Georgia Tech's TI:GER® (Technological Innovation: Generating Economic Results) Program recently won a grant from Georgia Tech's Fund for Innovation in Research and Innovation (GT FIRE) for an international technology commercialization project, to be conducted in collaboration with Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich, Germany.

TI:GER is a partnership between Georgia Tech and Emory University School of Law that brings together PhD, MBA, and law students to learn about the challenges of commercializing innovative technologies.

As part of the international project, select TI:GER students will travel to Munich (beginning in fall 2011) to gain first-hand experience working with foreign teams on projects for startup entities from LMU's Entrepreneurship Center lab incubator. "This global dimension is transformative and vital to the competitiveness of our graduates," says Professsor Marie Thursby, TI:GER's founder and executive director, who was responsible for obtaining this grant.

Participating students also will attend seminars on the European patent and regulatory processes and technology commercialization at LMU's Institute for Innovation Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (INNO-tec), a research and education institute for managing innovation. "We are looking forward to extending this collaboration to a fully reciprocal exchange training arrangement between LMU and Georgia Tech," says Professor Dietmar Harhoff, director of INNO-tec and the LMU Entrepreneurship Center. 

Also as part of the exchange program, LMU students will visit Atlanta, working on teams with TI:GER students on technology commercialization projects for startups in Georgia Tech's VentureLab and Advacned Technology Development Center, a business incubator.