 It's Monday morning. Where else could we be here on Think Tech? I'm Jay Fidel talking about community matters with Steven Auerbach. He's with UH. He's the interim director of the office of innovation and commercialization, which is something that Think Tech has followed a long, long time, 20 years anyway. Welcome to the show, Steven. Hey, Jay, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Well, I think it's important discussion. I'll tell you why. Because Hawaii, and there are some people who push against this, Hawaii's future is intertwined with technology, with innovation, with entrepreneurship, commercialization, whether we like it or not. We need to do that. We have needed to do it for a long time. Now there were bursts of light back in the old years, and there was Act 221, Rested Soul, and all these people came from the mainland to do coding and get involved in startups and the like since then it has declined. But your office still exists. And the opposite transfer, technology transfer and all that still exists, still operating. And you have a great future in front of you running it, I must say. This is a very enviable situation because soon enough we're gonna find out that what Jack Burns said and George Ariyoshi said and John Whyhase, all those governors all along the way, they always said the same thing. We have to get into diversification. So you're the diversification man. So tell us, what is the office? What is its range, its mission, its activities? Tell us why it should attract a lot of money from the legislature and the university. Tell us. No, that's great, great Tia. The university is a world-class, what we call an R1 research university. And you've had others on the show and unfortunately with the world-class researchers, faculty, students and staff, we're able to attract 450 million or so in extramural funds. So that's federal, state, private funds that help drive economic development, workforce development for our state. And within the office of innovation and commercialization, which I have the privilege and honor of playing in since returning home, is really all about how do we drive innovation entrepreneurship? And it's not just new technology and widgets, it's also the culture and really the awareness and understanding of the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship for our community. So drives not only societal impact, but economic development and workforce development day. So how do you do that? How you do that in an effective way? So that actually happens. I mean, I see you as the, forgive me, but the hub, okay, in the wheel. And you have spokes going out in all the directions and you're trying to make connections and collaborations, bring people in, bring programmers, researchers from all parts of the tech and scientific world and connect them up, connect them up with others here and elsewhere, connect them up with money somehow, connect them up with buyers and acquirers and what have you. And just build a lot of activity, action is what we're talking about, the more the merrier. Now we haven't really achieved that yet, but you're the hub, you're the hub in that wheel. So what are the spokes and what are you doing to reach all those points around the wheel? Yeah, no, good. And there's no one silver bullet, as you would know. We've certainly transitioned from sugarcane and pineapple. We've got tourism, military that's vibrant. And now we're in the fourth industrial revolution, which is the era of automation, technology, machine learning, AI, IoT. And so our mission is focused on building partnerships between new age, the community, the world, and strategically advancing discoveries and inspiring researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs to create new opportunities for Hawaii and beyond. And like I said in the onset, this is a key asset within the University of Hawaii. We sit within the office of the vice president of research and innovation. That organization is led by VP, Silas Sermos. And within our office, it's really about bridging those connections, Jay. And more specifically, we're fanatically focused on working to create more high quality jobs, diversify our Hawaii's economy. You hear everybody talking about that, research, education and training opportunities for our local communities. And it's really about what I'd like to say. I said there's no silver bullet, but how do we create a sustainable economic activity that's fit for Hawaii, right? And in doing so, we've got to consider both our internal needs, as well as the goods and services required within Hawaii. And then absolutely necessary for us is to develop additional robust traded sectors that bring in external revenue to the state. And so to answer your question specifically, we work with the world-class researchers whether it's out of astronomy, ocean sciences, college or travel agriculture, engineering, computer sciences, ocean sciences, creative media. And we partner with the researchers so they fully understand the technology and the research they're doing, not only has societal impact, but potentially economic impact with the ability to actually commercialize their research and their technology. And so our office has the traditional tech transfer assets where we work on NDAs, MTAs, so non-disclosure agreements, material transfer agreements, licensing agreements to help commercialize that world-class research. Whether that's a startup, that's a spin-out, a licensing arrangement, that's all part of what our tech transfer. And then the other asset within the office, we also have UH Ventures. Within UH Ventures, and I think you're aware of this when Jay, you've got Act 38 and Act 39 that was approved by the ledge. Act 38 allows us to bring some of the conflicts of interest