DESCRIPTION

KNOW HUB BRIDGE: REDUCING TECHNOLOGY RISK TO IMPROVE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
OPPORTUNITIES TO INTERNATIONAL MARKET

 

Know Hub Chile Bridge Programme seeks to develop favourable conditions for the maturation and introduction of new technological goods or services in international markets through market feasibility financing. This version of the programme is carried out together with a Know Hub Chile international strategic ally, University of California Riverside (UC Riverside, USA). Particularly, with its Proof-of-Concept programme,
sponsored by the Spanish company ‘Eurosemillas S.A., which owns licensing contracts for several plant varieties with the American university. From this synergy, Bridge – UC Riverside 2020 call arises.

Bridge – UC Riverside 2020 call aims at financing two research and/or entrepreneur teams having technologies or research results linked with the following 4 areas, with US $25.000:

1. Agrobusiness / Agriculture
2. Energy / Environment
3. Digitalization / Digital Transformation
4. Decarbonization / Greenhouse Emissions

The US$25.000 will be devoted to performing commercial feasibility tests or testing, showing risk mitigation for potential licensees or investors, or tackling specific gaps identified by industries in the areas pointed out above affecting the ability to license or to attract capital. This money can also be employed to gather data to demonstrate the effectiveness of a solution or compound and, only in justified cases, to build a prototype or second prototype iteration in order to prepare commercialization or demonstrate escalation feasibility.

In a first stage, up to five teams will be selected and assigned an international mentor to jointly design a “Plan of Activities and Key Milestones”, covering 12 months. This plan will be presented in January 2021 before an external jury, composed of UC Riverside representatives, investment funds and USA Industry  epresentatives (therefore, it is essential that at least one of the team members can communicate in English fluently). The jury will choose up to two teams: one of which must come from any of Know Hub Chile 11 partners and the other from the national innovation ecosystem in general.

The first of the twelve months Bridge – UC Riverside 2020 programme will last (without any possibility of extension), teams will get training based on iCorps methodology, from the National Science Foundation (USA NSF). This training programme will be carried out during March 2021 and will be led by Know Hub Chile. Its purpose is assisting the teams along the process of discovering their customer and in defining their specific value proposal, by conducting ten interviews with the market.

During the development of the programme, teams will have the chance to be accompanied by an international mentor who, together with Know Hub Chile and UC Riverside, will actively support them in issues like defining their business model, in raising private investment to enter the market and /or in the productive escalation of their research results.

Applications:

Those interested must fill in the application form with the required information in English (downloadable in files section) and send it to brigde@knowhub.cl
Subject must say: “Bridge-UCR 2020 Call – Proposal Title”. Besides, the interested team must accept the application “Terms and Conditions” and add the letter of institutional support.