Postdoc Scientists Advance Their Engineering Ideas with Innosuisse Start-up Training
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With the help of Innosuisse, entrepreneurs Clara Moldovan and Yurena Seguì Femenias are bringing their PhD research to market. The postdocs from EPF Lausanne and ETH Zurich completed the Business Creation training in Advanced Engineering earlier this year. They discuss how the Innosuisse Start-up Training, led by experienced founders, fueled their transition from academia to business.
Micro-engineer to mobile energy entrepreneur
"Everyone at EPFL recommended the Innosuisse Start-up Training to me! It is hands-on coaching, covering all the aspects of bringing technology from the lab to the market."
Material scientist Clara Moldovan is using nanotechnology designs developed during her PhD in micro engineering at EPFL to produce safer, ultra-fast charging batteries for mobile phones. She’s aiming for a battery that charges in two minutes, with a lifetime 100 times longer than the current state-of-the-art.
Gathering industrial experience as an application engineer after her PhD fitted Clara Moldovan’s long-term goal of an entrepreneurial career after academia.
“I was always interested not just in the pure science, but also finding the application-side. The training we received was very hands-on and trainers spoke about their experiences, as how exactly they took specific decisions. Also, I learnt many things about the relationship between investors, founders and their board.”
Supporting structures
“The workshops are really cool. Now I know what information I'm missing, what I need to find out next, and where to look. The one-on-one coaching also helps a lot to identify the questions I need to be asking myself.”
Structural engineer Yurena Seguì Femenias developed sensors to monitor corrosion inside reinforced concrete during her PhD at ETH Zurich’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. Corrosion accounts for 90 percent of the degradation of such structures, and her sensors could be vital to detect when concrete bridges or tunnels need to be repaired. The sudden and lethal collapse of the 51-year-old Morandi bridge in Genoa underlines the need for better ways to check and measure structural strength.
Yurena Seguì Femenias’ interest in entrepreneurship stems from her vocation as an engineer: “I find it very exciting. My PhD gave good results, but everything was at lab-scale. Now I want to take it forward as a real product and improve the world by making structures safe, durable and less expensive to maintain. It's exciting to have a real application – that's why I'm an engineer and not a theoretical chemist!”
Entrepreneurs’ applied advice for engineers
The Innosuisse Start-up Training, delivered by entrepreneurs from the same sector, gave lots of applicable examples to the engineer, who’d also gathered first industry experience through internships and research collaborations.
“There are many things I didn't consider before the workshop: who to approach, how to sell, who will pay, how will the business model work. It's not straight-forward to get into the market. So, it's very useful having entrepreneurs and experts coach us, as you hear about real struggles, and learn what things you need to bear in mind when going to potential customers and clients.”
If you want training from the best engineering entrepreneurs in your industry, register your startup for our next Business Creation workshop, which starts on May 13th.
