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CHAPEL HILL — Visitors who attended the first day of a conference that looks at the intersection of technology, arts and humanities heard from a panel that included the head of a game design company, the head of a company that makes brain fitness software, and the head of company that is developing a new technology for delivering music.
Panelists’ focus, however, was not so much on what they do in their fields as on how to marry content and new technologies and market them to the wider world, and how to bring innovative ideas out of academia and into the world. Eric Peterson, president and CEO of the game design company Vicious Cycle Software; Steven Aldrich, president and CEO of Posit Science; and Kip Frey, president and CEO of Zenph Sound Innovations Inc. and an adjunct professor at Duke University’s School of Public Policy, were the guests for a panel on entrepreneurship and collaboration, held Tuesday in Hill Hall Auditorium. The panel was part of the events for Collaborations: Humanities, Arts and Technology, also called the CHAT Festival, which continues today through Saturday at UNC Chapel Hill.
Aldrich spoke about developing technologies with content that address “an unmet or underserved need,” and to some extent all three panelists have developed products that do that. Aldrich’s software helps senior citizens sharpen their ability to focus and perform better on basic cognitive skills, and insurance companies use it to reduce accidents among elderly drivers. Frey said Zenph is developing a software that has potential to “change the way music is produced and the way it is consumed.” That technology has the ability to take a recorded performance from any era and re-record it “as if it were happening today.”
The technology that Peterson’s company developed is being used by a school of education in its programs and by a hotel chain to help train employees.
Panel moderator Julia Grumbles asked panelists how new ideas and inventions could be taken out of the university walls and into the world. Frey said several skills are needed to put new intellectual property in the marketplace — technical skills, business acumen and capital. Many people in the university setting do not have all those strengths, he said. Universities must “find ways to naturally match up people with different skill sets.”
Panelists also were asked how universities could become more entrepreneurial. Peterson said competition in the form of recognition, a published paper or prize sometimes can foster collaboration. Aldrich said universities need to create the expectation that faculty members across disciplines should collaborate on projects and to solve problems. Time is a missing asset in universities, and allowing professors to take time to pursue their individual interests could help foster more innovation and collaboration, Frey said.
