Fiscal Year 2016 Annual Report
March 10, 2017
Welcome from the Director
Dear Colleagues,
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As I reflect on the accomplishments made by our Knights in FY 2016, I am reminded that innovation and partnership are two key pillars of UCF’s success. I am honored to work with our community of researchers, entrepreneurs and innovators that push through the boundaries of what is known to discover and explore the unknown. I am encouraged by their collaboration with each other and other universities, labs, foundations and companies to advance science, innovation and technology.
Innovation
UCF researchers create innovative solutions for the most pressing problems of today and tomorrow. One such solution, an integrated source that both stores and transmits energy for applications as diverse as aerospace and smart phones was developed by associate professor Jayan Thomas. This game changing technology was awarded an Oscar of Innovation (page 22) and is now on its way to commercialization through a student-led startup, Capacitech Energy.
Through their intellectual curiosity, our faculty, students and staff continue to advance the pursuit of knowledge and innovation in classrooms, labs and in the field. Thank you to the 161 UCF innovators recognized for submitting disclosures of new discoveries to our office in FY 2016 (page 9). As these disclosed innovations often result in patents, UCF continues to lead in the number of U.S. issued patents (page 5).
I would also like to congratulate the two UCF professors whose “prolific spirit of innovation” was recognized nationally as they were named Fellows by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) – Issa Batarseh and Quifang Li (page 6).
Partnership
Our partnerships with entrepreneurs, industry and other institutions amplify the impact of our innovation. In FY 16, the Technology Transfer team worked with 31 industry partners, nine of which were startup companies, to finalize 34 license and option agreements to bring UCF discoveries to the marketplace.
The assistance our faculty and students receive from other entrepreneurial support organizations at UCF (page 23) have enabled them to start and grow companies around the innovations they are creating.
We recognize the tremendous effort and dedication of our scientists and are committed to harnessing the benefits of their research results for the betterment of our community and our world.
Svetlana Shtrom, Ph.D., M.B.A.
Director, Office of Technology Transfer