Empowering enterprising technicians
As a technician:
- Do you develop business cases?
- Do you transfer your skills and knowledge to others?
- Do you use any systems or kit that could be adapted to improve your work, a process or the way you assist others?
If so, then Your Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES) is something for you.
YES is an opportunity that helps bring out your creative ideas while teaching you skills across the areas of business, finance and product development.
Left to right: Javier De Andrés Álvarez (UCL), James Hooper (University of Leeds), Dorota Studniarczyk (UCL), Ian Coombs (UCL) and Nnenna Ugwuocha (University of Dundee)
Dr Dorota Studniarczyk, a technician at University College London (UCL), shares her experience of YES23:
Participating in YES23 opened immense possibilities, allowing you to gain not only commercial awareness and new business skills but also connecting you to leading experts in the fields of intellectual property, business and finance. YES equips all participants with tools allowing them to turn their ideas into an actual real-life ‘thing’ that could benefit the world around us.
The work of UK ITSS and MI TALENT highlights the important role of technicians in knowledge exchange – from delivering open days, working with industry to solve their technical problems to contributing to the university’s commercialisation process. A recent paper in the Journal of Technology Transfer develops a future research agenda for the role of technicians in knowledge exchange across all the different activities.
YES24 is once again supporting technicians to develop their skills and business cases for lab equipment or new positions. It also provides understanding of the commercialisation process and creates opportunities to broaden your networks.
Dr Ian Coombs, also a technician at University College London (UCL), spoke about his experience:
TALENT’s funding for technical staff gave me the chance to participate in YES23 to explore and better understand the world of entrepreneurs. The scheme has helped to demystify some of the ways in which laboratory research can be commercialised and has given me motivation and belief to pursue ideas both within the university setting and outside. Working with a team and building a hypothetical business was enormous fun. The lectures, workshops and mentoring sessions also provided me with valuable knowledge and transferable skills. I even enjoyed the networking during our day at GSK (not something I imagined myself ever saying!).
We are inviting all enterprising technicians to join us at one of our online awareness sessions to learn more about what’s involved in YES24 and to find out if it is for you.
Visit the official YES website to learn more about YES24 and unleash your ingenuity today! Register for one of our 30-minute online awareness sessions scheduled in May, June and July