Paul Jackson is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Programs at Entrepreneurs' Center (EC) in Dayton, Ohio, where he leads EC's Commercialization Team and has directly supported over 100 startups in licensing university- and federally-owned IP. He also co-teaches the University of Dayton's entrepreneurship capstone course, guiding students through market assessment and new venture creation based on university-derived technology. Paul's experience spans nearly 20 years across technology commercialization, economic development, and applied research policy — including managing Ohio Third Frontier's technology commercialization and R&D grant portfolio. That work has put him in direct, ongoing contact with technology transfer offices across the State and beyond, giving him a broad, cross-institutional view of what it takes to move research out of the lab and into the market.
University tech transfer offices and military labs sit on a goldmine of uncommercialized innovation, yet they remain widely misunderstood and underutilized by hardware startups. Most founders view tech transfer as a single-shot transaction—acquiring an isolated piece of IP only if they happen to graduate from that specific institution. This session flips the script, mapping out how to proactively approach research hubs and build a comprehensive tech-licensing package. We will demystify the licensing pipeline, explore how to combine multiple technologies to create a moat, and show how to leverage public R&D to drive long-term corporate growth rather than a one-off product launch.
