University Municipal Water Consortium Technology Transfer Opportunities 

Pecan Street hosts the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) of the University Municipal Water Consortium. The TTO works to commercialize the inventions of the Consortium, spur entrepreneurship based on Consortium technology and provide a gateway for industry looking to utilize Consortium resources. The benefits of technology transfer accrue to Pecan Street, utilities, private companies and researchers that make up the Consortium; as well as local startup companies and other national corporations.

Commercialization Process

The TTO Commercialization process includes several steps or phases:

Pre-disclosure
Assessing the applicability of research to industry and identify possible inventions.

Disclosure Review
Review of Intellectual Property Disclosure Forms (IPDFs) submitted by inventors.

Patent Assessment
Determining the possibility of securing IP protection based on such factors as novelty, uniqueness and usefulness.

Market Assessment
Assessing the market potential for disclosed inventions based on the value proposition of the invention, customer need, competition, potential costs and revenues to a commercializing entity, and other variables.

Marketing
Inventions which have progressed to this stage are assessed for their potential to be licensed to existing Texas companies or entrepreneurs as new Texas start ups.

Licensing
Working collaboratively with the inventor to establish benefits to inventors and the Consortium while providing a structure whereby the invention can be commercially successful.

Monitoring
Tracking performance milestones, invoicing for royalty payments, managing patent prosecution and communicating with licensees and inventors are functions handled by the TTO.

Licensing and Startup Investment Opportunities

Pecan Street has two licensing opportunities for interested companies or partners.

Residential Water Use Index
The Index benchmarks normal residential water use, as well as the most common, expensive and potentially damaging water problems. The full suite of Consortium water data is available through Pecan Street’s data repository – Dataport. To acquire a data access license, please visit our Dataport site.

Pecan Street BluWater
Pecan Street’s proprietary mobile app incorporates a suite of hardware and software solutions that provides near-real-time access to a home’s water use. It also provides confidential, anonymous access to the collective dataset for university-based entrepreneurs and researchers around the world. Pecan Street BluWater is available for end-user licensing; there is also commercialization opportunity for white-labeling.

In addition, investment opportunities are available for Pecan Street Labs, LLC, a wholly-owned for-profit subsidiary of Pecan Street Inc. organized in part to commercialize technologies around water use and verifiable water conservation.

For more information about licensing or investment opportunities, please contact Fisayo Fadelu at ffadelu@pecanstreet.org.