Douglas Hansen-Luke: Future Planet Capital

Douglas Hansen-Luke launched Future Planet Capital in 2015 after 18 months researching the then-nascent university venturing scene and over the past seven years has built an impact-led global innovation investment platform that is active in ecosystems around MIT, Stanford, Oxford and others around the world.

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Mary Albertson: Georgia Tech

Mary Albertson became director of the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) at Georgia Tech in July 2022, having previously worked for University of Utah’s PIVOT Center and having spent the majority of her career working at Stanford University for nearly 27 years. She’s been president of AUTM and received its President’s Award in 2015 for her long-standing service.

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Yasser Biaz: UM6P Ventures

Yasser Biaz is the chief executive of UM6P Ventures, the venture fund of University Mohammed VI Polytechnic in Morocco, and he joins us today to talk about why it focuses on deeptech and builds and invests not just in spinouts from its home institution or even just across the country, but throughout Africa and beyond.

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Duncan Johnson: Northern Gritstone

Duncan Johnson, chief executive of Northern Gritstone, is on a mission to turn the north of England into an ecosystem that rivals Silicon Valley. He’s raising £500m to do that (he’s £215m of the way there already) — money that will go not only into spinouts from the firm’s three founding universities (Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield) but into businesses throughout northern England.

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Glen Gardner, David Winwood: Gardner Innovation Search Partners

I have a two-for-one this week: Glen Gardner and David Winwood of Gardner Innovation Search Partners, a recruitment firm specialised in tech transfer, are joining the show this week.

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Maxine Ficarra: PraxisAuril

Maxine Ficarra was the chief executive of PraxisAuril for nearly 20 years, stepping down today as this episode is released.

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Elicia Maine: Simon Fraser University

Elicia Maine has thought and written a lot about innovation in her more than two decades as professor for innovation and entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University. It’s no surprise then that in July this year she was named the institution’s inaugural associate vice-president, knowledge mobilisation and innovation.

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Kimberly Gramm: Tulane University

In June this year, Kimberly Gramm became the inaugural chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer at Tulane University, which she joined after more than six years at Texas Tech University.

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Rich Lyons: UC Berkeley

Rich Lyons became UC Berkeley’s inaugural chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer in January 2020, having previously been dean of the Haas Business School for a decade. For the past two and a half years, he’s been tying the ecosystem together in a way that makes everyone want to participate rather than forcing them to sign up.

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Anthony Francis: University of California, San Francisco

Hailing from Australia, Anthony Francis started out as an accountant before establishing the Technology Commercialisation Group in 1999, selling it to Deloitte in 2005 and spending a couple of years with the firm. He then spent nearly a decade as managing director of Flinders University’s TTO, Flinders Partners, before landing, in 2019, at UCSF Innovation Ventures, the commercialisation arm of University of California, San Francisco, where he’s the executive director of the Office of Technology Management.

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