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Adi Treasurywala, the President of ArrowCan Partners, spoke at the Licensing Executive Society Toronto Chapter meeting on Matching Inventors to Investors: A Dialogue. He outlined the process from idea to commercialization: basic research –> fundamental discoveries –> practical inventions –> commercialization (products and wealth). He noted that inventors tend to face two big challenges in the process towards commercialization. First, determining which problem their invention can solve, and, second, finding someone to help them commercialize their invention.

At MaRS Entrpreneurship 101, Jon Worren echoed Adi Treasurywala when he quoted Len Waverman, Dean of DeGroote School of Business. Len Waverman believes that “so many products built in the lab don’t make it to the market … [because] their sponsors can’t or don’t know how to demonstrate that there is a market for them. In Canada, the inability to commercialize an innovation is today’s innovator’s dilemma.”

http://www.degroote.mcmaster.ca/articles/overcoming-canadas-commercialization-deficit/

In order to properly commercialize inventions, I recommend that inventors use the design thinking process to avoid creating products that nobody wants. Also, I recommend that inventors make networking a priority, which can later help them commercialize their product. Adi Treasurywala asserts that “networking is at the heart of success”.

http://arrowcan.com/?page_id=33