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Title: Step Change for Innovation in Scotland: How to Massively Increase Research Funding and Venture Capital Supply through Leveraging Immigration Policy and Programmes
-Discourse by Michael Clouser, Academic Entrepreneur, Alumnus of the University of Edinburgh’s Business School, former Edinburgh-Stanford Linker, Cornellian, and Blogger
On the eve of the Referendum on Independence in Scotland the E-Club presents a timely and informative talk on innovation policy and its potential for delivering step change on the knowledge landscape and entrepreneurial ecology of the Land as we presently know it. University of Edinburgh Business School Alumnus, Co-founder of the Edinburgh Entrepreneurship club, former Edinburgh-Stanford Linker, and Academic Entrepreneur Michael Clouser returns to Edinburgh from extended journeys in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and the Silicon Valley to share his experiences, research and findings across multiple regions. A few years ago Michael taught the Club about the Israeli Model of Innovation and compared it to Scotland’s in what was a semi-controversial lecture at the time, in part because of its reflection on the impact of immigration, especially Russian, on the technology and innovative capacity of Israel.
Tonight’s presentation and discourse will promises to top this in terms of creating friends and foes. It will address the problem of innovation capacity and provide a solution for a step change in such for Scotland through policy and programmes that leverage the immigration opportunity (especially Chinese) and would lead to massive increases in the supply of entrepreneurial risk capital and funding for investigation and learning. Research funding sows the fields and plants the seeds of innovation; venture capital both attracts and fuels entrepreneurial spirit; and together they lead to economic development. Whether or not you are a believer in the knowledge economy and its potential, you will find Michael’s supply-side paradigm and conclusions intriguing and enticing but yet wrapped in the tensions of the moment. How can Scotland massively increase the supply of research funding and venture capital? That is the question the talk will answer, so do come and listen.
Note: If you miss the discourse itself, not to worry. Just come afterwards and meet us in the pub
About Michael Clouser
Michael Clouser of The Academic Entrepreneur has spent the last 20 years in and around innovation regions and entrepreneurial institutions of higher education including Cornell University. Stanford University, and the University of Edinburgh; as well as others such as the University of California-Berkeley, The University of Central Florida, Royal Roads University, the University of Victoria, and others. He is an academic entrepreneur, having taught, researched, and spun out companies from universities.
Also, there is a bit of academic venture capitalist in his background as well, as he invested and managed portfolio companies with Dot Edu Ventures, a Stanford-related seed-level technology venture capital fund which was founded by the late Dr. Rajeev Motwani, Professor of Computer Science, who gave Larry and Sergey the assignment “find a better way to search the internet”. With this firm Michael assisted graduate student startups from computer science departments raise over $50 million in follow-on Series A-round venture capital from Sand Hill Road firms. Successful exits were seen from the fund as well.
An Alumnus of the Business School, Michael’s research surrounded Triple Helix Scotland – government-university-industry relations, policy, and transatlantic collaboration for innovation and academic entrepreneurship. The Triple Helix is an innovation construct developed in part by Dr. Henry Etkzowitz (Stanford – Edinburgh – New Castle). Michael focused especially on the processes and bottlenecks surrounding student startups from the university setting. This resulted in the “Clouser Model of Entrepreneurial Brain Drain” which will be touched upon in tonight’s’ talk, and is related to the gap in risk capital supply for student ventures, many of which hold great potential for growth in the regions of their respective universities.
Michael co-founded the Edinburgh Entrepreneurship Club, now “E-Club” for short, with Dr. Geoff Gregson and Aidan Heatherington in 2005. After some one-armed paperhanging running the Silicon Valley Speaker Series for years, which brought over his friends such as Dave McClure (500), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), Mike Masnick (TechDirt), Kevin Hartz (Eventbrite) and Jim Buckmaster (Craigslist), and introducing a whole lot of people to each other (such as Nigel, Tom and Rab from what is now Fanduel who met in the Pub after the Craigslist talk), Michael recruited and hosted Heidi Roizen as the E-Club’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR). The E-Club grew from 0 to just over 700 during his tenure as an organizer. One of his last and most remembered gigs was an interview in chef’s whites of Ann Winblad, the Silicon Valley’s most famous woman venture capitalist in a joint-mixer with the Wine Meetup Group.
