Michael Lehman, the newly appointed director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Pantherlab Works has two missions. The first? “We are here to assess, advise and connect our clients to resources they need to turn good ideas into real businesses,” he says.
That speaks to Pantherlab’s primary mission, which is to “catalyze technology commercialization.” So what is the second? He is putting the Pantherlab back into play in a lineup of programs that offer support throughout the life cycle of businesses at the Joseph Katz Graduate School of Business’ Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence. That means drawing upon the university’s wide network of students, faculty, and alumni to reach out to the community and the region.
About a year ago, the university spun out an offshoot of the lab program, which had narrowed its focus to transfer technology between the Department of Defense and civilian first responders. The broad mission of Pantherlab had been absorbed into one narrow program called First Link. After the departure of First Link, and the lab director who had created its success, the university looked for a new director to return Pantherlab’s focus to a wider range of clients looking for help in building the right business structure. That’s how the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence found Lehman and asked him to put the lab back on track.
“The lab acts as an entry point to business planning for the inventor, the innovator, who has a new technology, a patent, or prototype of a product, and wants to move it forward,” he says. “We are here for people who have a skill in their area of expertise yet are new to the needs of entrepreneurship.”
He’s finding that, as Pantherlab returns to its original mission, it is drawing a diverse range of clients–dealing with a many ideas for products, including medical applications, software, and digital technologies.
Source: Pantherlab Works, Michael Lehman, Elizabeth Strohm
Writer: Joseph Plummer
To receive Keystone Edge free every week, click here.