AFHU News

PAGE 34
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY
AFHU NEWS VOL. 22 PAGE 35
On the Express Track
Yissum, the technology transfer company of Hebrew
University, launched its pioneering Express Licensing
Campaign at the ITTN’s 5th biennial conference: Tech
Transfer 4.0: Reinventing Technology Transfer. Yissum
CEO and President Dr. Yaron Daniely introduced
the campaign which aims to make the cuttingedge
research conducted at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem more accessible to industry partners
by dramatically simplifying technology licensing or
acquisition.
Yissum currently dominates academic tech transfer
in Israel, and in 2017 was responsible for nearly half
of all tech transfer licensing agreements signed
by Israeli universities as well as new company
formations. The Express Licensing Campaign is
yet another channel initiated by Yissum to broaden
industry reach into Intellectual Property (IP) born out
of translational academic research, by offering close
to 70 technologies alongside ready-to-sign license
contracts, drafted in collaboration with several
leading law firms in Israel.
Dr. Daniely explained that with the Express Licensing
Campaign, Yissum aims to create more transparency
and clarity in the tech transfer process, making it
easier for industry and entrepreneurs to identify and
pursue groundbreaking innovations.
At Hebrew University,
All Students Will Study
Entrepreneurship
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem wants to make
entrepreneurship part of the staple diet of all its
students — including historians, engineers and
philosophers. The university plans to strengthen its
curriculum with project-based learning, including
courses and entrepreneur workshops. Students who
have developed an idea and want to take it forward,
in any field, will be encouraged to join accelerator
programs and may also get university funding for
their initiatives. The highest level will see the studententrepreneurs
build companies within the university
and then take them to the market.
“Our vision is that each and every student, from
semester one in year one, will learn something about
innovation,” said Amnon Dekel, the new managing
director of HUJI Innovate, the Hebrew University
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, in an
interview with The Times of Israel. “In this century,
as you go forward in life, whether you work in tech
or in services, you need to be innovative and an
entrepreneur.”
Dekel will lead Hebrew University’s push to spearhead
the development of technology from the huge amount
of research within its ivory towers while at the same
time helping the university become an integral part of
Jerusalem’s tech ecosystem.
“The Hebrew University had an image perhaps of an
old, not progressive environment,” he said. “I have
met with our researchers at our labs, and there are
seriously innovative world-changing technologies that
are being developed. The researchers… were hungry
to collaborate, they want to create more startups and
take our technologies out into the world.”