“Convince yourself, convince others”

The Great Lakes Energy Institute, in partnership with the IDEA Student Club of the Weatherhead School of Management, will bring entrepreneur Russ Donda to campus Friday, Oct. 7, at 1 p.m. in Peter B. Lewis Building, Room 201. Donda, entrepreneur-in-residence for medical device and biosensor technologies at GLIDE, BioEnterprise and JumpStart, will present “Convince yourself, Convince others.” He will address the five basic assessments for commercializing technology any entrepreneur interested in turning their idea into a business must address:

• Intellectual property;
• Compelling need/competitive advantage;
• Market size;
• Task/timeline/budget; and
• Product or unit and customer acquisition cost.

In this presentation, Donda will cover how these principles apply to you as a potential entrepreneur and how to communicate them to convince others to support your business, with a special emphasis on energy technology and product technology start-ups. As an entrepreneur-in-residence, Donda helps company founders assess the commercial feasibility of their technology, and with that feasibility confirmed, he assists in creating and implementing their development plan and ushers them through the local seed funds. Among other projects, Donda was the founding CEO and chairman of the board for ViewRay Inc., a company developing a novel form of radiation therapy. It was subsequently venture funded by Aisling Capital, Fidelity Biosciences, Kearny Venture Partners, OrbiMed Advisors and Siemens Venture Capital GmbH. He also was a founding member and co-chair of investment review for the Emergent Growth Fund, LLC, an angel investment fund focused on technology businesses. Additionally, he was a founding manager of and spearheaded business development for the allograft implant company Regeneration Technologies, a privately held, for-profit spinout of The University of Florida Orthopedic Tissue Bank. Donda’s presentation is open to all, but will be of particular interest to those faculty and students interested in commercializing technology or joining a start-up. No RSVP is required.