and manage those internally, is a little more flexibility and take more risks. Act 39 allows us to bring money in, federal, private, philanthropy, so we can re-invest that money back to try and diversify our economy. So that's a little bit about how our office is structured. We did bring on another key component, the Office of Indigenous Innovation, and we're really trying to bring in the best practices, cultures and values. That sounds like the full panoply of the university there. So a couple of questions that spring out of that, though. What about patents? There was a time when OTED would actually fund patent applications. You're still doing that? Yeah, no, good question. So if you have a researcher that's gotten some extramural fundings from National Science Foundation or National Institutes of Health or Department of Energy, and if they're coming up with a disc, they disclose their technology to our office, we'll review that for flexibility and uniqueness and then make a determination if we're gonna file a provisional patent or provisional patent and then spend the money to do that. I always wish we had more money to spend on filing the patents because patents are key to drive technology and innovation and diversification. We have a limited budget, right? And so we're constrained and we do a very good job. The team is very focused on what are the key technologies that we think are differentiated, unique enough that align to our core franchises here that I talked about within the University of Hawaii. So if I come to you with a good idea, who knows what, say a device of some kind. And in fact, we talk to people around the University who are working on these things all day long. And I come to you and I say, look, I think I need to protect this or I'm gonna lose it, somebody gonna knock it off. So can you fund a provisional patent application for me? Which isn't cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than the utility patent application. So how far can you go? How much can you spend? And you have lawyers in your pipeline there in your bullpen, where you can drag them onto the field and say, here, get a patent for this guy. Can you do that? Yeah, good question. So hypothetically, you say to me, you have that new technology. If you're a faculty student staff, I'm saying, hey Jay, let's continue having conversation. Do the disclosure to really find out the uniqueness of that technology or that invention. And then we do have a very talented staff. We have a couple of attorneys on our bench, actually patent attorneys as well. And then we'll review that for, like I said, uniqueness and applicability based on the technologies and research we're doing here. And then the way we typically work it is we either will front the money and then we cover it based on any licensing royalties that we recoup or the research or faculty may front the money on their end and fund it depending on if they have a startup or if they want to go that route. And then we evaluate those technology, those disclosures and determine how far we want to continue whether it's US, rest of world, Asia Pacific, Europe and file in those countries as well. And that allows us, as you know with the way patents work allows us to really leapfrog and step function the technology at the next level. So you mentioned funding a few minutes ago and I'm interested in that too. First of all, there is a sort of a template deal between the university and the entrepreneur, the researcher who wants to commercialize his idea. And I don't remember exactly what it was but let's say for this discussion it was like half half or something like that where the university kept half of the benefit the ownership of the project and the researcher kept the other half and the university funded the researcher and going down that line you described. Is it still that way? What is it like? If I come to you and I present my idea are we gonna get into a partnership and what terms would that be? Yeah, and it depends on the bargaining unit whether your faculty's staff and or student that doesn't have a bargaining unit then there's different variations. But yeah, there is a collaborative effort that we put together and we put together agreements and share typically the any royalties or monies that is received from said technology that may have a patent. A percentage goes to the inventor. Typically the money follows and follows the inventor. There is a small portion that also goes to university and then a small portion that goes to the unit. So for example, if the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences does invention from one of their faculty a portion goes back and helps fund. And the unique thing about that is it enables that researcher in that unit astronomy so as engineering to continue doing some more innovation in incubating so somebody's flow to those three entities. And I can't do a study with you actually, Steve. I don't want to surprise you but I would like to discuss some case, some company, some entrepreneur. Is this hypothetical or is this a historical? No, this is real. So you don't go too far back because I just came back home five years. So I don't have a lot of historic perspective. Born and raised here, but I haven't worked in academia in tech transfer office. This is my first run at it. I come out of tech. So don't go too far back in history. Well, you also took your graduate degrees here at UH. Yeah. So, no, I mean, is it what's cooking? You know, I remember, for example, digital island. This is way back. This is way back before I was born too. This is back in the 90s. There was a guy who had some technology I think with telecom and he approached the state at the time there was some money in the state for the sort of thing. And