of the role and fundamental principles of technology transfer, drawing from her extensive experience at Stanford University. Carol Mimura highlighted the remarkable evolution of UC Berkeley’s innovation ecosystem over the past 25 years, including developments in the surrounding City of Berkeley. Yoichi Oshima presented the achievements of Institute of Science Tokyo to date and shared a future vision for global collaboration with universities and industries worldwide. Yutaka Niidome discussed the current landscape at Chiba University, outlining both the challenges and opportunities they face and how they are actively addressing them.

Following the keynotes, we held an engaging panel discussion, exploring why university technology transfer is vital for society and identifying best practices for enhancing its success.

Through this seminar, we learned successful tech transfer requires sustained effort over decades, along with a continual commitment to evolve and improve. It also reminded us of the importance of returning to the core mission of technology transfer—serving the public interest—and the value of open dialogue and knowledge sharing across academia and industry.

We are deeply grateful to our exceptional speakers and sincerely thank all attendees for joining us.

We look forward to welcoming you to our next event!