Category: News

During the advanced training class for medical and health technology transfer talents from China, organized online on the 20th of May, participants had the opportunity to learn about technology transfer, innovation development and to hear about concrete examples from practice. During his lecture, Dr. Nedeljko Milosavljević had a pleasure to, among other things present intellectual outputs developed within the BOSS project and to invite participants to utilize the BOSS platform to support and enhance successful creation and transfer of innovation.

The event was organized by the Zhongguancun Technology Managers Association, MedValley of Capital Medical University and Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park Management Committee.

The Knowledge Transfer Offices of the French-speaking part of Belgium are organized in a network referred to as LIEU. Its role is to mutualize the resources and enhance the activities of the individual KTO’s, namely to inform about call for projects, raise the awareness among the Researchers for intellectual property and technology transfer, organize events between Universities and Enterprises, detect and ensure the follow-up of business opportunities, promote inter-university collaborations.

The LIEU network ensures the connection between its members in different ways, among which the organization of a residential seminar. During this year 2020, due to the Covid-19 crisis, the seminar was hold online, with several virtual meetings between June 8^th and July 1^st. Up to 80 participants were gathered safely and shared information thanks to several virtual tools. The satisfaction of the participants was rated as very high, demonstrating the possibility to adapt to the new situation generated by the pandemic.

During this seminar, on June 24^th 2020, Michel Morant presented the BOSS platform, as an example of digital tool adapted to enhance the awareness of the Researchers about Innovation.

During the online class held on the 14th of May, students from the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy of the University of Belgrade who attended Polymer Materials course had the opportunity to learn more about the process of development of innovation in their field, its assessment and development of proper commercialization strategy. Demonstration of assessment and business opportunity development by utilization of the tools available at the BOSS platform was performed by the BOSS team member. Students were encouraged by Prof.Dr. Ivanka Popovic to test the platform either by using the case study of an innovative polymer developed at the University of Belgrade, other business opportunities, or their ideas.  It was suggested to them to use available educational materials together with the tools to achieve maximum results.

Students attending the Startup management course held within the Master’s Programme 4.0 had the opportunity to learn more about the BOSS platform and tools during online classes held in May. As a part of the lecture focused on the Industrial environment (tools and assessment skills), Prof. Mladen Čudanov, PhD from Faculty of Organizational Sciences spoke about the position of a startup in the industrial environment, competition, partners, distributors, and production. The importance of developing an adequate business model for setting up and running of a business, as well as having a value proposition, problem-solution fit, and product-market fit was also mentioned as a prelude for the introduction of different tools for business model development. Besides other tools, such as Osterwalder’s and Pigneur’s Canvas, Teece’s Matrix and Porter’s value chain, Prof. Čudanov presented the BOSS platform as valuable source and the business opportunity development tool, and invited students to go to the platform, test the tools, and learn from available educational materials.

In order to strengthen the entrepreneurial mindset in students from the Faculty of organizational sciences of the University of Belgrade, Prof. Dr. Nataša Petrović has together with the UB BOSS team organized and implemented four interactive online workshops. During the online workshops held on the 5th and the 12th of May, third-year students who attended Environmental management class had the opportunity to learn more about the process of development of an eco-innovation, to utilize the BOSS platform for the assessment of the proposed eco-business opportunity, and to discuss results of the assessment with Prof. Dr. Petrović and Tamara Čolić Milosavljević.

 

The workshops were also organized for the fourth-year students who attended Eco-marketing classes on the 6th and the 13th of May. The focus was on market analysis and development of a go-to-market strategy for the eco-innovation developed at the University of Belgrade. The business opportunity development planning tool embedded in the BOSS platform was utilized by students, who had the opportunity to present gained results and to discuss different approaches with Prof. Dr. Petrović and Tamara Čolić Milosavljević.

 

   

Second-year students attending the Managing technology and development course at the Faculty of organizational sciences of the University of Belgrade in the period February – May 2020 had the opportunity to test the BOSS platform with different ideas and entrepreneurial endeavors based on new technologies developed as a response to identified challenges. Within the course, 155 new endeavors were developed and evaluated by 690 students with the support of teaching assistants Milica Jovanović and Jovana Rakićević, and under the leadership of prof. dr. Maja Levi-Jakšić.

By utilizing the BOSS platform, student teams have self-assessed their business ideas, checked and upgraded their knowledge, and gained significant feedback regarding the potential improvements of their endeavors.

After the whole process was finalized, the students have sent their impressions, evaluations of the platform, and proposals for future improvements.

On the 5th of March, during the Machine design course class at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, prof. dr. Radivoje Mitrović and Tamara Čolić Milosavljević provided support to students with the utilization of the BOSS platform. The class began with a short presentation of the BOSS platform and embedded innovative tools and educational material, after which the participants had the opportunity to assess different business opportunities and to get more insight into the business development planning process and key points which should be taken into consideration during business opportunity development.

 

During the last week of February, IEC Tehnopolis in cooperation with the Montenegrin Ministry of Economy realized a training course for innovation brokers.

The course aimed to develop a new professional personality, important in the context of European policies 2014-2020 and after 2020, especially in measures focused on improving the cooperation between businesses and the knowledge system.

Accordingly, this training enabled the attendees to adopt new knowledge and become a link between the research structure, business sector, and final users, which should lead to the development of new products and services.

During the second day of the training focused on new ways of research results application, tools for assessment, development, and protection of results, and intellectual property valorization as a strategic remedy, participants had the opportunity to learn more about tools developed within the BOSS project and their benefits.

The potential of the BOSS platform was presented by Nedeljko Milosavljević and Tamara Čolić Milosavljević to attendees who had the opportunity to test the platform and assess different business opportunities.

During the last years, the University of Liège (ULiège) has reinforced its training program dedicated to Ph.D. students. Initially mainly focused on typical research topics, the program now consists of 80 seminars both in French and English in a wide range of subjects including Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship. Those subjects are presented by the collaborators of Interface Entreprises, the Knowledge Transfer Office of ULiège.

On the 11th of March, a half-day training was given by Elodie Naveau entitled: Introduction to Intellectual Property (IP). At the end of the training, Elodie did a demonstration of the BOSS platform and encouraged the students to browse the educational material provided, in particular, the slides and the videos presenting IP.

The Faculty of Agronomy in Gembloux, Belgium, has long been an independent institute. Recognized as a major Center for Excellence in Life Science and Biological Engineering in the country, it was integrated to the University of Liège (ULiège) in 2009. Due to its autonomous culture and its off-centered location, there is a continuous need for the ULiège KTO (Knowledge Transfer Office) to organize dedicated sessions of training for the researchers of this Faculty.

On the 10th of March, such a seminar was held by the Knowledge Transfer Officers entitled: “Towards Innovation: Protection and Transfer of Technology”. The topics of Intellectual Property, Collaboration between University and Industry, Technology Licensing, and Entrepreneurship were presented. During this one-day training, particular attention was dedicated to the presentation of the BOSS platform, to encourage the researchers to browse the educational material provided and to test the tools with regards to their projects.