Workshop III: The Making of a Science Entrepreneur

Workshop III: The Making of a Science Entrepreneur

Video:

Organizer
Jeffrey Kinder - Manager, Science and Technology Strategy, Natural Resources CanadaModerator: Shiva Amiri - Science and Innovation Officer, British High Commission

Panellists: Bonnie Schmidt - President and Founder, Let's Talk Science
Peter Hackett - Executive Professor and Special Advisor, Vice-President of Research, School of Business, University of Alberta

Summary:
Shiva Amiri opened the session by introducing the two speakers and their topics. Schmidt was to talk about the science half of making science entrepreneurs and Hackett was going to cover the entrepreneurial side. Before getting started with the talks, Amiri queried the audience to get a sense of their backgrounds, revealing that they were overwhelmingly from the university sector.

Schmidt spoke about the difficulties of teaching science entrepreneurship. She explained that the current method is to attempt to layer additional skills onto scientists. She pointed out that, with a few exceptions, this method simply does not work when trying to convert scientists into entrepreneurs. And not only that, but Canada is currently producing less scientists and engineers according to the latest OECD reports. She added one complaint about the OECD report: it does not count college students who are in science, technology, and engineering streams.

Schmidt's preferred method for imparting science entrepreneurial skills is not to give business skills to PhD candidates, but to use outreach at much younger ages. Let's Talk Science goes to elementary and high schools to give students hands on experience with science, which she feels is valuable because teachers generally do not accommodate the kinaesthetic, hands-on learners. These tactile learners tend to be the kind of tinkerers who could simultaneously be effective scientists and entrepreneurs, but they often do not discover a love of science in the current educational system. Schmidt is convinced that outreach is highly effective in increasing the number and variety of capable students pursuing science and engineering degrees.
After her description of Let's Talk Science and her efforts at outreach, Schmidt then asked the audience to discuss five questions in small groups: What are three practices to increase youth engagement? What are three characteristics of a successful entrepreneur? What are three ways to teach entrepreneurs? What are the top three measures of success? Who should be teaching entrepreneurial skills, and where should they be taught?

The group's answers followed the lead provided by Schmidt in her talk. Three practices that increase youth engagement listed by the audience were: mentorship, science fairs. and learning modules. The audience came up with more than three, somewhat conflicting characteristics of a good entrepreneur: stubbornness, a broad perspective, an open mind, an ability to communicate, and a willingness to take on risk. Five useful teaching practices that the audience came up with were: discussion of case studies, mentorship, cooperative programs, workshops, and competitions. For the fourth question the audience suggested five possible measures of success: number of companies, number of repeat or serial entrepreneurs, social and economic impact or value of innovations, the diversity of entrepreneurial ideas, and the increased productivity of the Canadian economy. It was widely agreed that entrepreneurial skills could be successfully taught in different ways, by people operating at all levels of education.

Hackett's main point was that Canada is a place, currently, with a lot of barriers preventing effective entrepreneurship. His talk was a whirlwind of examples and statistics in support of this claim. He gave a definition of entrepreneurship as the act, by a company, of commercializing as a product what was previously only a technology. For entrepreneurship to occur, creativity is absolutely essential and a person must want to “win” rather than simply be right. Hackett listed seven other necessary conditions for entrepreneurial success: having experience, customers, sales, mentors, being smart with money, having access to capital and talent.

Hackett then discussed two measures indicative of Canada’s poor performance. First, Canadian venture capitalists tend to make a two percent return on their investment, ten times less than their American counterparts. Second, Canada is consistently producing fewer PhD's than other countries; this, at best, will replace the existing professors. He also pointed out that the current education system has a tendency to teach the skills required in the past, not the ones that will be needed in the future.
Hackett then listed his four barriers to successful entrepreneurship in Canada. Culturally, Canada has always been a resource producing country. Government and university policies also do not support industry or venture capitalists, having over-regulated the potential for spin-offs. Intellectual property rights, claimed at numerous other points during the conference to be a problem area in Canada, was also seen as a problem by Hackett. Last, he noted that there are often idiosyncratic barriers.

Hackett then asked the groups to discuss four questions: What are three ways to improve the culture of support? What three actions could be taken to remove barriers in academic institutions? What three actions that could be taken to remove barriers in government agencies? And, like Schmidt, what are the three best measures of innovation?

The audience came up with a variety of interesting answers that went beyond Hackett's and Schmidt's talks. Three ways to improve the culture of support that the audience raised were: to encourage the raw energy of highly skilled immigrants rather than putting barriers up to prevent competition with existing Canadians, using taxes and tax breaks to incentivize returns rather than only investments, and to think globally. Regarding barriers within academia the audience had several suggestions: fix the rewards system by including patents as well as publications, encourage cross-disciplinary problem-solving, award business sabbaticals, clear up ownership of intellectual property, reduce the time-consuming over-head in winning and maintaining grants, realign faculties for the 21st century, and broadcast success stories with a national award of high honour. The audience had less to offer for the barriers within government agencies: they suggested only that there should be a more intelligent granting system and that public service should be of the highest quality. For the final question added some new possibilities to those previously discussed including job creation, the lifespan of created companies, and exports.

Hackett and Schmidt then asked for three main messages that could be passed along to the CSPC from this workshop. The audience responded that there needs to a way to bridge the science and entrepreneurship within government, academia, and industry. The audience also agreed that it was important to point out that there is a lot more at issue here than money. Finally, the audience suggested breaking down all the barriers discussed, especially those associated with granting and peer review; creativity of all types should be rewarded.

In the ensuing discussion, Andrew Munro noted that there was no discussion of research within industry, and that most of the examples discussed during the workshop were not researchers. He suggested that a better understanding could be gained by comparing locations with low barriers (Waterloo) and high barriers (Guelph).