About my course

Master of Business (Commercialising Science and Technology) [MBus (CS&T)]. Enrolling into this course has been one of the major turning points in my life.

Whenever I tell someone what I am doing, 90% of the time I get another question asking what this course is about while the other 9% misinterpreting it as something else and the remaining 1% who understands being my coursemates. In fact, some of the lecturers I had do not even fully understand this course.

Essentially, MBus (CS&T) explores the less-known grey area between science/technology/discovery and business/social utility. Hence, the commercialisation of science and technology: The process of delivering scientific research and innovative technology into the commercial market for economic growth and societal benefit.

Before this course, as a Biotechnology student, I have never seen science from this perspective before. Science was science - purely knowledge. Science was important and precious to me - in a different way. Science as an occupation - research and laboratory based or sales of scientific products. To sum it up, I loved learning and discovering through science but not researching and working in science.

Towards my last year as a Science undergraduate student, I must admit I was kind of lost. The realization of what laboratory or research work will be like, dampened my spirits or anticipation to work as a scientist. I could not imagine being cooped up in a laboratory, drilling deeper and deeper into the same and often narrow area of science. It was just not the career I was looking forward to. Hence, I doubted over the suggestion from my Dad which is to do an Honours. Looking at the list of research titles - I was interested in knowing the gist of the science, but not excited at the prospect of having to sit on it for what might seem like forever.

I wonder if any of my coursemates felt the same way back then. Don't get me wrong, I really admire those with the determination, passion and heart for research - it is not an easy task.

Then suddenly came a day when Suee heard of this talk from a Prof. Mike Vitale on campus about a new Master course (my MBus (CS&T)) offered in Australia. I got the brochure and immediately was interested. I must admit that I did not understand everything written in that brochure but it sounded so new, so different and so cool! So boo, I enrolled and WanRu did as well - starting Feb 2008, we came to see a whole new side of science.

The whole year was like a marathon, no rollercoaster ride (!!) - assignments, units, presentations, project. It was like playing catch-up and to survive was not easy. New ideas were thrown to us everyday - some totally outta the world, some contradicting with our scientists' minds. But I loved every minute of it despite complaining every other minute as well haha.

So how is commercialisation of science important? From my own words -

A lot of research encapsulates high value which fail to be maximized. Reasons for this failure?

1) A highly interesting research does not always mean a highly commercialisable technology. For example, discovery of how to turn water black.

2) Research taking too much time or money. Since time is money and money must come from some source, this can mean - death of a research due to no investment or funding, the final product being high in price leading to a smaller market, the research killed by the emergence of another technology better/equivalent to it.

3) Improper matching of goals of research and market. Scientists and businessmen often have different views. While scientists want to perfect their science (longer time and more experiments), businessmen want to perfect their market value (shorter time and less experiment to minimize cost). In another sense - the cost-benefit conflict. Failure in this often results in the wastage of millions of dollars for R&D and commercialisation of a technology which is not desired or needed by consumers.

Of course the list runs longer than that, but those are my top 3 reasons! Hence, the need of proper commercialisation strategies, in my own words again:-

1) To efficiently translate knowledge into economic wealth and societal utility which means at a minimal cost and timeframe

2) To effectively balance the scientific goals and business goals which means attaining both the desirable economic wealth and expected technological features (safety level, efficiency level, etc)

3) To maximize the potential of scientific discoveries: how can the technology serve its purpose? what other purposes/ markets can this technology serve? how can it be delivered to the target market? how can science help?

4) To keep the knowledge discovery cycle going: The commercial value of research draws investment interest from potential investors in the form of funding for said research or future research for the discovery of more knowledge hence, the birth of more innovation and wealth.

You see, science is not limited to research only. It doesn't end with research, in fact, it has just begun.

With MBus (CS&T) you learn about all these possibilities.

So what did I do this year?

Education-wise:

Management

Marketing

Intellectual Property Law

Patent Law

Business Law

New Venture Accounting and Finance

Economics

Marketing Innovation

Commercialisation Project

Pathway from Science to Wealth

Experience-wise:

Hands-on experience with collaborating with scientists, which to a science-y geek like me was like meeting The Prince Charming from a fairy tale (scientist out of a journal article haha)

Meeting and learning from influential individuals e.g. CEOs of biotechnology companies and people playing an important part in some of the most important technologies of today

Presenting about your own hard work in front of an audience of scientists, industrial people and lecturers who watched you grow during the year itself

Working with so many different people from students from other courses to almost everyone of your coursemates in different projects

Meeting two of the wisest and most respected mentor-figures who are most helpful and kind :-)

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It makes me happy whenever people ask me about my course: I cannot wait to tell them about it.

It makes me glad whenever people shows interest in enrolling into my course: I cannot wait to hear about their experience.

It makes me sad whenever I think about the end of my course: It has just been so amazing.