Bringing an idea out of the lab and commercializing it
On May 6, the Institute for Quantum Computing Graduate Student Association (IQC GSA) hosted a talk by Dr. Jonathan Hodges as part of the Quantum Industry Lecture Series. After sharing his research on nitrogen vacancy (NV) centres, he talked about his move from academia into industry.
This year, Hodges joined Diamond Nanotechnologies as the VP of engineering. The company focuses on diamond sensing technology for materials, hardware and software.
Hodges discussed which factors he considered when making his decision to move into industry and what it was like to take what he knew about diamonds NV centres, hardware, software and instrumentation and apply it to the life sciences. For the students, he shared the differences and similarities between working in a startup compared to working in academia – the greatest similarity being that you do everything in a startup just as you do as a student.
He walked students through six steps of commercialization:
- Identify the market or product
- Build the team
- Find seed funding
- Leverage your network
- Start making, keep connecting
- Mitigate risk and hang on
Although risky, Hodges emphasized the fun that comes along with bringing an idea out of the lab and commercializing it.