the state invested in its company. And it went public. This is in the 90s, it went public. And then the state immediately sold its interest out and made some money, but not nearly as much money. A guy's name was Ron Higgins as Ron Higgins made. And so it was good, but not great because the state had the ability, had the whatever you want to call it, the moxie to invest in his company, actually invest in his company for a share of his company. But it didn't have the sustainability. It didn't have the stick-to-itiveness to stay in there for a little longer where it would have made as much money as Higgins made. But I don't know if that kind of sexy deal happening. Is there anything going on that you can talk about? Yeah, there is, and thanks for that historical perspective and we have not had a home run. And it's not, we're gonna look for a home run. We're looking for many around the basis, right? Across all those sectors I talked about. We're seeing some interesting stuff in agriculture around academics. We're seeing some interesting stuff around COVID and testing and vaccines. We're seeing some interesting stuff around space and satellites. I know you've had people on your show talking about that. We're seeing some interesting stuff coming out of the engineering school around AI and machine learning. We're seeing interesting stuff around data science without our Data Sciences Institute. We're seeing interesting stuff out of astronomy and the list goes on, right? But what's cool about that, Jay, is we've got a very, that's what's good about University of Hawaii that people don't recognize and realize and appreciate. It is a R1 world-class. And we have world-class researchers working on all different areas. We just have to figure out how to be a little more vocal and transparent and show up and share some of this technology at the same time commercialize it, right? And whether it's a small company that's looking to acquire and commercialize that technology or a large company, I can't talk about those large companies we're having conversations with, but they do exist, right? Not every deal is gonna get across a finish line and be a home run, like I said. But along the way, what we're doing was building this culture and this awareness and appreciation of actually building stuff. And when you build stuff and develop patents, yes, and people show up, guess what? That drives diversification. That drives that kind of that attitude. And what better time COVID to do this kind of stuff? Well, COVID is making us rethink our economy and certainly making us rethink diversification. And that, you know, that's, I firmly believe this is the best opportunity in a long time here. You're in a great spot because people are sensitive to this whole idea about diversification. But let's talk a little about, you know, these incubators, a blue planet, and what's the other one? Elemental. Elemental. Yeah. Are you in with them? Are they providing possibilities to you? Are you providing possibilities to them? Are they giving you money? So there's no money exchange, but it's a vibrant ecosystem and we all need to show up and play together and collaborate and we do. There's a good relationship. And so I'll give you an example or a use case. So you can have someone who's a world-class technologist coming out of UH. That's not enough of this is happening. I want to change that trajectory, that they're going through the commercialization process and they may go through some of the great stuff that's happening out at Shyther in the pace with the lease startup and summer launch pad and just getting the interest and vibe around innovation entrepreneurship or they may be a world-class researcher that has a spin out and they're doing some technology. What better way than in our own backyard to then transition to elemental or blue startups? And we do have cases where some of our researchers or faculty, students or staff and their teams are showing up in those accelerators and then it happens to be in Hawaii, right? And then you start getting into phase one, phase two, phase three of potential federal monies, SBIR, small business investment, STTR and those types of monies that can then continue to invest and nurture the research and get them to commercialization efforts. So it's absolutely dialed in to the ecosystem partners. We're very strong connection together and we cannot do it solely alone. We've got to do it together as a whole, I call it whole of the community. Yeah, we had a fellow who got some, he got some substantial SBIR money recently and he's working on sensors that are going into satellites and the like and various other high tech electronics. And he's not, go ahead. He's a good friend, you saw, right? Yeah, not just scientific. Yes, right. And it's not a university project, but somehow it's connected. So my question is here you have an LLC, it's separate. And it sounds to me like in terms of funding, he's doing pretty well in his space and he's likely to do more and better later. But query, what is the university's support of him? What is the university's connection? What is your support and connection with that kind of, what do you call it, spin-off? Yeah, so he's a PhD from the University of Hawaii, came out of physics, very, very bright guy and he's found a niche around these sensors. It is using CMOS and, you know, Wafer Technology to put in the satellites. And so he'll actually work with some of our postdocs and researchers, hire them based on the SBIR STTR money that he's bringing in to continue to evolve his research. We're having conversations that I can't go into detail about right now on this show, but how do we continue to develop that relationship to the next level? There could be spin-offs or spin-offs from the