On the Fast Track to improving industry engagement

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Media Contact: Kimberly Mullins | Communications Coordinator | 405-744-3546 | kim.mullins@okstate.edu

“The FAST TRACK program is intended to take the focus off of trying to get the intellectual property agreement done and refocusing on the actual project itself,” said Zach Miles, senior associate vice president of technology and economic development and creator of the Fast Track program.

After Oklahoma State University launched Cowboy Innovations on September 17, 2021, a new commercialization program was the next logical step, Miles said. One of many changes began with industry engagement agreements, he added. 

The sponsored research agreement streamlines the intellectual property process by offering industries more commercially favorable terms. 

“Spending less time on trying to get an agreement done, and more time to change the world is the real catalyst behind the changes,” Miles said. “Cowboy Innovations and the Fast Track Program built its foundation on a mutually beneficial engagement between industry and academics, which accelerates development of ideas to life changing products and services.”

The new agreement began in January 2019 after the Board of Regents for Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges adopted a new Intellectual Property Policy with an eye towards industry engagement and efficient commercialization of OSU owned and controlled intellectual property. 

Cowboy Innovations took the lead, and the goal soon became multidimensional; to reach industry leaders and to ignite awareness about innovations at OSU. For a goal to come to fruition it takes an entire team and Chuck Bunting, College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology(CEAT) said, "We welcome industry engagement, and the FAST TRACK agreement will help us to focus less on the agreement side and more on the collaboration and kicking off the research and development collaboration.

“The mark of success is to increase the number and kind of collaboration within all branches of industry,” Miles said.“By modifying university policies and developing novel programs, Cowboy Innovations is committed to making industry partnerships more attractive, and with an inventor’s mind, simpler.”

At Cowboy Innovations, building long-term engagements is more about the relationship versus the individual transaction, Miles said.

Miles leads a team that believes the resulting trust that is built is key to accelerating collaborations whose impact affects the entire world.

“The relationships come first because those are what carry us into the future,” Miles said.