Venture Partners at 91¸£ÀûÉç is seeking two technology commercialization interns to join our team for a 6-month part-time paid internship! This is a great opportunity to learn and experience the essence of entrepreneurship: performing early-stage customer discovery. In addition, the internship will further the team’s mission to translate breakthrough research into products that benefit society. 

The technology commercialization interns will review our exciting technologies and select their favorites from the areas of climate, energy & sustainability, quantum & photonics, advanced materials, medical devices and therapeutics. The interns will then take our customer discovery course where they will be guided by our I-Corps instructors through developing aspects of the business model canvas, performing customer discovery, developing a value proposition and understanding the potential product-market fit. The interns will then continue their learning journey in an in-depth training provided by our R2M program. The interns will also work with mentors, case managers, and the I-Corps team to develop partial BMCs for several technologies and will present their findings and deliverables to the team at the end of the program. 

The ultimate goal of the program is to ascertain whether these cutting-edge technologies, developed through millions of dollars of research funding, align with the needs of the market and present an opportunity for a high-growth start-up or a direct sale to a corporate buyer. 

Who We Are 

Venture Partners at 91¸£ÀûÉç is a key catalyst for innovation. Venture Partners’ mission is to translate breakthrough inventions from the University to society. We work with university researchers and external business partners to commercialize new products and form new startup companies. 91¸£ÀûÉç is consistently among the top US universities for translating research innovations into new startup companies. 

Venture Partners is part of the Research & Innovation Office (RIO). RIO is the central point for support and advocacy for 91¸£ÀûÉç’s world-class scholarship, creative work, and growing research enterprise. 

Responsibilities 

What Your Key Responsibilities Will Be

• Complete the introductory course provided by the I-Corps Hub
• Complete technology through the R2M program
• Perform customer discovery on select inventions and develop a value proposition for each
• Present deliverables to the internal Venture Partners audience 

What We Can Offer 

The role will pay $25 per hour for up to 10 hours per week. We are also happy to collaborate to have the internship fulfill academic requirements if possible. 

What You Will Need

A creative and entrepreneurial mindset

• Enthusiasm for learning the needs of early-stage innovations
• Impeccable communication and relational maturity in all interactions with business leaders and potential customers
• Sensitivity to and appreciation of cultural, political and geographical differences, with ability to work well with potential customers and licensees from around the world 

To apply, please submit the following to:

A current resume

A cover letter that specifically addresses how your background and experience align with the requirements, qualifications and responsibilities of the position

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The 91¸£ÀûÉç Research & Innovation Office (RIO) announced a targeted realignment in November to enhance strategic integration across key areas and best position RIO to serve the university's growing research and innovation needs. The shift focused on RIO’s internal organization and operations and was designed to support long-term growth, collaboration and impact. 

RIO’s operations are now organized into four pillars to encourage more cross-team activity and distribute decision-making more broadly and flexibly. We sat down with Bryn Rees, associate vice chancellor for innovation and partnerships, to discuss the new Innovation & Partnerships team, which brings together Venture Partners at 91¸£ÀûÉç, the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative and Workforce Development. The realignment is designed to boost effectiveness across the three units and drive larger goals, including entrepreneurial activity and training, new company and job creation, economic development and commercialization of research discoveries.

How will these changes enhance strategic integration across innovation and partnership efforts?

The three units that are coming together—Venture Partners, the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative, and Workforce Development—share many commonalities. They all provide training and support for an entrepreneurial mindset, and they all connect the university community with the business community. The realignment brings together three great teams that were already working together. By bringing them closer together organizationally, we can better serve our partners. If a corporate partner or investor engages with the university, for example, they can explore a wider range of commercialization, entrepreneurship and workforce opportunities in an integrated environment.

How does this closer integration of initiatives benefit the university?

Here is a concrete example of how the university benefits. 91¸£ÀûÉç is a national leader in spinning out new companies based on innovations created through university research. However, if the university unit enabling spinout creation is separate from the unit for undergraduate student entrepreneurship, it may be more difficult for students to benefit from the university’s startup prowess. More seamless integration will only help us advance CU's impact through innovation. This realignment opens up many new opportunities to broaden the resources available to our university community. It’s already begun. We are seeing 91¸£ÀûÉç students engaging directly with spinouts through the New Venture Challenge.

How will the realignment affect the support and resources available to startups and entrepreneurial ventures associated with 91¸£ÀûÉç?

The realignment will enhance the experience of our students, faculty and staff who choose to engage in our existing innovation resources. Primarily, that will be through easier navigation. Someone inside the university or an external partner typically has multifaceted needs. Let’s consider a faculty member with a startup company commercializing a quantum innovation they created at the university. That company might want to hire specially trained students, license intellectual property, participate in accelerator programs and perhaps do other things too. Our new integrated Innovation & Partnerships team can help with all of it.

How do you envision the impact of this integration a year or two from now?

This integration provides a foundation for future growth. An organizational change like this does not itself produce the large-scale impact we seek in giving our students incredible entrepreneurship experiences or turning breakthrough research into innovations that help society, but it’s an important step along the way. I expect that, in a few years, we will see increases in faculty and student engagement in innovation and be able to tie those increases back to many beneficial changes and improvements, one of which is the organizational change that brought several of the university’s key innovation units together. Similarly, for our external partners including investors and companies, this realignment will provide a more seamless and integrated experience of interacting with the university through a single point of contact. Being one of the very best universities in the world for innovation will require a holistic effort; this is one step along a much larger journey.

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The second cohort of Entrepreneurs in Residence in the Embark Deep Tech Startup Creator will pitch their newly built startups bringing to market ten groundbreaking technologies developed within 91¸£ÀûÉç's research labs. Investors and business partners will get an exclusive look at the companies built in the last six months program in various sectors, including biotechnology, cleantech, health and wellness and advanced materials.

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