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Three New Zealand universities are now linked to a Singapore-based technology network which will help commercialise local business start-up ventures in Asian markets.
AUT University's business development and commercial arm AUT Innovation and Enterprise, the University of Auckland's UniServices and University of Waikato's WaikatoLink were this week named new members of the Technology Transfer Network (TTN), a group formed to boost the effectiveness of technology transfer to industry.
Founded in February 2008, the network has 22 members across Asia, America, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, including angel investors, venture capitalists and research institutes.
It offers members intellectual property cluster mapping, training and certification, joint marketing and technology advisory services.
WaikatoLink's chief executive Mark Stuart said it was vital for burgeoning New Zealand businesses to gain access to good networks in overseas markets.
His organisation has been working to build global networks this year and has secured links with America and Tsingua University in Beijing.
Stuart said technology is important to the New Zealand economy and WaikatoLink's companies nine subsidiary companies have the potential to earn more than $100 million in a short space of time.
"To be successful you have to do what you do well, but you also have to get lucky, and the better networked you are, the more likely you are to get lucky," he said.
AUT Innovation and Enterprise has had strong links in Singapore for a number of years. Chief executive Jonathan Kirkpatrick said the contacts helped a number of the university's start-up companies access markets, distribution networks and capital in various parts of Asia.
AUT Innovation and Enterprise will soon release a "clean technology" in Singapore and Kirkpatrick said investment in the development of this technology was made possible because of the relationships it had built previously.
Peter Lee, chief executive of UniServices said the TTN network and its growing global presence was "a symbol of the increasingly flat and friction-less world in which we do business".
He hoped it would link inventions to the market like Uniservice's relationship with the Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute did when it brought together a cluster of companies in New Zealand and Korea to seek markets for elderly health care in developed markets such as America and Europe. The new members were announced last week at the inaugural TTN Innovation and Enterprise Forum where organisations from around
the world gathered to share best practices about incubation, translational research and technology transfer.
