New platform helps investors find Pitt innovators

By DONOVAN HARRELL

The Innovation Institute has unveiled a new platform to help investors and other business professionals scope out innovations from University of Pittsburgh creators available for licensing.

Jennifer IrelandThe platform, developed by Resolute Innovation, uses artificial intelligence to comb through Pitt’s more than 500 innovations to present the results in a user-friendly manner, said Jennifer Ireland, the Institute’s technology marketing manager.

They started talking to the company toward the end of last year and before that, she contacted a few other universities who have used Resolute Innovation’s services in the past.

One of the highlights of the new platform is its interactive “Sunburst” graphic that displays the range of intellectual property available for licensing.

Users will not only be able to have an easier time searching for the more than 500 innovations in Pitt’s portfolio, Ireland said, but they’ll also be able to set up email alerts for specific inventors or keywords.

“That helps people,” Ireland said. “They won’t have to keep coming back, searching for new things, waiting for someone to send them an email and notify them when something new has come in in the area that they're interested in.”

The platform also will help improve the Institute’s marketing and email campaigns as well, Ireland added.

“So that's a game changer for us because we were not doing any of those activities because we really didn't want to push people to what we had before because we knew that the user experience wasn't very good,” Ireland said.

Only Pitt’s unlicensed innovations are featured on the platform and the patent status varies. The platform also has the capability allow for videos and photos to be uploaded onto portfolios for individual innovations, Ireland said.

Donovan Harrell is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at dharrell@pitt.edu or 412-383-9905.