The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)
Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/114745
BIZ CENTRIC MENTORS When Mark Rice signed on to be the first dean of WPI's School of Business, he was keenly aware of the challenges. "It's exciting, but daunting," says Rice who knew that the school's foothold in both the academic and business worlds depended heavily on leadership, visibility, and support from a wide circle of stakeholders. From the start, Rice has been committed to tapping one of WPI's richest resources, its alumni. The Technical Advisers Network has been one of several initiatives aimed at drawing WPI's graduates into the business school's mission of fostering the next wave of entre- preneurial leaders. from the technical "WPI is, historically, world's labs to its ofan engineering school, fices is significant. and the focus on alumni "We're uncovering them MARK tends to be on the technilike crazy." RICE cal side," says Rice. As members of TAN, "But there are a whole lot alumni play a key role in a of WPI graduates who got a devirtual incubator with a pipegree in science or engineering line into a hotbed of technological and went on to become business creativity and innovation. leaders." "Their primary function is to Rice saw that those alumni had serve as advisers, mentors, and connections to the top-tier businetworkers for innovative and enness schools they attended to trepreneurial alumni, students, earn MBAs, but they didn't have and facutly," says Rice. "They any significant presence at WPI. have the experience and the conWith the Tech Advisers Network, nections that can help support he has carved out a new and projects and ideas." meaningful role for entrepreneurs And TAN also offers alumni a and business leaders who started chance to reconnect and network their careers in Worcester. with one another. "We got them excited," says "I think there's a really big opRice. He points out that the talent portunity here for young alumni pool of alumni who have shifted who, at 30 or 35, figure now is the "It was the Ƃrst time I pitched the idea to a group of people of that caliber," says Morgan, adding that TAN's approach streamlined the stress. "They were all there to listen because they wanted to help." For Ki Chon, head of WPI's Biomedical Engineering Department, TAN is another channel of support for WPI-led start-ups. "Entrepreneurship has taken off, it's all around campus," says Chon. "I think students see what's happening and say, 'I want to be part of it.'" Chon presented a proposal for a smartphone application that allows users to measure their heart rate and rhythms, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, and blood loss by placing a Ƃngertip over the phone's built-in video camera. Other smartphone apps can measure a user's heart rate, but Chon and co-investigators, Yitzhak Mendelson, of WPI, and Jinseok Lee and David McManus of UMass Medical School, have designed a system that measures a range of vital signs. "TAN was a positive experience," says Chon, who already had an established business plan in place and was looking for leads for investors. Fitzgerald calls the app a "game changer" for healthcare, and says WPI students and faculty are developing technologies that are continually cutting through new ground. But it's also a rapidly changing landscape. "Good ideas don't sit too long," says Fitzgerald. "There are patents and licenses involved." And that's an area where the tech advisers' broad overview of in- 56 Winter 2013 time to launch a venture," says Rice. The business school's degree and certificate programs and resources like TAN can break open all sorts of new ideas and possibilities. And the tech advisers can steer new entrepreneurs away from the traps and pitfalls of creating a new business. The tech advisers share an acute ability to spot potential and they see what Rice is building at the School of Business as an approach to entrepreneurship that can redesign the region's economic landscape. But he figures the main reason alumni are signing up to be tech advisers is that it's in sync with WPI's core values. "It's about the joy of giving back," says Rice. "Somebody helped all of these tech advisers get started, and now they have that opportunity." dustries can be especially useful. As Mahoney points out, the failure rate for start-ups is staggering, and not every idea and innovation needs to go the entire distance to succeed. "When you look at what's developing at WPI, there are a lot of things that could be useful to the school if they were licensed and sold," he says. After hearing a set of presentations, TAN advisers sit down and – for each presenter – assess the entrepreneurial team, the product and its market potential, the Ƃnancial requirements, and the challenges that must be addressed. The School of Business staff compiles the feedback from the TAN advisers and sends it back to each presenter. A TAN advising team is then established for each presenter and a series of progress review meetings is scheduled. "It's a very detailed process," says Andrew Aberdale '89, who says the goal is to Ƃnd ways to assist each project. Aberdale, who brings a 20-year background of Ƃnancial and operational management, including overseeing environmental, health, and safety practices for a global network of production facilities for W. R. Grace, says the advisers look for more than clear business plans and marketing strategies. "We want to know if this person will stay up morning, noon, and night to work on this venture," he says, adding that it was the obvious commitment and passion he saw in Yichao Joy Xu '12, the point person for the Fivolts drowsiness detection device, that convinced him to volunteer to advise that team. For the teams, the tech advisers provide help with solving prob-