Entrepreneurial Dean: Pradeep Khosla of CMU
By kamla bhatt • Apr 27th, 2008Category: Diaspora, Featured, Ideas, India, VC & Private Equity Funding
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“Never assume that high risk means high pay-offs.” Meet Dr. Pradeep Khosla, Dean of College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a premier research university located in Pittsburgh. It is not very often that you come across an entrepreneurial dean who talks about research and the passion and risks involved as an entrepreneur. What does he think the next generation of engineers need to have?
CMU has been a leading research university that has pioneered research in various disciplines. CMU established a Robotics center 25 years ago, and CyLab 8 years ago, and currently is focused on mobility and they announced a center for mobile research that will exist in Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley. How does research conducted within a university campus make a commercial impact? How does technology transfer from universities take place? What are the models for tech transfer? Pradeep talks about how CMU fosters a spirit of innovation among its students and faculty members.
Is there something that India can learn from the US? How can India establish a US style research institute and create an ecosystem for entrepreneurship? Can India learn to leverage research conducted at universities at an economic level? As Pradeep points out there is no major Indian company that can trace its inception to university research. India has to figure out how to leverage the research money it spends to bring about economic development.
Besides being in the academia, Pradeep is also an entrepreneur, who started two companies: Quanta Point and HaloSoft and . One succeeded, while the other that is in the hot new space of virtualization, did not. What is the lesson he learnt both as a researcher and an entrepreneur from the failure of his startup. “High risk is not necessarily high pay-offs,” he points out and says “High risk means there is a higher probability of pay-off.”
Pradeep has not put his entrepreneurial dreams on hold. Currently, he is working on raising a venture capital fund to help foster innovation and start companies.
Tune in to find out who would be the one person that Pradeep would like to meet.
Technorati Tags: pradeep khosla,carnegie mellon univerisity,entrepreneurship,diaspora,technology,ideas,india
Kamla Bhatt is the host and producer of an Internet Radio show where listeners can find stories about the new and emerging India and the global Indian community. As a pioneer of 'internet radio' format in India Kamla started her first show News about India, followed by TalkNewsIndia in 2005. In 2006 she premiered her new show: The Kamla Bhatt Show: Life, People and Ideas. 
[...] Is there something that India can learn from the US University system? How can India establish a US style research institute and create an ecosystem for entrepreneurship? Can India learn to leverage research conducted at universities at an economic level? These are some of the questions that Pradeep Knosla, Dean of School of Enginering Carnegie Mellon University talks about in this audio interview. [...]
In my opinion,
High risk means lower probability of payoff and a higher return if it happens!
[...] that the Indian government and universities are lagging behind in their efforts and recognition. As Prof Pradeep Khosla, Dean, School of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon pointed out none of the major Indian IT & [...]
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