The 2022 AUTM Annual Meeting was held in New Orleans, Louisiana from February 20-23rd. This event brought together technology transfer professionals from around the globe to discuss trends happening within the commercialization space. Jake Sweeney, Hunter Calvert, and Abner Castaneda represented ktMINE at the event and have provided their takeaways.
Day 1: Booth Setup
The ktMINE team touched down in New Orleans on Sunday morning ready to kick off the first in-person AUTM Annual Meeting in two years. While there to connect with technology transfer professionals, it was obvious that there was another event happening in town – Mardi Gras. After hitting lots of Mardi Gras traffic and before setting up our booth, we walked to lunch to fuel up with seafood pasta and fried catfish at Drago’s, inside the Hilton Riverside hotel.
 
 
After lunch, we made our way over to the AUTM conference hall. It felt great to reconnect with familiar faces while setting up the booth.
Day 2: Opening Session & Exhibit Floor
While attending the opening sessions and working the booth, we were able to meet several of our customers in person for the first time, and listen to feedback while also learning about new trends and data needs in the technology transfer space. Not only were we able to visit with our current customers, but we were able to network with many new technology transfer professionals to discuss their needs for consolidating their research tools – something that we heard a lot over the course of our time in New Orleans.
 
 
Midday, we took a quick break from the booth to attend the Blockchain, NFTs, and Universities: How to Navigate and Monetize session. During this session, hosted by Mike Cohen, Director of Innovation Ecosystem Development at UC Berkeley, and Patrick McLaren, Chief Operating Officer at Nifty Gateway, they discussed what these technologies are, how they can be used and provided examples of real projects. The session was extremely informative as we have seen a resurgence of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies.
To close out a successful day on the exhibit floor, the team headed back to Drago’s for our first charbroiled oysters experience.
Day 3 – Sessions & Exhibit Floor
After spending our morning at the ktMINE booth networking, we made our way over to the Plenary session – Perspectives of the Far Side of the Moon. These five panelists included Gaylene Anderson of Boehringer Ingelheim, Katharine Ku of Wilson Sonsini, Kirsten Leute of Osage University Partners, Gayatri Varma of AstraZeneca, and Teri Willey of IU Ventures. This insightful session focused on the insights gained by former TTO leaders who now work on the outside to help others. During this session, we heard several interesting tips to help university and industry collaboration. It was helpful for licensing professionals to learn the inner workings of how companies within their industry operate.
Day 4: Sessions & Closing Reception
On the final day of the event, we attended the session Death of University TTO in the United States. This educational roundtable discussion highlighted how rapidly the technology transfer profession has grown. We were able to sit in and hear the realities that technology transfer professionals face today as well as discuss the profession of university technology transfers as a whole.
After listening to professionals from around the globe discuss what it is like to be a TTO today, we walked to lunch at Café Du Monde and The Market Cafe to reflect.
Following lunch, we attended the 2022 AUTM Annual Meeting closing reception hosted at the Mark Twain Courtyard, Riverside Complex. It is always amazing how quickly industry events go. However, it’s great to return to Chicago with an abundance of new information around what technology transfer professionals are looking for and how the ktMINE team can provide it to them.Â
 
Thank you AUTM for yet another great event!
