Student ideas could boost Scots economy
Students at Edinburgh University could create the next Microsoft or Facebook, according to the man charged with commercialising research from one of the institution's most highly-ranked departments. Colin Adams, director of commercialisation at the school of informatics – which brings together computer science and information handling – said student-led projects, as well as those developed by the university's academics, had the potential to boost the Scottish economy.
His comments came as new figures show that Scottish Enterprise's Prospekt partnership with the university has led to 20 projects starting the commercialisation process in the past two years. Nine of these are being developed through the Edinburgh Pre-incubator Scheme (Epis), while seven are taking part in Scottish Enterprise's proof of concept programme. A further two have led to enterprise fellowships with the Royal Society of Edinburgh and two are being pursued by ITI Scotland, Scottish Enterprise's technology investment arm.
The £8 million Prospekt programme was launched in July 2006 to licence
research to existing businesses and set up fresh spin-out companies. Adams said the 20 Prospekt projects contained a mixture of work by staff and research carried out by his students. The projects cover a broad range of subjects, from life sciences and energy research through to computer games and new web-based technologies.
He said: "If you look at the significant new companies that have grown over the past ten years worldwide then the bulk have been created by kids under the age of 25 – Google, Facebook, Youtube."
Read the full article at The Scotsman