FAILING IS NOT A BAD THING
By Adrian H. Sablan
Assistant Division Chief, IPOPHL
Failure does happen, and failing is a natural human experience that anyone who fails should not be daunted from trying again— and again. This must be the context of the philosophy espoused by entrepreneur Jose Estabil, the director for Entrepreneurship and Innovation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology( MIT), an Ivy League US university, in a lecture to participants from various organizations from all over the globe during the 3 rd Business of Intellectual Property Asia Forum( BIP Asia Forum), held from December 5 to 6, 2013, at the Hongkong Convention and Exhibition Center, Hongkong.
Mr. Estabil opines that“ failing is not a bad thing”, to assuage the apprehension or disillusionment of people who fail to commercialize their technology in the target market on their first bid. Failure can spawn more pristine ideas to further innovate, and broaden the frontier for discovery to make a technology better and stand out in its unique functionality. This same attitude to viewing failure had been advanced earlier both by David Hall, Chief of Party to the Philippines of USAID- Science, Technology, Research, and Innovation for Development, and by Atty. Christopher Cruz, director of IP Unit of De La Salle University( DLSU) during the Annual Innovation and Technology Support Office( ITSO) Planning Workshop at DLSU last November 2013. Mr. Hall emphasized that they are interested more in stories of technologies that failed to take off to commercialization, than in success stories, because a lot of opportunities can result from failure. At the University of California Davis where Atty. Cruz was sent this year for an IP training, he learned as well that failure is a welcome outcome for technology innovators who eventually end up producing the best marketable technology that key industrial markets need.
Mr. Estabil stresses that, as far as commercialization of university technology is concerned, technology creators should be motivated less by the prospects of raking in huge financial gains, but instead, more by concerting efforts to just push the technology out into the market to benefit the society at large— which gives ultimate meaning to the existence of a university, a meaningful impact on social development.
Dr. Hannah Dvorak-Carbone, associate director of the Office of Technology Transfer of the California Institute of Technology( CALTECH), puts forward a similar mindset. Their experience at CALTECH in commercializing their technologies shows that having little idea on the actual value of a technology in the market does not encumber them. Their commercialization efforts are not driven primarily by the monetary value of a technology, but by the desire for the same technology to reach the market for public access and use, which caps the real purpose of a university— to meet and serve the needs of the public.
ITSOMAGazine 10