Michael coordinated the Edinburgh-Stanford Link, based in the School of Informatics, for 7 years. He also taught technology entrepreneurship to MSc and PhD students in the School of Informatics and what was ACE at the time. In addition he co-founded Entrepedia, a knowledge database for student entrepreneurs, and the TechEnt online course series in technology entrepreneurship. Masterclasses for Scotland’s technology startups he co-taught or organized as well over this 2004-2011 period.
During his MBA years at Cornell University as an executive-MBA, Michael served as the CEO of Student Agencies Incorporated (SAI), America’s oldest student-run corporation. At the time, the organization had $20 million in real estate assets, 14 businesses operated by student managers; a student venture capital fund (NGO structure) and an incubator for student start-ups. Out of this space and under his belt came The Globe (NASDAQ IPO 1997), CourseInfo (Blackboard –NASDAQ IPO), and Jump Networks, which sold to Microsoft in the $40 million range. As the CEO of SAI Michael had responsibility for 150 employees for what was the 2nd largest employer in Ithaca, New York, behind only Cornell University itself. On the side Michael sold Hickey-Freeman suits to MBA and Law School students; and started CEO Research, a competitive intelligence research company staffed with some fellow MBA students. He also wrote a case study on Chuck Feeney of Duty Free Shoppes (“The Billionaire that Wasn’t”).
Michael’s first career was that of a hotel turnaround general manager. He turned 4 limited service properties around in 4 years, producing IRRs in excess of 40% for the limited partners of the private equity fund for whom he worked. It was this experience that led him into software development and electronic distribution of lodging supply and into the entrepreneurial role. His online travel company was founded in 1994 in Orlando, Florida, and sold in 1996.
Michael’s educational qualifications include earning a BS in Hospitality Technology and Entrepreneurship from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. Years later he earned MBA in Venture Capital from the Johnson Graduate School of Management. After a stint in Silicon Valley as a venture capitalist he returned to pursue the MSc / PhD under the supervision of Dr. Richard Harrison of the Entrepreneurship Research Centre in the Business School of the University of Edinburgh. Half of that educational goal got accomplished, the other half? He still hopes to finish that up.
“Researching and teaching entrepreneurship is like being an alcoholic working in a pub. You can sniff the lager, the porter, the Hendrick’s gin, you can pour it, get it all over your measly sticky hands, spill it on your shirt so you whiff the yeasty goodness on the long walk home down High Street, but you can’t drink it. Just beyond your reach, but you can’t drink it. Sooner or later you might go native and start guzzling the stock down” remarks Clouser on his stall in his PhD progress, referring to an ethnographic research taboo.
A serial entrepreneur, Michael has recently started a couple of new firms including a software company and a 2nd stage accelerator. He is reviewing other opportunities and always game to talk shoppe. His students always appreciated his open door, and interested attention to their ideas and dreams.
Michael continues to self-educate, formally and informally, as well as research. Most recently he completed a stock of Lynda.com courses, which he thinks are just fabulous. He also completed a couple of research projects in Western Canada which will be referenced this evening. Currently he is working on research proposal which may get fielded on Experiment.com, a new Y Combinator startup that is focused on research crowdfunding.
Michael blogs on his site the Academic Entrepreneur http://academicentrepreneur.wordpress.com/. He writes on academic entrepreneurship, university spin-outs and startups, student entrepreneurship, university policies and programmes around innovation, incubation, acceleration, and policy. He is currently running a series on Scotland and innovation policy and its potential. You can follow him on Twitter as well @AcademicEntrep. He recently starteda new meetup group, the Scotland Silicon Valley Link which you can find here: http://www.meetup.com/Scotland-Silicon-Valley-Link/
Michael was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsyvlania, where he started his first business (bookmaking) while at Mt. Lebanon High School, which also taught Mark Cuban. His sons are actually ice hockey players in Canada, while Michael played baseball as a youth and beyond. Michael enjoys travel, historic inns, antique maps, oil on canvas, and the sports of Irish hurling, shinty, rugby, golf in addition to those mentioned above.
