UGA has two incubators: the Georgia BioBusiness Center (GBBC), designed to accelerate the growth of bioscience ventures; and the Athens New Media Synergy Center (NMSC) which promotes companies that utilize new media, software, and wireless communication.

As director of Research Development and Technology Alliances at the University of Georgia, it is Margaret Wagner Dahl's job to assess potential economic hot spots within the University's array of research activities and to help guide those prospects into becoming viable businesses.

"We target ideas that represent significant market opportunities in digital media, software, biotech, or environmental technologies," says Dahl. "The purpose of the incubator program is to support each step in the development of new products and services, from basic discovery research through full scale commercialization."

UGA's incubators offer start-up businesses assistance in three critical areas: sharpening focus on markets and stakeholders; facilitating connections to funding, partnerships, and University resources; and creating a sense of place through physical settings, intellectual stimulation, and personal relationships.

Deliberate project targeting is a significant element in the program's success. In order to be admitted to either program prospective companies must meet a strict set of criteria. The enterprise must represent a significantly valuable market opportunity and have a minimum of six months startup funding arranged prior to acceptance. In the case of the BioBusiness Center, at least one member of the management team must have a proven track record within the stated application. And, since incubator space is extremely limited, the programs focus exclusively on companies that are geometrically scaleable.

Acceptance in the Athens New Media Synergy Center also requires that the company utilize some form of new media to deploy their business strategy.

"This does not mean the company exclusively creates content," says Dahl. "Just that digital content must be a key part of the business model. This includes software development, database design, interactive and three-dimensional design, streaming media, and wireless applications."

Partnerships For The Future

Inter-institutional collaboration and industry partnerships are a key part of the curriculum. UGA's incubators are made possible, in large part, through grant money provided by the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), a state-sponsored program funded through industry and lottery dollars. GRA was created to develop Georgia as a national technology hub by forging partnerships among Georgia's high-tech industry and research institutions. Since its inception ten years ago, GRA has invested $70 million of start-up funding and equipment at UGA between the two research commercialization programs.

"The Georgia Research Alliance has been a critical catalyst to our development," says Dahl. "Researchers can access very nice amounts of money through GRA. The only catch is that they must show partnership with another Georgia-based educational institution. So a program at UGA must work in some level of partnership with Georgia Tech, Emory, or Georgia State."

In addition to fostering external partnerships, the incubators work in close affiliation with the University's academic programs. The Athens New Media Synergy Center, based off-campus in downtown Athens, shares facility space and resources with UGA's New Media Institute (NMI), while the Georgia BioBusiness Center functions alongside UGA's Center for Applied Genetic Technologies.

"Synergy among the incubator's various start-up companies and industry partners increases the flow of technology from the discovery lab to the marketplace," says Dahl.

Incubator candidates receive support from UGA throughout three critical phases of the startup process: primary identification of the intellectual property; proof of concept development; and lastly, scale up and execution.

"I spend a lot of time walking the halls talking with scientists to see if there are potential start-up opportunities," says Dahl. "We work very closely with the technology transfer office in verifying that there is a market opportunity and what level of entrepreneurial interest there is to carry a program to the next phase."

In phase two, UGA commercialization and research teams analyze proof of concept issues and develop a staging strategy for launching the business plan.

"Phase two generally takes from six to 12 months and we'll throw in anything from $50 to $150,000 from various seed funding programs to see if it really has the potential to become a business."

Candidates that progress to phase two can have access to technology development labs that are potentially rent-free and co-housed in academic sections of campus buildings.

To reach phase two prospective companies must engage in a process involving an advisory group to the vice president for research. Selections are made based on level of fit and space availability. The idea is to provide viable companies a head start towards building an intellectual property portfolio and developing as a successful business.

Start-ups then move into phase three, the execution and scale up stage. At this is point they become bona fide businesses and are granted space in the commercialization facilities as rent-paying tenants with the added leverage of access to UGA's core research facilities.

Space Matters

Dahl emphasizes that knowing and providing the infrastructure specific to each industry has been critical to the program's success.

"Industry specific infrastructure is a major source of incubator value," she says.

The research facilities, which focus extensively on genomics and proteomics (the study of genetic protein expression), include an animal genomics laboratory, a plant genomics laboratory, a transgenic poultry facility, a mammalian cloning facility, and an aquatic biotechnology lab.

GBBC and the Center for Applied Genetic Technologies are housed in a newly constructed, 60,000-sf facility paid for by grant money from the Georgia Research Alliance in partnership with the University of Georgia Research Foundation and the Woodruff Foundation.

"When you walk through the front door into the main reception area you have to make a decision to either go right into the academic unit or left into the commercialization center. So right away there's a bridge tying these two units and programs together," says Dahl.

In addition to having access to the UGA's extensive facilities, units in the GBBC have been outfitted with Class A wet lab space, fume covers, bottle washes, and storage facilities.

The Athens New Media Synergy Center and its academic sister NMI share space in a newly refurbished building in downtown Athens. The facility, UGA's first off campus, is equipped with high-speed wireless Internet access, development servers, a Flash animation lab, and Webcast studios.

The companies that operate from the the Synergy Center include Eo Studios, a new media design firm specializing in interactive educational projects for the healthcare and health education markets; FormStudios, which provides 3D visualization and design services; and Dreamspan, a Web-based distribution network that specializes in acquiring short film content for the entertainment industry. Dreamspan's offline film festival— Short Attention Span Film and Video Festival— more than thirty cities nationwide.

Incubator tenants "graduate" and move on to their own quarters after they have completed a three-year residency and the company's management, capitalization, and revenue generation goals have been largely met. Businesses may also be relocated if production scale-up is no longer feasible within the core facility.

Culture Breeds Innovation

Fostering a culture of interdisciplinary expertise and innovative research are also hallmarks of the Georgia Research Alliance and the University of Georgia System. One of the ways this culture is promoted is through UGA's and GRA's eminent scholar program. The University searches out some of the country's best scientific talent and brings them to UGA to pursue their research.

"The eminent scholars are given lots of infrastructure resources and access to state-of-the-art instrumentation. Of course, there is an economic development expectation and many of the eminent scholars bring a start-up company, or the concept of a start-up, with them," says Dahl. UGA has endowed seven eminent scholars in its curriculum.

Venture capital is a vital component in developing these types of commercialization opportunities. And, according to Dahl, the University's programs have been a great way of inculcating and educating regional investors to take risks on the potentially high return deals that UGA's incubators focus on. In fiscal 2001 VC financing contributed $35 million to incubator businesses.

"The critical piece, particularly for us in smaller communities, is the backing of local private investors. We have a number of angels that have funded deals and most of them live less than 50 miles away. We call this the "drive-by, watching-your-dollars-at-work" concept. Each of these deals had a local investor who stepped up to the plate and wanted to be directly involved in growing the opportunity," she says.

UGA success stories include AviGenics, which started out in 1996 and has since emerged as a worldwide leader in avian biotechnology, producing biopharmaceuticals in the eggs of chickens. Another UGA partner, BresaGen, an Australian-based company that specializes in genetic research, owns four of the stem cell lines recently selected by the National Institute of Health to receive government funding for cloning research.

"When you consider the facilities decisions involved in pulling commercialization opportunities out of the research enterprise, the most important element is solid leadership. Our biggest challenge in the biotech program comes when people get anxious about sharing information and there is an immediate reaction of locking the door. It essentially comes down to the fact that leadership and clear values are the glue that holds everything together," says Dahl.

By Johnathon Allen