Overview.

HiTech is a cohort-based training Program that provides skills to participants in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship. HiTech translates cutting-edge technology and scientific discoveries into high-growth business opportunities, providing an innovation environment where teams can test market relevance of their projects and create a well-grounded business case, with the help of faculty, management students and business mentors.

HiTech runs in two alternative locations: Porto and Lisbon (currently, Porto Business School and Nova School of Business and Economics) with 6 to 8 projects each.

HiTech is four-month long (from March to July) with sessions and mentor meetings once a week (in one of the two partner business schools) and a lot of work (guided by deliverables) to be done outside the contact sessions.

Applications ended on 26th of January.

Who
Can Apply?

Teams with cutting-edge technology and scientific discoveries
that are strongly motivated to move their findings to the market and, at the same time, want to gain skills in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship.

Management students
that are strongly motivated to work in a multidisciplinary team and learn how to match technology and scientific discoveries with a business opportunity. HiTech is an opportunity to integrate the knowledge and the skills, acquired in the management programs, in a comprehensive and applied manner, by working closely with researchers and technologists to develop a business model and a business case for a global high-tech project.

MBA alumni
that are strongly motivated to work in a multidisciplinary team and to learn how to match technology and scientific discoveries with a business opportunity. HiTech is an opportunity to re-position the knowledge and skills acquired, and put into practice in their companies, in a completely new context: the creation and development of a technology based start-up.

What
are the costs?

The participation in HiTech does not involve any fees.
However, before you apply, you should bear in mind that there is a cost for organizing the Program and you need to assure us that you will have the time and willingness to fully participate in the HiTech throughout its duration. There is a ‘moral’ penalty for teams that withdraw from the Program once it has started, which his related to the fact that you have left out another team that was willing to participate.

How
it works?

HiTech starts in early-March and runs until early-July
for a total of approximately 17 weeks.

Throughout the Program you will meet with US faculty from Brown, Rutgers and North Carolina State universities
that will review the deliverables and help you progress towards preparing the business case.

Once a week there are in-class sessions and mentor meetings (in one of the two partner business schools)
In each of these sessions you will be provided with a set of deliverables to be done. These deliverables are key in the learning process and provide the guidelines to help you move towards the development of a business case for a product concept leveraged by the teams’ technology and scientific discoveries.

A set of seminars on relevant topics will be provided
E.g.: Intellectual Property, Financials, Business Development, Pitching.

The final session of the Program is a public presentation
of the business case prepared by each team.

The
concept.

HiTech pedagogy is based on ‘learning by doing’
We strongly believe that, to embed the technology commercialization and entrepreneurship skills, it is essential for participants to be engaged on real projects, leading to real business proposals.

HiTech is team based
allowing for different skills (from business to technology) thus experiences to be brought to the project, enhancing the learning experience. The approach employed emulates a real start-up experience and because the team members (researchers, technologists, management students and business mentors) have very different educational backgrounds, the set of deliverables to be completed each week are key in providing common goals, language and framework for the team action.

HiTech focus is on supporting the teams to identify business opportunities by matching technological capabilities to unmet (or ill met) market needs.
The starting point is the technology and scientific discoveries proposed by the teams and from there they will be guided in generating product concepts that use the technological capabilities to match market needs. Then, they will start systematically evaluating the market relevance of these product concepts and formulating a strategy to bring these product concepts to the market. The commercialization strategy then pursues with the selection and the redefinition of the product concepts, through testing both technological and market assumptions and building a business or licensing case.