 Okay, so the initial questions today in Hawaii, the state of clean energy. Who is Mitch Ewan? Well, he's right there. Here I am. Yeah, there he is. I'm the Hygiene Systems Program Manager and the co-host with you. Yeah. Jay. A fellow sailor. A very important person. And the story of Mitch is going to be on the final exam, so write it down. And David, I, and he's the Chief Innovation Officer of the University of Hawaii sitting right here among us. Thank you for coming down, David. Thank you for having me. Yeah. He's going to be on the final exam too. Okay. And our subject today, I'm going to let Mitch, you know, unfold it, okay, ready, go. We're going to talk about UH innovation, the opportunities, the challenges, and the solutions. So how we can get UH developed technology out into the marketplace so that UH can be relevant to the Hawaii economy. And so I want to talk with David, have a conversation about his challenges and how we can kind of evolve from strictly academic to more entrepreneurial so that we can be supportive of the Hawaii economy. So right off the bat, David, I'd like you to give us just a top level overview of the innovation program and how you're coordinating all the various universities or community colleges we have here in Hawaii. Right. Right. Community colleges too. So we're talking about the whole system. We're talking about all the ten campuses within the UH system. It is a challenge, of course, because we're looking at very different entities from the very large flagship campus at Manoa to the much smaller campuses, neighboring islands, mainly serving the community needs. So indeed, it is a great challenge, which is part of the fun. I really have two different, very different job functions. One is the traditional technology transfer office. We actually just called it OTT, Office of Technology Transfer, which takes university inventions to try to commercialize them and try to find outside collaborators or licensees typically or startup companies that could take such technologies and build them into products and services. And we then will get some income. That is one side of the operation. You share? Oh, yeah. What's the share? It's a rather complicated system because we have different bargaining units and all that. But largely speaking, you can think of more like a one-third of the income will go towards the original inventors, one-third to the university, one-third to the department or academic unit. So that part is technology transfer, dealing primarily with technologies. Now then I have this other hat that is Chief Innovation Officer for the UH system. Now that's very different because there we're trying to nourish the ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship. And you're really working with people. You're working with a lot of students. As was faculty members, one having researchers. And you're hoping to either transform them or at least notch them towards a more innovative and more entrepreneurial status. And thereby the end result should actually eventually connect. So either we take our technologies or we take our people. And these two, they don't have to be come together, meaning our people using our technology could be our people using other people's technology or our technology being used by other folks, not produced by UH alumni or UH students, but could be outsiders, outside industry. But coming down to it, we'll still have to answer the question that Mitch was asking. How can modern days, especially a state university, be relevant? Be relevant to the community, be relevant to the supporters, be relevant to the shareholders, meaning the taxpayers. I'll go back to that. That's been a question raised for a long time. When the university, for example, was funded by the legislature for less than a billion dollars, maybe it wasn't so pressing. But then when it crossed that line and went to a billion, one billion, two billion, three, people started to ask, you know, we're giving a lot of money away, what's the payback? And Tom Apple, Tom Apple, previous, what, chancellor, was it, of Manoa, his big thing was to say, well, the university should provide for the community, should help, it should go out there and solve community problems, it should be, roll up your sleeves and help the community. Your point about relevance. But, you know, I would add to that this, that if you're going to give away 1.4, whatever it is now, then the university should have activities, such as the big universities on the mainland, Stanford comes to mind, where they make huge amounts of money off their inventions, or their faculties' inventions. And it helps defray the government cost of running the university. And that softens the blow for the taxpayers. And that hasn't really happened. I mean, one more point, and I'll stop, is that when Marcy Greenwood was the president, she created this dichotomy, you recall, she said, we have tremendous grants coming in, and those grants are themselves, an industry. So we want to increase the grants, we want to go for the most grants we can possibly get, and that brings money into the state because it pays the salaries and the expenses of the researchers. But that really, you know, I never felt very comfortable about that, because the other side of it is much more highly leveraged. You