BioCity Nottingham Boot Camp in Bangalore
Nottingham/Bangalore, India: Friday, 27th January 2012 Fast on the heels of the announcement of the creation of BioCity Scotland, further evidence of BioCity's widening geographical reach has been provided by the recent staging of a BioEntrepreneur Boot Camp in Bangalore, India between 11th to 13th January.Annual 'Boot Camps', where bioscience researchers and academics explore the world of enterprise and entrepreneurialism with a view to starting their own ventures, have long been a successful feature at BioCity Nottingham and the same approach has now been taken to Bangalore. BioCity Nottingham ran the event with the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) in Bangalore which is a local enabler of success in bioscience research and entrepreneurship. Other partners were the University of Nottingham, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Dr. Taslimarif Saiyed is Director of Strategic Alliances and Business Development for the Indian hosts, C-CAMP. He said, 'We have really enjoyed working with BioCity Nottingham on this project. They bring exciting ideas on how to communicate the skills needed to run a commercial company to people who are more used to a research or academic background. The delegates found the experience both stimulating and challenging. We are hopeful that many of them will take their ideas forward to the Bio Business Plan competition which is part of the BioPharm 2020 event, a major UK and India Science Bridge that the University of Nottingham and C-CAMP are helping stage in Bangalore in March.' Dr Nick Gostick, who led the boot camp for BioCity, said, 'The fundamentals of a BioEntrepreneur Boot Camp in Bangalore are very much the same as in Nottingham, as the skills and core knowledge required for establishing a business are universal. The 27 delegates were taken through the fundamentals of intellectual property, the regulatory environment that applies in India and crucially, what it is that makes a good entrepreneur. Creation of a business plan and the role of finance and marketing were also covered in the three days which ended by giving the delegates the opportunity to pitch their business idea in a 'friendly' Dragons Den environment.' Professor Kevin Shakesheff, who heads the University of Nottingham Science Bridge with India, said, 'I'm delighted that the University's long standing bridge with India has created an opportunity for BioCity to promote the East Midlands and the UK. The UK can prosper economically and scientifically from close links with India. There are many synergies in pharmaceutical research across the 2 countries and the UK is an excellent location for Indian companies to launch products into the EU.' The Indian Boot Camp is the first which has been run in Asia and it is hoped that there will be a spreading network of such camps. A similar Boot Camp is to be run at the new BioCity Scotland site in April. BioCity Nottingham Director Toby Reid said, 'Supporting researchers and academics to make the leap from the laboratory to running a thriving business is the core of what we do here at BioCity. The business world is global and if, by sharing our expertise, we can build links with growing bioscience businesses across the world, that can only be good for the businesses in our incubator here in Nottingham and therefore for the East Midlands BioScience sector as a whole.' Pictured: BioEntrepreneur Boot Camp Co-ordinator Dr Nick Gostick (far right) with Dr Lloyd Hamilton, University of Nottingham (2nd right) and participants at the Bangalore Boot Camp. |