The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation drives the creation of new businesses and partnerships at the University of Chicago and on Chicago’s South Side, the United States of America. The center brings the power of ideas in the laboratory, classroom and community to the world.
It commercialises discoveries, partners with companies, and attracts venture capital for start-ups. It runs a top-ranked business accelerator, the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge; and operates a 34,000 square-foot, multi-disciplinary co-working space called the Polsky Exchange. The Exchange is the entrepreneurship hub of the entire University of Chicago, said Michael Alter, clinical professor of entrepreneurship. It has raised $500 million in venture capital and grown 100 companies, including GrubHub, Alter said. Firms worth $10 billion were made in the entrepreneurship hub.
The Polsky Center has the George Shultz Innovation Fund, which invests in early-stage ventures, and a state-of-the-art Fabrication Lab for prototyping new products. It manages the University of Chicago’s technology transfer function that houses all University-based intellectual property originating from faculty research and discoveries, which can be licensed to industry partners and investors.
In fact, it is the innovation centre of the University of Chicago, supporting start-ups and entrepreneurs to raise funds and scale up.
Without doubt, universities in the United States of America are platforms through which entrepreneurs are hatched. They bridge the town-gown gap by making vital skills available for industries. A lot of research comes from them, thereby making innovation easier while reducing costs that should have been borne by entrepreneurs.
This is completely different in many countries, especially Nigeria, where universities are centres of theory. Research is limited owing to poor state funding. The immediate consequence of this is that skills are in high shortage, with several multinationals complaining of not finding the right talents months after job placements.
BusinessDay observed during a recent visit to Polsky Center that membership is free for all current UChicago students, faculty and staff. This instils the spirit of entrepreneurship in students and turns even the most indolent staff member into an entrepreneur.
The University of Chicago technology transfer office is part of the Polsky Center with an estimated value of $300 million. More than 200 active licenses from this portfolio drive annual revenue back to the university and its innovators.
Developed and refined over the past 20 years by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business professors, entrepreneurship is now taught across campus to university students, faculty, researchers, alumni and local community entrepreneurs.
“You can see that the United States understands that universities and enterprises are interlinked,” said Ike Ibeabuchi, managing director, MD Services Limited.
“We are yet to understand this fact: The only way to bridge the town-gown gap is to bring the industry and the higher institutions together,” he said.
“This speaks to the type of education and learning we have. Our education is not meeting the needs of the industry because we do not want to copy the American model,” he added.
Nigeria’s unemployment rate is estimated at 23.1 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said,while one out of every two Nigerians lives in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank
John Smith, a Nigerian entrepreneur in food business, said federal and state governments must establish entrepreneurship departments in universities and polytechnics, while strengthening the country’s business schools with research funds.
“Entrepreneurship should start from the school,” Smith said.
“It creates jobs, thereby cutting the high unemployment rate in Nigeria,” he said.
“It will also build a new generation of creative people who will boost the economy, lifting many out of poverty,” he added.
ODINAKA ANUDU