know, you hit a discovery, we talk about air and odour in engineering, if he hits a discovery to make a livery using tiny bubbles, and what do you call it, micro fluidity, micro fluidics, then, you know, that's going to be really big, and that's going to, and you know, take that formula, and that's going to, in your, to a lot of money. And just put note to that, is I was thinking of Ryosu Nakamatsu, I forget what department he was in, but he's the one who invented green sheep and did all this genetic changing back, what almost 20 years ago he did this, he invented, are you ready, a guy sitting down, he invented in vitro fertilization. I mean, as it is known in the world today, here in Manoa, a few feet from where offices are, he invented it, and you know what the university made on that deal? Nothing. The state of Hawaii, nothing. Because he didn't get a patent, and by the time anybody in his department thought about getting a patent, it was way too late, and he wound up getting a litigation over it, he never made any money. So, you know, it's a matter of finding a way to take that kind of, either Aaron Oda or Ryosu Nakamatsu, and putting those deals together so we can actually earn Uku Bucks from everywhere. And what a job, how do you sleep at night? Well, because of the fact that I also, I'm from the industry, more than 20 years in Silicon Valley, and then at other institutions, including Stanford six years and four years in Hong Kong. So I've seen the full spectrum of different institutions, and it is safe to say that there's always room to improve in terms of the commercialization of any university, Stanford included. However, we also need to set a reasonable expectation. So this is a very interesting game. It's sort of like, not really like hunting. It's really like agriculture, like a farmer's job, but it's even worse because you plant a lot of seeds, and the seeds are planted by, well, through the government's sponsorship support, you have the money to pursue research, but you're really at the mercy of researchers. So they plant a lot of seeds in this field. You have no idea what's gonna grow out of this field. And it takes many, many years. Researchers are a special group. Yeah, they are, they are. I will never forget the story of the New Fit Simmons, which is near Denver. It's a hospital just like Tripler. In fact, it's also pink. I guess it was the state, or maybe it was the federal economic agency recreated this as a big farmer research place. And the problem, Robert Olson was the guy who was in charge. The problem was to try to get researchers to come there because it's hard to get them to come there. You know, they're not like ordinary people. Were you a researcher, Dave? No. Okay, he didn't want to tell you. Researchers are different. And so how do you get them there? And Robert Olson invented this technique. It was called breakfast. What he did is he made a breakfast for them several times a week and they could come to the breakfast and share under cover of what we call privacy. Nobody would repeat what they heard. Nobody would violate any secrecy that way. And all the research would talk to each other and it would stimulate their research thinking, right? But they're not entrepreneurs, I'm sorry to say. They need entrepreneurs to help them. That's the problem. So these guys working on these highly technical things and doing remarkable global kind of inventions and not the same people that will carry it to commercialization. Yeah, it's really, you know, what you can do is to try to prepare the field to the best way you can. And then you water it with a lot of resources and then you just pray because it really depends. For example, a survey was conducted back in the early 2010s. I can't remember the exact year, 2013, something like that. Among all the universities that returned the survey, so it's a self-selected sample. Only about 14% of the universities actually reported that they were able to break even in terms of their investment in this kind of a technology transfer office. So the vast majority of them, 86% of them were losing money. So it's a very small fraction. And remember, these are from the ones who returned the survey, right? So usually there are a lot more than who just were too embarrassed and they didn't want to share their data. So, and even at Stanford, for the first about 10 years, it wasn't profitable. So it took many, many years. So how do you do it? I remember at OTED, pay, and at the time, I don't know what it cost today, but to get a patent was about, I mean, a utility patent. Not the temporary, but the final. We cost on the average $30,000. Maybe it's more now. It's still, nowadays, the legal services, they learn to live with realistic budgets. So we're still about that level, $25,000 and $30,000. It's a bit of an investigation thing. It's the prior art question. You have to go look. But my point though is that OTED would actually pay for that. Yes. And the researchers would come in and they were on genu. Had no idea how to do this. But OTED would actually arrange it and pay the bill. That was very incentive, big incentive. Are you doing it now? Can you do that now? We're still doing that now. And also, we're trying to economize our own operation by filing. And for selected cases, we might actually choose