Commercialization advice?
The most important thing is the team. You should have great colleagues and students that excite you about working closely with. Market conditions may change, what’s most important about your technology may change, but if you have great team members, you’ll be able to work together to adapt to whatever comes your way.
What CoMotion services and resources have you used and how did they help?
It is a pleasure working with the innovation managers and patent agents in CoMotion to help manage the IP portfolios. If your startup licenses the technology from UW, the startup will be consulted with about lots of decisions related to the prosecution of the patents. I have also received several CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund grants over the years which helped incubate the technologies that were commercialized.
What do you like most about working with CoMotion?
I enjoy collaborating with the CoMotion team to create strong IP portfolios as efficiently as possible.
Tell us a fun anecdote about your journey on the path to commercialization:
Wibotic and my UW lab are jointly pursing funding opportunities that neither of us could go after individually. We recently applied for a grant from NASA to develop technology to do wireless charging on the moon to allow lunar rovers to recharge at bigger stationary landers. It’s out of this world!
Who is your favorite scientist or researcher in your field of research/industry?
A lot of people who work in wireless power like Tesla. My students have quite a few Tesla pictures in the lab. But I still like Einstein the best. And remember, he was working as a patent examiner when he did some of his best work!
Background and Bio:
Josh’s bio: https://sensor.cs.washington.edu/jrs.html
Joshua R. Smith is the Milton and Delia Zeutschel Professor, jointly appointed in the Allen School of Computer Science, and in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Washington, where he leads Sensor Systems Laboratory. His research focuses on inventing new sensor systems, devising new ways to power and communicate with them, and developing algorithms for using them. This research has applications in the domains of ubiquitous computing, robotics, medical devices and human-computer interaction (HCI). His group develops novel sensors for robotic manipulation, resonant wireless power transfer, and far-field wirelessly powered sensing platforms. Professor Smith’s research aims to improve the connection of information systems to the physical world. The research has application in areas such as ubiquitous computing, robotics, wireless power, and medical devices. One theme explored in his research is alternative sensing systems not modeled on human perceptual systems.
Education
A graduate of Williams College, Dr. Smith completed his M.A. in Natural Sciences (Physics and Theoretical Physics) at the University of Cambridge and received his M.S. and Ph.D in Electric Field Imaging from MIT.
CONNECT:
UW Sensor Systems Lab:
https://sensor.cs.washington.edu/
Jeeva
https://www.jeevawireless.com/
Wibotic
https://www.wibotic.com/
Proprio
https://www.propriovision.com/
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About UW CoMotion: CoMotion at the UW is the collaborative innovation hub dedicated to expanding the economic and societal impact of the UW community. By developing and connecting to local and global innovation ecosystems, CoMotion helps innovators achieve the greatest impact from their ideas and discoveries.
