Sponsor A CBID Project
What BME design students can do for you
Do you have a need in clinical practice that could benefit from a novel medical device? If so, please consider submitting a project proposal to the student Design Teams in the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design. If your project is chosen, you can become a Project Sponsor.
Benefits of becoming a sponsor include:
- Access to technology assessments and business plans written by the student Design Team
- Funding the creation of a prototype through the CBID Technology Accelerator Fund
- Access to CBID’s venture capital, legal, and industry network
- Opportunity to attend classes in the masters program, including the Business of Bioengineering and Design, FDA Regulatory Processes, and weekly seminars on Innovation and Design
- Quick access to the Office of Technology Transfer through CBID staff and faculty
- Access to BME and CBID innovation, design, and business networking events
- Start-up support through our network of venture capitalists, attorneys and entrepreneurs
Design Teams select, based on their own interests, projects from those submitted by sponsors and screened by faculty. In a typical year, sponsors submit 20-30 approved projects, allowing ample choice for the 10-15 teams. On occasion, student teams will envision a problem and find a suitable sponsor.
Over the past five years, Design Teams have completed 58 medical device projects for sponsors, received 18 provisional patents (with nine patent applications pending), entered four licensing agreements, and have formed six start-up companies. Success of a project depends on the tight collaboration between the Design Team and the project sponsor.
Sponsor requirements:
- Commit personal time and resources to design team
- Outline clear project requirements
- Communicate with the Design Team and CBID faculty and staff
- Provide funding and resources for the project (materials, machine shop time, etc.)
- Assist design team students working on the project by providing contacts to physicians, scientists and engineers with specific expertise
Funding:
The department contributes $500 for each project.
Intellectual Property:
Students are not university employees and thus own any intellectual property they develop. Only those who contributed to a novel concept in a patent application can be an inventor. If a sponsor contributes to the IP, he or she is an inventor as well. The Department of Biomedical Engineering has a technology licensing associate, Aditya Polsani, who supports the students and sponsors with patenting, marketing and licensing of technologies that come from Design Team projects.