to file a provisional application, which is the inexpensive one. That will last only one year. We might actually file them ourselves from the office. I am a licensed patent lawyer in California, also hired. And you look like an ordinary person, David. Thank you for saying that. Look at you. And we also have another patent lawyer on the staff. So we're able to do that. But then we're also trying to use our marketing activities to try to be more selective in terms of which provisional patent applications within the year would like to convert to the utility patent application. Because that's where you need to spend much more money. And you have to do that within the year. You have to do that within the year. So you try to actually put in the provisional patent application early. And then you quickly do the marketing. Allow the market to provide enough feedback in terms of, well, is there a real market need or market interest in this? And use that to guide your decision whether or not to convert into a utility application. So the other part of it, though, is if you give a quick claim, like you say, OK, we're not really interested in this. It's not going to work. You have to give that the inventor enough time to be able to take over. To take over. Because when the year is up, it's up. And you can't tell them the last day. No, you can't tell them the last day. So he's got to get his act together. So I want to ask you about the incentives. Like right now, I can hold on that. I can hold on that. Take a short break. Oh, OK, absolutely. By this time, you would be getting pretty interested. You may realize this is the future in many ways, economically, of the university and the state. And we come back. We're going to hear about the incentives from Mitch and David. We're also going to hear about energy, because that's the name of our show. We'll be right back. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 AM. Please join me, where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music and Hawaii Anna all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Stan Osterman, a host here on Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness here on the island. We are a Hawaiian nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you go to thinktechawai.com and make a donation to support us now. Mahalo. Bingo. We have returned. Mitch Ewan and David Ai, and we're talking about innovation at UH in the system large. OK, Mitch, you were asking about incentives. Yeah, I was going to ask about incentives or the tools you have to be able to kind of change that corporate culture of straight academia into more entrepreneurial. And I just want to use one example. It's like my understanding is that the current structure we have is the academic side are really incentivized to produce peer-reviewed papers like right away because their tenure, their promotion structure through the university depends on the number of papers they write. And so the first reaction they have is, God, I've got this really great idea. I'm going to write a paper on it and get it out there. But of course, as soon as they get it out there, it's public domain and the university loses an opportunity. So how are we going to address that going forward? I think there are two different things that we'd like to address. One is by training and awareness. So we're going out there meeting with the most active innovators and inventors. We're also getting hooked into our own HR system. So when new faculty members are hired, we'll get a chance to provide this kind of initial training. So they understand what kind of a novelty requirement will be baked into the application process so they're not supposed to make any public disclosure until we get a chance to put together a good patent application. But there's also a second part. That is, our office must be solid enough that we cannot obstruct an academic person's free academic publication. They really hate it when they hear the words, oh, we're sorry, you cannot publish that paper yet. Our patent application is not ready. So in the ideal situation, if we get an advanced warning that something is coming up, or they're about to publish a paper, about to give a conference speech, there should be at least several weeks' time long enough for us to put together the patent application. Because you don't want to get a situation where there is an inherent conflict. And then you put the researcher in a difficult spot, they have to choose. Either they give this conference talk, or they go for a patent application. And that is really unfair. But what if you give them points or credits towards their promotion and advancement through their profession, or coming up with patents so that they have an equal incentive to say, oh, hold it. I can get an equal amount of credit if I hold this for the patent side of it. Of course, the patents have to be legitimate patents and not just fluff to build up my portfolio, which is what the patent officer, the OTT, could vet them and say, well, we're not interested in this. So carry on. So have we done that yet? It hasn't been done at UOH. Does it count for tenure, position, decision? It also hasn't done for the vast majority of universities. I know that some universities are putting in experiments, especially some in China, as