"Providing business services links to help entrepreneurs, innovators and inventors turn ideas into commercial ventures has always been the focus of Eastern Kentucky University's Center for Economic Development, Entrepreneurship and Technology (CEDET), but now some of those resources are a little more accessible.
"With our recent relocation to EKU's new Business and Technology Center building, and by locating the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and Innovation and Commercialization Center (ICC) here too, we feel like we can provide one-stop resource shopping for our current and potential clients," CEDET director Cheryl Stone said.
According to Stone, facilitating the interaction among business and technology students and faculty, the business community and entrepreneurs was one of the core concepts behind the construction of the Business and Technology Center building.
"Between EKU's faculty, our staff, the SBDC and the ICC, there is a vast amount of expertise and networking resources just waiting to be shared. Putting everything under one roof gave us an opportunity to give the public better access to these resources and helps us make the delivery of our services as seamless as possible," she added.
CEDET has operated as EKU's university center since 1989, evolving as the needs of the 46-county Eastern Innovation Region changed. Although the Kentucky legislature enacted the Innovation Act in 2000, which brought a focus to assisting new economy innovation businesses, CEDET was already working with innovation economy groups.
"New economy businesses, those that are characterized by research, innovation and technology, are much more likely to be successful if they can easily access resources and have someone guide them through the process of launching a business -things like securing and protecting intellectual property, patenting processes or products, finding research and development grants and acquiring start-up capital.
"Basically, we provide resource links, i.e., those with specialized knowledge about specific resources, and then help guide our clients through the process of taking an idea and turning it into a commercial business."
Case in point -Buswell Energy, LLC. The Berea-based research and development company recently signed a $2 million cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy (DoE) to build a three-phase distribution transformer prototype.
"Buswell was our very first new economy client," Stone said. "In 2001, Dr. Buswell heard about CEDET and the ICC and our association with EKU as well as our partnership with the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC), and he contacted us even before we completed staffing our office. We have worked with him and his partners since 2001 to provide business guidance that resulted in his ability to secure start-up funding, secure intellectual property, continue research and development of the product and eventually apply for and receive the DoE grant.
"Buswell Energy is the perfect example of what we are trying to do in terms of bringing a technology or idea to the marketplace."
Kristel Smith, CEDET assistant director, said that Buswell Energy is a good example of working with a client that understands the business structure needed to take a product to market.
"Each client's needs are very different and not just in terms of the kind of product or technology he/she has an idea for," Smith said. "They come with varying degrees of expertise and knowledge. Dr. Buswell and his partners, for example, were already knowledgeable about many aspects of commercializing a technology, and they had already established an office. They were at a place where we could provide assistance by introducing them to market strategy modeling, which helped them focus on who their market was and how to approach it. We also helped introduce them to different funding sources and additional outside resources.
"Many of our other clients, however, are at the very beginning stage of entrepreneurship, in that they will come in with an idea or an invention and want to know where to go from there. For these clients, we really turn into mentors, walking them through specific processes and guiding them to experts in specific areas such as manufacturing, marketing or raising private capital.
"In addition to that, we sometimes find ourselves helping clients find the missing piece of their idea or production puzzle. In other words, we provide access to the networks and relationships we've established with other community groups and businesses."
With the addition of the Safety and Security Business Incubator, a collaboration between EKU's College of Business and Technology and the College of Justice and Safety operated by CEDET, start-up businesses focused on safety or security will have the option of being physically located in the Business and Technology Center building. According to Gary Marshall, ICC executive director, qualified start-up businesses that choose to locate within the building will have distinct benefits.
"It will be very beneficial in terms of networking with business faculty, because they will be right here and the Justice and Safety faculty are right across the street," Marshall said. "In addition, the office space is very affordable, and they will share the facilities with other start-ups in various stages of the commercialization protocol, so they will have opportunities to network with others in the same business arena.
"And just like any other start-up client, they will have access to ICC support in terms of staff expertise and coaching and a service provider network. The difference is, they won't have to make a call when they have questions -we'll be right down the hall.
"The bottom line is we can offer all our clients a combination of expertise and process protocols, helping them align financial and human capital into an integrated business."
Eastern Kentucky University will dedicate the new Business and Technology Center building Saturday, September 9, at 10:30 a.m. The building is located on the east side of Lancaster Road just south of the Richmond bypass.