technology he's doing. He's very focused, which is the right thing to do around his unique technology. But from a workforce development standpoint, bringing our students and researchers to work with him on some of this technology is another one. How do we bring in some of the other folks from physics or engineering, which he's got strong relationships with. So they start thinking about innovation entrepreneurship so they can do a spin-out. It's kind of what I call a ripple effect just by that one knowledge scientific leading the way he's a doer and he's got a great attitude to drive innovation entrepreneurship and a strong environment. A tremendous guy. It was really good to talk to him. And all of these other areas you mentioned are so right for the possibility for Hawaii. And Hawaii does have smart guys like Isak who can push to the frontier, except in one area. What's that one area, Jay? Astronomy. Okay, and the reason I say that is for a piece of discussion here. Astronomy, there's resistance on astronomy. There are people who think astronomy is not important. And they have other agendas and they fight even now, even now they fight against astronomy. And I say to myself, this goes to the kind of thing you're doing with Waipahu High School. This is the kind of thing you have to get into the minds of local kids early. You have to show them. It's not just unattainable. It's attainable. Some of the best scientists I have met from the state of Hawaii are from Hilo. I cannot understand that. They come in legions to the science fair for years. What is it about Hilo? It's a few good teachers. That's what it is. And so if we had that kind of connection, and I know that Waipahu has some great science teachers you must be familiar with all of them. And so the question is, how do you build a culture where kids in this state, and thus soon enough adults in this state will embrace science? You know, we have a national problem about embracing science right now. Hawaii has to be way ahead of that. How do we embrace science and get our kids to believe in it? Yeah, great question. You know, I'm a Kalani Falcon graduate. I'm not gonna give you the year. I did not learn. I wish I had learned this early on. And this is something when people ask me to talk or come and give back in the community. We need to start this early, right? It's middle school with STEM. It's high school with STEM and innovation entrepreneurship or design thinking. It does not happen. For me, it happened early mid-career at Hilo Packard. I was forced to do it because we were facing significant headwinds and our business was tanking. It was a burning platform. So we brought in Steve Blank and Kawasaki and others and we started learning about this lean startup methodology. Back then we were doing all waterfall software development. We had to pivot and shift to agile. So almost too late for me when I started vibing on innovation entrepreneurship, to your point, if we can start earlier and talking about innovation entrepreneurship. And there's a lot of folks that like to build stuff. If you're building Legos, that's a great start. You're building something. If you like to plant Kalo, you're building something. You're building a farm. If you like to work on cooking and culinary or designing homes, that's building stuff. That's that skill set that I really want to try and nurture at the earlier age. And here's a fascinating thing. There's a handful of schools that we're working with. They have entrepreneurship clubs. Imagine that entrepreneurship club if they find out UH, which we do have entrepreneurship clubs. If I can graduate from that high school, stay in Hawaii, as part of my community, join the entrepreneurship club. And I may have had an idea of a widget or a service or product that I thought of in high school. Now I can go into the world class four year university, University of Hawaii. Or if you want to go to a two year college, community college, same thing, learning this stuff. Because that's another topic I'm pretty passionate about where innovation entrepreneurship exists. But now you come to UH, you go to the entrepreneurship club. You take advantage of all the world class assets we have here. Surround yourself with world class researchers. Continue to incubate your idea. Imagine if we were to get funding and scholarships. Some of those students, they stay in Hawaii, stay at UH and do innovation entrepreneurship. Big thing, right? Absolutely. So have you seen the serial on Netflix? Gee, I hope you have. It'd be great if you have. Called Halt and Catch Fire. No, I haven't. This is fabulous. It's a serial that's got two or three seasons to it. And it's about this whole thing about entrepreneurship back in the early 80s when computers were just getting started. And when guys work for IBM and they split off IBM and they come in, they form their tiny little company and make a computer that competes with IBM. This happened again and again and again. And they fail a lot of the time, but they learned and they filtered into the industry in general before you know it, they populated companies that made them richer than your wildest dreams. And it's the whole story of that. And it's not a documentary, it's fiction, but it picks up on all this technology you're talking about and all that entrepreneurial, what do you want to call it, essence, that entrepreneurial drive that you need to have. It's not only knowledge, it's something inside in your gut that makes you work till two in the morning. That's everything. So I tell you a short story here. Here we always are looking for a new software. We found, we thought we were a video company, nah, we're a software company, we use software consumers and adapters and integrators, that's what we do. And we can't