Four faculty-led teams pursuing commercialization of research projects are ready for the next steps in that journey having completed the University of Maine’s 2022 MIRTA accelerator program. The teams presented their projects at a Demo Day event earlier this month, marking the conclusion of this year’s program.
The 2022 MIRTA teams, the fifth cohort to complete the program, are exploring innovations in accessibility education, aquaculture, computer-aided breast cancer detection, and marine sciences. (Please see below for detailed team descriptions and links to their Demo Day pitches.)
“The latest MIRTA projects showcase how research innovations from Maine’s public universities can meaningfully impact a range of crucial business sectors in Maine, from aquaculture and marine research to biomedicine, education, and forest products,” says University of Maine director of business incubation Veena Dinesh. “I am always impressed by the entrepreneurial mindset our researchers bring to this program and by their commitment to investigating and realizing the commercial potential of their work.”
MIRTA was designed to assist University of Maine System researchers to advance lab discoveries into public and commercial use, and the program has expanded to support innovations from other Maine research institutions. The accelerator is administered by the Office of Innovation and Economic Development (OIED) out of the Foster Center for Innovation, with support from Maine Technology Institute and the University of Maine System Research Reinvestment Fund. Over the course of the program, guided by program staff and external advisers, teams engage in customer discovery, market analysis, prototyping, partnership development and technology evaluation to map strategies for bringing their research to market.
Source: Fifth cohort of MIRTA accelerator teams wraps up work – UMaine News – University of Maine
