A PhD student in RSISE is sharing his passion for commercialisation with a new program for staff and students that puts $25,000 on the line.

When Lachlan Blackhall was studying undergraduate engineering in Sydney, an advanced program on technology, commercialisation and business planning led him to a venture capital company where he worked for three years. Now in Canberra to complete his PhD, he wants to share his knowledge and interest with staff and students at ANU.

The result is Innovation ANU, a university funded staged commercialisation and business development program designed to encourage students and staff to develop their ideas and research into commercially viable products and services with awards totaling over $50,000 on offer.

"We want to give participants the skills they need to be able to talk to people in the commercialisation world so they are on a level playing field," Lachlan said. "A lot of people have the know-how but not the business skills."

The program starts on 19 March with a welcome and overview of the program at 6pm in the Finkel Lecture Theatre, JCSMR. It will also be the first of a series of seminars with the head of technology commercialisation hub ATP Innovations discussing commercialisation basics.

At the end of the competition there will be opportunities for participants to turn their ideas into real businesses with Innovation ANU able to secure funding from the University's venture capital fund to turn these business plans into reality.

Lachlan hopes staff and students from all areas of the University will get involved. "There's really no area where participants shouldn’t be coming from," he said. "Applied and technical sciences are often where technical ideas come from but the life sciences, arts and social sciences always have very strong business ideas as well. This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone with an idea."

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