really do the job without the software. And then I suggest, I'm sure people have said to see you for years, that you can take any company, any operating company and bring a software guy in there and make it better, change it completely and make it sing and dance. And so we always looking for software like that. So I was looking for specialized software and I think I found it at Istanbul. I'm not kidding. Really? Right, they get on my machine with TeamViewer. They help me install it and configure it and from Istanbul they do this. Well, I've heard a lot of coming out of Israel, having much coming out of Istanbul. Anyway, keep going. Well, point, and the competitors were in Serbia or Moscow and there were others too and odd places. Point is, it's global, okay? Yeah, and these guys are really no better qualified than we could be. We could be another Istanbul. So my question to you is if I'm looking for software that's exotic, that's well thought out, that's really clever, can I find it here? And can I find it here now? And if not now, then when? And how? Yeah, no, that's a good story. I know a lot of stuff coming out of Israel. I hadn't heard about Istanbul. But out of our computer science department, out of our computer engineering department, people are working on software. Different use cases, right? There's Dr. Jason Le, who we believe who we're gonna have on the innovation of the new normal, which I gotta talk to you about still. He's gonna be, he has some good software students and researchers working on some software. So yeah, there are pockets of it here. I'd like to see more, especially as AI continues to kind of rule going forward. And with the fourth industrial revolution that I talked about, I'd like to see more. I think we can do more here in Hawaii. Okay, now you've done a great segue actually, Steve, into the conference coming up soon. The Innovation Conference you're setting up at UH. Tell me what is it, who's gonna be there, when is it, and so forth. No, thanks, Jay. This is pretty cool. It's back to this whole culture of innovation entrepreneurship. And so we're gonna really show up is what I call it. It's called Innovations for the New Normal. So next week, November 9, 10, 12, and 13, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, we skip Wednesday, for about two hours every morning, 8 a.m. to about 9 30 or 10, there's gonna be four days of GenPAC research innovation topics. Day one, or session one on the ninth, we're gonna have President Lassner, he's gonna open up. We have, and I know what Thompson's gonna be a keynote, navigating times of change. And then we jump right into this topic around resilient food systems in the COVID era. And so this is a free conference. People can jump dial in for one or more of the sessions. Day two, Jay, if I could keep going on day two, because I'm excited about this stuff. We go not only from resilient food systems, but now we're going into innovations in healthcare. And so we have Dr. Amy Grace. I don't know if you've had her on your show. If not, we gotta get her on, but she is a local girl, Stanford doctor, and she's leading our health initiative here at the university, and she's bringing a dynamite panel of folks coming around to talk about Hawaii pre-pandemic, innovative ways that UH and the health community in Hawaii have worked together to expand virtual care going forward. And then session three, I have the opportunity to tee up a good friend of mine, Steve Blank. And so this is the Thursday, 8 a.m. And I'll do an ocean side chat with Steve Blank. We're gonna talk about creating new businesses and reinventing existing ones. And then I go into a panel. I've got Craig Tenderrita. He's the CEO of EK and Team Praxis. I got Peter Dames. He's the EVP over at CERVCO. I have Chris Lee, who's the director of the Academy of Creative Media. I have Dr. Jason Lee. I talked about earlier. And then Captain Kurt Moll from NSA Hawaii. And then Jay, bring it home. Friday, last day, culminating event. We actually have Guy Kawasaki. I talked about him before. He's coming in. We're gonna do a 10 minute, how to be a remarkable inventor. And if you have not talked to, talked with Guy or heard from Guy, local boy, Elani Gratt, Dynamite speaker. Dynamite speaker, I've seen him a number of times. He's terrific. And he's, he's picked up surfing. So he's, he may have talked a little about his surfing fun. And then the Silas, the Silas closes it out on with President Lazner and Rich Wacker and some other key leaders and around the path forward for Hawaii So that's it in a summary. I know we're running out of time, but I hope folks tune in. It's, we're capping at 1,000 registrants. It's free. Last week I heard we're over 400 plus that have already signed up. So if your listeners are out there, please sign in. It's free. It's great, great topics. Yeah, that's great. I'm so glad you mentioned that. So where do I go? So the link is hoi.edu forward slash research forward slash innovations dash for dash the dash new dash normal. Okay, for the new normal. All right, thank you, Steve. It's great to talk to you. And I look forward to more discussion. I look forward to at least seeing part of that huge, magnificent, ambitious program you're setting up. This is what we need to do when you're doing it. I really appreciate that. Yeah. You know, Jay, let me just one final thing I wanted to say, thank you for allowing me to show up and be here. You do so much for the community. I've only been back home for four or five years, four plus years now. And I've tuned in, keep up the great work because this is important stuff for our community and for societal and economic impact. And thanks to you for doing this kind of stuff. Thank you. All the best. Aloha, stay safe. All right. Aloha.