Student ideas could boost Scots economy

Published on Monday 23 February 2009 21:06

STUDENTS at Edinburgh University could create the next Microsoft or Facebook, according to the man charged with commercialising research from one of the institution's most highly-ranked departments.

Colin Adams, director of commercialisation at the school of informatics – which brings together computer science and information handling – said student-led projects, as well as those developed by the university's academics, had the potential to boost the Scottish economy.

His comments came as new figures show that Scottish Enterprise's Prospekt partnership with the university has led to 20 projects starting the commercialisation process in the past two years.

Nine of these are being developed through the Edinburgh Pre-incubator Scheme (Epis), while seven are taking part in Scottish Enterprise's proof of concept programme.

A further two have led to enterprise fellowships with the Royal Society of Edinburgh and two are being pursued by ITI Scotland, Scottish Enterprise's technology investment arm.

The 8 million Prospekt programme was launched in July 2006 to licence research to existing businesses and set up fresh spin-out companies.

Adams said the 20 Prospekt projects contained a mixture of work by staff and research carried out by his students.

The projects cover a broad range of subjects, from life sciences and energy research through to computer games and new web-based technologies.

He said: "If you look at the significant new companies that have grown over the past ten years worldwide then the bulk have been created by kids under the age of 25 – Google, Facebook, Youtube, Apple, Microsoft.

"Bill Gates was 19 when he formed Microsoft, Steve Wozniak was under 25 when he and (Steve] Jobs kicked off Apple.

"What we have clustered around this school is some of the best young talent in the world – we want to give them the space and education to come up with off-the-wall ideas, one of which might be the next big one.

"You only need one of those big ideas out of the programme to have really made a significant impact on the economy – that's what we're trying to do."

Adams highlighted work being done on computers that can mimic human speech and on more secure software.

Other projects being developed as part of Prospekt include "casual games" – such as card games or Sudoku – and an interface to allow collectors to carry out more detailed searches on auction website eBay.

Edinburgh University's informatics school is the largest in Europe and is described as among the top four in the world.

Brainwave, a company with Prospekts

BRAINWAVE, one of the latest companies to be spun-out from Edinburgh University, is supporting research into central nervous system diseases such as Parkinson's.

Technology developed by Brainwave allows scientists to study the effects that chemical compounds have on the brains of flies, which are used as models of human brains.

The method was created by Dr Douglas Armstrong, deputy director for bio-informatics at Edinburgh University, and Professor Wayne Davies at Glasgow University.

The pair received a 250,000 proof of concept award from Scottish Enterprise, which gave them three years in which to explore whether they could commercialise their science.

Armstrong said: "We've approached a number of firms and are now looking at tendering for work. Our primary drive is to get sales to get the business running."

Praising the support his new company had received from Prospekt, he added: "We've been able to sit down one-to-one with leading business people and get feedback – that would never have happened without the programme."