![\"kevin1\"](\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/kevin1.jpg\")
<\/a>In a 2005 Connecticut Economy<\/i> op-ed piece<\/span><\/a>, Bouley wrote “In my vision of Connecticut\u2019s future, I see many lines of entrepreneurship and high tech activities radiating out from our universities, populated with new companies, creating products and services\u2026I see students\u2026collaborating on innovative concepts and developing business plans that are vetted and funded by local sources of capital and mentored by a growing network of business leaders.\u201d He believes the technology corridor surrounding UConn, linked with a deep reservoir of startup resources in the community, will create an innovation ecosystem that will benefit the entire State.<\/p>\nConnecticut has devoted increasing resources to nurture and grow this pipeline, and last year UConn established for the first time an Office of Economic Development<\/a>, headed by Vice President Mary Holz-Clause, Ph.D. The office works closely with state government, industry, UConn\u2019s Innovation Accelerator, the Connecticut Innovation Ecosystem<\/a> and Connecticut Innovations<\/a> \u2013 which has provided seed funding to a number of the startups coming through XcellR8.<\/p>\n XcellR8 Team<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The XcellR8 meetings depend upon a dedicated group of 60-75 savvy business startup pros who volunteer as their time, and interest in the startups\u2019 particular challenges, allows, to listen attentively to short presentations by would-be entrepreneurs before indulging in a House of Commons-style rapid-fire barrage of incisive comments, questions, anecdotes, and recommendations born of long experience. With a combination of gravitas and levity, the loose alliance of experts prods presenters to gain a larger perspective on the business-development process and to acknowledge shortcomings while offering possible solutions.<\/p>\n The startup hopefuls invariably leave the meetings equipped with new insights, from possible flaws in their business plan to offers for incubation space, names of potential SBIR partners, and sources of seed funding.<\/p>\n The Dura Heart Valve is a transcatheter aortic valve featuring a durable lifetime that is three-to-four times that of any valve currently on the market or in clinical trials. Once it passes all regulatory hurdles, the Dura Heart Valve will enable younger patients to enjoy long-duration TAV procedures. Dura Biotech was founded by UConn Associate Professor Dr. Wei Sun, a world expert in heart valve mechanics.<\/p>\n Dura Biotech is just one of three startups to face the XcellR8 crowd since December.\u00a0 In January,\u00a0Advanced Column Solutions<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Herman and Peterson Engineering <\/i>delivered presentations before the group. All three teams have emerged from the Experiential Technology Entrepreneurship I and II course taught by Professor of Practice Hadi Bozorgmanesh, who often collaborates with Bouley to vault UConn-grown technologies successfully into the commercial arena.<\/p>\n M.S. student Alicia Echevarria, CEO of Advanced Column Solutions (ACS), said \u201cIt was very helpful to present in front of such a diverse audience. \u00a0I make most of my presentations to other engineers, but the XcellR8 session gave me a chance to present in front of business-minded people from diverse backgrounds. \u00a0One thing I learned from the session was that customers may value something complete different from what I thought was the main value proposition of our product. Adam Herman and Jeffrey Peterson, co-founders of the eponymously-named Herman and Peterson Engineering, LLC, said \u201cPresenting in front of more than 20 experts, including engineers, lawyers, and successful entrepreneurs, was an invaluable experience. The XcellR8 meeting gave us feedback on not only our business model, but also our presentation style; something that can only be attained in the environment the XcellR8 program creates. Since the meeting, we have established numerous contacts in IP protection, biotech product development, and funding opportunities.\u201d\u00a0 Herman and Peterson manufactures Nanolyze, a breakthrough, high-performance, safe blood glucose test strip for diabetes management. The technology was developed by engineering Associate Professor Yu Lei.<\/p>\n Bouley and Bozorgmanesh agree that graduate students are particularly well suited for entrepreneurial ventures. \u201cUnlike faculty \u2013 who possess deep, domain-specific expertise but generally are focused on research and teaching \u2013 and similarly, unlike undergraduates \u2013 who possess unbridled enthusiasm and energy but lack the depth of domain-specific expertise required for successful tech entrepreneurship – graduate students are on a pathway to building deep, domain-specific expertise but also still possess that boundless energy and enthusiasm that characterizes undergraduates. Graduate students are the tech entrepreneurial \u2018sweet spot\u2019 between acquisition and application of innovative ideas,\u201d explains Bouley.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Business startups emerging from UConn’s technology-fertile, highly inventive community have an important yet little-known ally located just minutes from campus: XcellR8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":224628,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2110],"class_list":["post-203642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 15:13:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224629,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203642\/revisions\/224629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/224628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203642"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=203642"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=203642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Ph.D. candidate Eric Sirois, a principal in Dura Biotech, presented a business plan for one of the company\u2019s proprietary products, the Dura Heart Valve, before the XcellR8 group in February. Commenting on the experience, he said, \u201cThe XCellR8 program is a great fit for businesses like ours because we are engineers first, and trying to learn the business side as we go.\u00a0 The XCellR8 crowd conveys a \u2018get it done\u2019 philosophy that sent me off with a recharged battery, ready to get back to pushing this technology forward. I was able to make some one-on-one connections with professionals in areas very important to us, including regulatory affairs, quality control, and legal matters.\u201d The meeting may also have unveiled a possible production site for the company and a potential contact who can assist with the eventual sale or sub-licensing of the technology.<\/p>\n<\/a>Focusing on multi-hazard resilience and accelerated construction may appeal to engineers, but the durability of the system seemed to strike a chord among the business people.\u201d She remarked that the meeting also yielded valuable contacts: \u201cI now have people <\/a>to reach out to for financial, legal, and general business advice.\u201d ACS is a consulting firm specializing in state-of-the-art structural column systems used in bridges, highway overpasses and other roadway applications where the structures may be vulnerable to seismic, blast, or fire hazards.\u00a0 Assistant Professor Arash Zaghi, Ph.D, PE, is the company\u2019s co-founder.\u00a0 Read more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n