In order to improve our knowledge of private banks’ financing of innovation,  our Office met with Dr. John Piret, of Newbury Piret & Co. (NPC),  a well-known Boston investment bank.  Dr. Piret brings here a very clear overview of the iinvestment banks’ impact on the US innovation.  You can read the trascription from January 2010 here.

John Piret is a Partner at Newbury Piret Co., Inc., an investment bank in Boston, where he manages M&A and Financing transactions for middle-market public and private companies.  He is the Principal Appraiser for the firm and is expert at valuing technology companies.

On March 16^th 2010, we had an interview with Isaac Kohlberg, to discuss the technology transfer program at Harvard and other tech transfer programs across the globe.

Isaac T. Kohlberg is the Senior Associate Provost and Chief Technology Development Officer (OTD) of Harvard University.  His position with the OTD was created in recognition of the changing nature of science from a field with several discrete disciplines to one that is increasingly inter-disciplinary and collaborative, requiring more complex, larger-scale efforts. The Office of Technology Development (OTD) at Harvard University, with a 32-person staff, is dedicated to building strategic partnerships with industry to serve the public interest.  More specifically, the mission of the OTD is to bring the benefits of Harvard research outside the university, including to underserved communitities.  It aims to ensure that society benefits from Harvard innovations by fostering their swift, professional and effective development and commercialization.