a matter of fact. But it can be controversial. For example, there are inherently certain fields of study where patents are just impossible. So if you're in the literature, in music, there are just no bands available. And then how could you, then working on the technology, you have this unfair advantage in terms of paper count. But why is that unfair? Well, I mean, in terms of paper counting, you get to produce more results within a year. But I will also point out that even within the same department, for instance, physics, if someone is working on theoretical physics, so you discover some great gravity. I'm sorry, gravity cannot be handed because that belongs to a force of nature. That's not handable. So Newton will be robbed of his potential patent count. But here is another colleague working on some very practical instrumentation for the semiconductor industry. And you can crank out patents very, very productively. So two faculty members in the same department will have to deal with this kind of outcome. So it can be a little bit complicated. And perhaps we could actually think of a slightly modified system so that, for instance, when everything else being equal, whether or not a faculty member has contributed positively to the commercialization, or shall we say dissemination or application of his or her research by all kinds of mechanisms. But for instance, if it's political science professor, if that professor is actively guiding the government and making a lot of policy decisions, that is a very good use of your knowledge and your expertise to benefit the society. That's not patentable. That's not patentable. So that's why I'm trying to describe a system that's perhaps flexible enough to take into account that there are so many different diversity differences. I certainly agree that you can, you know, different departments have a different likelihood of entrepreneurial activity, of commercialization of patents. But I wonder if we could go through them. I mean, what comes to mind, and this is not in order of importance, but SITAR, they have stuff there. Engineering for sure. Computer science. Maybe it's not a patent, or maybe it's a copyright, but something. Energy, HNEI. Marine biology. Marine biology, a lot of stuff there. So that you can figure out which ones are the likely candidates. But you know, there's something that's skewed here, and that is that suppose I'm, and I remember this actual device, there was this harbor robot about 10 years ago, and the robot would go through the harbor, and it would be able to tell if there was something awry in the water. That was the SOVAM project. Yes, right. And it was being funded by some mainland company. And I don't know how this works, but I'm really curious. So they know, Margo Woodward, what's her name? Edward's. Edward's was working on it. And the mainland company's funding it, giving grants, what have you, in anticipation of getting involved on an economic basis. Now, they have an investment in this. Do they have a piece of the action? Do they negotiate for a piece of the action? They need to typically negotiate a piece of the action in yours in advance. At the time of the funding, they will be assigning a sponsor research agreement SRA, which will spout out the potential intellectual property and the disposition. How do you really deal with it? Typically, if the funding is significant enough, so it's not just like spending money, pocket change, they typically could be granted a non-exclusive right to use the technology. But for exclusive right, it's more complicated. So they go through your office. So you will supervise this agreement. And you will say whether it's fair or not fair. It's too much or too little. And this takes me to the question I was waiting to ask. You work. Woo, you work. Was it affiliated university research something? And sometimes it's classified. It's for the government. And it's dual use, right? How does that work? Can you talk about it? Sure. Many universities conduct research activities in areas that could be considered dual use, have that kind of potential. That means even though it could be earmarked for military use or earmarked for civilian use, but it also could be applied to the other side. And such dual use technologies would need to be treated carefully. Because, first of all, in terms of any kind of export control, you need to be very, very careful. Otherwise, there are statutes and regulations in line. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Professors have gone to jail. Did you say jail? I think he said jail. He said jail. Yeah, he did. So that's why every research university has a export control officer on the staff. We do as well. And the other thing is that even with that kind of a situation, there's a big distinction between what's considered basic research and applied research. Usually the applied research is where you might actually convert the technology into a physical device that could do some damage on the battlefield. But then if you're working on merely the basic research, people usually encourage you to publish. And by the way, the publication actually includes publication of the patent application, which is almost automatic. After 18 months of your original patent application date, the patent will get published. Once it