when ideas take shape (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

when ideas take shape

Are you the type of person who has dozens of doodles of weird and wonderful inventions crammed into the back of your sock drawer? Swindon Innovation Centre network manager Simon Bond has some advice on how to turn those hi-tech concepts into reality.

Imagine you've got a brilliant hi-tech idea. You're sure it could revolutionise the way people communicate, or move or live. You're absolutely convinced it could work, but the problem is how to make it happen.

After all, you'd need a lot of technical support and access to particular expertise. And somewhere to develop it, as well as help in checking that it isn't being developed by someone else already.

So how can you change your drawing on the back of an envelope into an invention that could stand up there with the internet, the Dyson vacuum cleaner or cat's eyes on the road?

The answer lies in our Innovation Centre at the University of Bath in Swindon.

Sixteen entrepreneurs with brilliant hi-tech ideas have already moved into the University of Bath in Swindon's Innovation Centre on the Oakfield campus, to see if those ideas really could be viable.

There they develop their concepts which currently range from web conferencing to drug testing, and from semi-conductor design to new kinds of mobile phones.

The management team at the centre know only too well that getting a venture started can be daunting if not downright impossible for some would-be entrepreneurs, especially if they have no previous experience in setting up business or have a full-time day job to juggle, too.

Each of us has a wealth of experience in technology and start-ups, so we can help clients develop their own business. But there's more to the Innovation Centre than that.

Through a powerful, four-University collaboration called SETsquared, which has studied why hi-tech enterprise has been so successful in the US and applied the formula to the UK, we also offer opportunities to network with and gain advice from the universities' world-class academic researchers and the regional business community.

Put simply, the Innovation Centre is a base camp for start-up technology companies.

No client stays in the centre longer than two years and during this time we expect them to be on a high growth path that will lead them into commercial premises, with staff and operations in national or even international markets.

First of all, we talk to potential clients to see whether our fast-track, hi-tech environment is appropriate for their enterprise.

We then ask them to complete an application form which is in fact the basis of a business plan and establishes a clear starting point for the business and shows how and where the Innovation Centre can help the business to grow.

Key questions included are issues surrounding intellectual property, possible protection with a patent or through copy- right, finance, key staff and customers.

Once accepted, clients can choose to hire single or multiple desks, either in a dedicated office of their own or hot-desk according to their needs.

Whatever they choose, it comes fully furnished with a telephone and PC that is hooked-up to broadband.

The centre offers 24/7 access so that the entrepreneurs can work around the clock on their plans and, because the Innovation Centre is located within the University Campus, clients can also make use of the M4 Business Resource, which includes an extensive library and access to many online business information services.

Our next step is to work with the client to select a mentor.

Mentors volunteer their services on a free of charge basis and offer the Innovation Centre's clients a vital combination of encouragement, counsel and experience.

They typically dedicate two days a month to a venture, and sometime much more, and with

a track-record of working at the highest levels in new technology and the start-up environment, a mentor can really help to fast-track the new businesses.

We also hold networking events for our clients, such as business breakfasts with presentations on protecting intellectual property, how to raise finance, and winning government grants.

We also arrange events and tours for our clients to meet and develop working relationships with the University's research academics.

What we don't do is let anyone rest on their laurels.

We set a fast pace for clients and keep up the momentum of business growth through a system of Business Review Panels.

Three times a year, Innovation Centre clients have the opportunity to meet a team made up of the Centre's corporate partners to set goals for their businesses.

With corporate partners that

include law firms such as Thring Townsend and Withy King, the accountants Mona-hans, HSBC bank, and venture capitalists, Catalyst Ventures Partners, Business Review Panels help centre clients to maintain the self-discipline that keeps their businesses growing.

Not to mention help turning each one of them into a Bill Gates or James Dyson of the future.