TEC

What is the purpose of the program?

The goal is to teach technical students the process and framework by which to evaluate ideas and technologies for their business potential. At the same time, we are creating a forum for like-minded students to interact with each other and with distinguished individuals from industry.

Do I have to already know about tech assessment?

Although it will certainly help you, it is not a requirement for this program.

What is the structure of the program?

Major part of the program will be covered via three methods:

1. Seminars
2. Analysis of a real technology as an educational exercise
3. Assessment report and presentation

Participants will be divided into teams of 3-4 students. Each team will be given a technology at the beginning of the quarter. Each team will be assigned a mentor to guide the team through the entire process. The participants will analyze the given technology to determine its commercial feasibility, its novelty, shortcomings and will present their findings to a panel of judges at the end of the quarter.

What kind of technologies will we be considering?

We will be looking at publicly disclosed technologies from UCLA and industry. This is an educational program so we won’t be considering non-disclosed intellectual property with currently generated business interest.

Is this program for course credit?

No. This is an extracurricular program.

What is required of the participants?

Participants are required to attend mandatory meetings every several weeks. These meetings consist of educational seminars, guest lectures, and private sessions with the mentors from industry. Participants are also required to work both independently and in teams on their technical evaluations. Each technical assessment includes topics such as competition landscape, intellectual property, price strategy, and other topics. Each member of the team is responsible for one of the sub-topics just listed, which will entail independent research and work outside of the scheduled meetings.

What is the time commitment of the program?

These should serve as a very rough benchmark since the program’s speed depends on the participants among other factors. We do not guarantee these times.

1. Duration of seminars will be ~ 75 minutes
2. Approximately 3 hrs of mentoring time would be provided to each team in the entire quarter (the 3 hours can be split up in any way based on everyone’s availability)
3. The entire program will be covered in approximately 7-8 weeks