is published in any kind of form, that particular research is considered a basic research and therefore will be carved out from export control. So now it's basically any researcher in the field could read about it and could try to improve upon it or could try to work around it. And that's how we advance technology. Well, yeah, it's all collaboration with other scientists elsewhere. And that's got to be a central issue for you to make sure that these scientists, these researchers, are free to do what they naturally do, which is A, have breakfast, and B, collaborate with everybody in the field all around the world. And you've got to let them do their thing about that. But at the same time, you have to control it from the export point of view and also from the university point of view. It's a hard job, I think. Well, it's a fun job, herding cats and also allowing researchers to feel that they can enjoy the full academic freedom without too much encumbrances, but at the same time, working very hard to make the system work for them. And I also want to come back to a question that Mitch asked, how do we change a culture? The culture is there are several different ways. One thing, certainly, is the awareness, teaching them how this whole process works. And the other thing is how to figure out the several viable models, if you will. At Stanford and at other leading universities, one thing that's very clear to most observers is that the most prolific inventors and the best inventors that really impact the society are not the ones that leave the university job to become CEOs. They are the ones who remain as major researcher on campus, but they encourage their postdoc students, PhD students, or other outside industry players to take their technology that will work with them, to really commercialize it, and understand the process is still very important, so they need to be at least quite aware and quite knowledgeable about this whole process of, how do you create a startup, how do you do the stock investment, all the VC fundraising, all the different rounds of financing, and all of that stuff. But they don't have to roll up their sleeves and become the CEO, because they can be really, really good researchers, and you don't want to lose them. Oh, they have a cutting edge. And at the same time, they may not be the best CEO. Usually they're not. So in the best world scenario, we could actually have the cake and eat it, too, by reproducing the cake, acting someone else. So that brings me up to Act 38, which we talked about just before the show. Can you talk about Act 38 and how that's changing the ecosystem here for innovation? The original situation before Act 38 and 39 of last year was that the university was not allowed to engage in commercial activities. But Act 38 and 39 gave the university explicit power to engage in certain commercialization activity if they're related to commercializing university inventions. So, for example, we're able to actually partner with a couple of other entities to create this aquaculture accelerator at Nalha. Right, the Hatch Group. The Hatch Program, which is a great example. We were able to attract an outside very experienced management team from Norway, from Ireland, and they have operations in Singapore and Southeast Asia, and they're trying to attract the world's best aquaculture technology companies to come to Hawaii and then really help us build a vibrant community of aquaculture technology. And that really is thanks to Act 38 and 39. That's great, you're loving for that. Yeah. Nice job. We're out of time. We are? Oh, I had another question. Yeah, well, too late. Take 30 seconds. Okay, I just want to talk about Accelerate UH. What's going on with that? I'm a graduate of Accelerate UH. I'm a huge fan of it. It's a really great program. What's happening with it? Yeah, Accelerate UH has been quite successful over the last four years, and now we are asking PACE, which is the Business Entrepreneurship Center at Schuyler College, to step up to become a system-wide resource. So starting next year 2020, PACE will start running Accelerate UH program inside PACE, but also benefiting the entire UH system. Perfect, perfect. Well, I mean, it's clear to me that we have to follow you and with you and talk to you about some of the projects you're working on going forward. You're at the heartbeat of our scientific future. Thank you, I think that's an overstatement. We'll see it out there, I don't know. We're all trying to do the heavy lifting together as a village. Okay, fair enough. So it's time for you to close. Summarize and close between you guys. Yeah, okay, well I have the floor to close. As I like to see us use Think Tech Hawaii more effectively to highlight the technologies we're developing at the university because they come in and give us their pitch and then they get a YouTube publication that goes all over the world and plus you can use it in your outreach and marketing or licensing. Oh, we love the idea. Yeah, yeah. That will be fantastic. Thank you very much and let's bring you back soon, not a year. Thank you. Thank you, David. Maybe quarterly we'll have a breakfast here and see what's going on. It's all a breakfast, this is Think Tech. Yeah, all right. We'd love to have you on the show, David. Thank you. Aloha. Aloha.