UC San Diego’s Melese Moderates ‘Innovation Marketplace’ Panel on Industry-Academic Alliances

Teri Melese, assistant vice chancellor for Innovation and Industry Alliances.

How do universities and industries work together to foster innovation? What kinds of partnerships and alliances will best enable discoveries that benefit both business and society?

Teri Melese, assistant vice chancellor for Innovation and Industry Alliances in the Office of Research Affairs at UC San Diego, will address these and related issues in a panel discussion she will lead as part of the Connect WBT Innovation Marketplace Conference set for 10 a.m. on Oct. 22 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina.

She and leaders from major companies – Intel, IBM, Roche, Northrup Grumman, and Dirac – will explore the role and value that academic-industry alliances bring to the urgent goal of ongoing innovation. The panel will also focus on the different strategies and cultural attitudes within companies about academic-industry collaborations.

“While universities and major companies often have different perspectives on partnerships and collaborations, we share a drive to innovate, to bring discoveries to the marketplace,” said Melese. “Business has a lot to teach Academe, and we can offer ongoing and wide-ranging basic and translational science and engineering. The nexus can be powerfully symbiotic.”

On the panel with Melese will be Doug Busch, retired Senior VP and COO of Intel-GE Care Innovations; Alfredo Ramirez, Northrop Grumman’s chief engineer-architect on the Global Hawk program; Zafrira Avnur, Global Head, Academic Collaborations and Neglected Diseases for Roche; Anthony Marshall, Global CEO, Study Program Director and Transformation Lead for IBM Global Services; and Dr. Richard Twogood, CEO of Dirac Solutions Inc.

WBT, the World’s Best Technologies Innovation Marketplace, is the world’s premier showcase of emerging technologies, startups and undiscovered companies from around the world. Since its inception in 2002, more than 740 WBT presenters from 27 countries, or one in three, have captured venture funding or licensing deals valued at over $786 million.