Jack Carpenter Named Director of TechConnectWV’s Innovation Transfer Consortium
Jack Carpenter, Director, Innovation Transfer Consortium
Jack Carpenter, a research and technology consultant in Wheeling, has been named Director of the Innovation Transfer Consortium, a program of TechConnectWV.
Funded through a grant provided by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the Innovation Transfer Consortium program will provide technology transfer services to West Virginia’s smaller colleges and universities. Eighteen smaller colleges and universities in the state, both public and private, could potentially be partners in the initiative.
“I think it’s very important to utilize our college and university resources within the state to spur innovation based economic development,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter formerly worked for the W.Va. High Technology Foundation and the National Technology Transfer Center. He is a member of the WV Science and Research Council, the Board of Directors of the National EPSCoR Coalition, and a past chairman of the West Virginia EPSCoR Committee.
The West Virginia Innovation Transfer Consortium will connect researchers at the state’s smaller institutions of higher education with private sector partners to assist them in research collaborations and commercializing new products, services, and technologies. The consortium will provide a mechanism for addressing intellectual property protection issues and tech transfer operations, while also enhancing students’ experiences in the classroom.
“The objective is to provide assistance to higher education institutions and help them move research into the marketplace, which could create jobs and help diversify local economies,” said Anne Barth, Executive Director of TechConnectWV. “Jack Carpenter’s experience in working with the EPSCoR program and small colleges throughout the state will help get this new initiative off to a great start,” she added.